Curtain Call: Oh Happy Day

It's time for a new Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge! I was quickly inspired by that cute little bunny.  I made a simple list Easter scene for my card with just a touch of coloring to finish it off.

Make sure you visit each of the designers' blogs for more inspiration!

 Designers

Guest: Amy Rohl, Ink About Me
Guest:  Michelle Bala, My Passion for Crafting
Amy Kolling

Betty Wright

Kim Singdahlsen
Laurie Willison

Leigh Penner
Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler
Lynn Mangan
Marisa Ritzen
Maureen Plut

Melody Rupple
Monika Davis
Sheri Gilson

Silke Ledlow 
Stacey Schafer
Tara Godfrey

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Stop by the Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge:  Neon Knicknacks for the challenge details and to play along with us!

Time Out Reminder: Easter Thanks

I'm back with a reminder for our current challenge at Time Out.

Our theme for this challenge is Easter with the optional twist challenge of masking.  For this challenge you'll be entered with a $20 gift card and if you twist you'll be entered for two stencils from our fabulous sponsor:r:  Stamplorations.

For my card, I used a new Lil Inker set. I love the flowers and that there are a variety of sentiments that can be used in the middle.  

Be sure to pop on over to the Time Out Blog to check out the design them cards and play along with us!  We have a wonderful guest designer too...TaeEun. You'll be sure to love her card!

Time Out: He is Risen

It's time for another challenge over at Time Out!  And guess what?  We're celebrating our second birthday!  I love being on this team...and it's hard to believe that two years have already passed.

Our theme for this challenge is Easter with the optional twist challenge of masking.  For this challenge you'll be entered with a $20 gift card and if you twist you'll be entered for two stencils from our fabulous sponsor:  Stamplorations.

For my card, I pulled out a retired set that I love from Karen Baker over The Bald Dragonfly for the sentiment and the cross/detail inside the cross are from Verve. Love the design of the detail. A very, very CAS card.

Be sure to pop on over to the Time Out Blog to check out the design them cards and play along with us!  We have a wonderful guest designer too...TaeEun. You'll be sure to love her card!

Fusion: Happy Easter

We're back with another challenge at Fusion! I was inspired by the colors along with the sketch this time.  Realizing Easter is just around the corner I thought I'd pull out my Lil Inker bunny dies. I think they are so adorable!  Rarely do I use this much patterned paper, but I'm pleased with the soft spring feel of the card! I'm looking forward to seeing how you're inspired!

PROCEDURES:
1. Play with just the sketch challenge.
2. Play with just the inspiration photo challenge.
3. Or you can create FUSION by combining BOTH challenges into one card.
4. Use the challenge graphic and link back to Fusion in your post.
5. Please read the other considerations on the Our Rules Page before playing along.

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates in two weeks! We each will choose one favourite! The winners will be announced at 4am (PST) in two weeks!! Please check the linky for the days left to play with us!

Happy Easter

Don't you love getting new goodies? I figured I better play with my new Lil Inker's bunny die before Easter past.  The current CAS-ual Friday's challenge was perfect.  I created a little scene with the bunny and a couple of eggs.  I love the soft mix/match of papers on this card.   We have Pat's family coming in town for the weekend and we'll be celebrating my brother Neal's 50th birthday so it will definitely be a busy weekend.  

And here's my second quote of the week. It's my reminder to myself to not always plan life...I need to live it too!  Happy Tuesday my friends.

Happy Easter {from my guys}....{and a couple of cards}

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Popping in to wish you a Happy Easter!  It is cold and rainy today...so we took a few quick pictures after church.  As you can tell, everyone was wound up!  There was no one to take all six of us together.  I put the best one up top (although Jonathon didn't switch to the good smile!). They were having fun...thinking it is the huge chocolate bunny Marcel ate at 8:30 this morning!

Here are the outtakes...

And I'm popping in with two CASE Study inspired cards.  I got a new set of Hero Arts Stamps yesterday in the mail as publication incentive.  I had fun putting this one layer card together.

And I made a smaller scale card with the same colors/inspiration.   I made eight of these as a card set.  

Happy Easter to all of you!  We're on our way to my sister-in-laws for a fabulous brunch!  

 

Have a Blessed Easter!

It's Friday Eve and in my mind Friday night can't get here fast enough.  I'm hoping that we have a very quiet weekend. Ryan has another show choir competition that is about 90 minutes away, but I'm going to pass on going this week and hopefully work on doing a whole lot of nothing?!  How about you?  Any weekend plans?

 

Before we get to the weekend though, I have a fun CAS card for you for this week's CASology challenge.  Aren't those bunnies too sweet?  I love this set from The Craft's Meow.  I may have whispered in Karen Baker's ear that I would love to have a little more sophisticated and she delivered!  I love the beautiful flourishes on the bunnies.  You can't really see it on the picture but I stamped off each bunny too for a bit more movement.

 

Now if you need a giggle, take a peek at this picture below.  Ryan had another concert on Monday night. This time it was for chorale (concert choir) and show choir.  It was their normal quarterly school concert.  Collin LOVES watching show choir (and I can't wait for him to be in it when he's older) and he was the only one that wanted to come with me.  But...by the time the concert finished and we had been waiting for Ryan and his classmates to tear down the stage, Collin had clearly had enough.  Oh to be nine years old again and when you're feeling a bit exhausted just being able to lay down on the ground exactly where you are!

 

Happy Easter

What is your favorite holiday for making cards?  Mine probably is Christmas, but I have always wanted an Easter set that wasn't all about Easter eggs.  The Craft's Meow Easter Blessings designed by Karen Baker is perfect in my book.  There are several images and fabulous sentiments.   I had fun making this card. I love to stamp on patterned paper (and really need to remember to do it more often.  I added a few banners and enamel dots to add a bit more to the design.  What do you think?  What's your favorite holiday for cards?

Now, hop on over to The Craft's Meow Blog to check out the design team members creations and to comment to win the Easter Blessing set yourself.  Be sure to comment by 9 pm PST.

The Boys...

 

Hi there!  I hope everyone was treated well by the Easter bunny and more importantly that you had a day filled will family, friends and many blessings.  We definitely had a weekend with lots of great family time.  I'll have more pictures to share with lots of cousin time, but I thought I'd share a few of the boys.  I try to snap individual photos of each of the boys.  With spring arriving early this year, the trees and flowers were in full bloom and made a nice backdrop for the pictures.  You can definitely get a bit of a sense of their personalities in these photos.  And I wanted to share this one below of Collin...he was very intent on blowing the bubbles from Nana!

My card today will go to Molly who I mentioned in this post. If you are so inclined, I'd love for you to send her a card.  I didn't have a card in my stash that I felt was appropriate, so I made this one inspired by Laurie's card for CASE Study.  I don't typically cover the entire card base with patterned paper, but I loved the soft feel of this My Mind's Eye paper.  I added the sentiment from Verve's New Mercy set along with a die cut heart from Verve.  You can see I took the heart, flower and twine from Laurie's card too.  Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope your week got off to a great start!

Below is Laurie's gorgeous inspiration card!

 

I Miss You

Hello there!  Popping in with a card for the current Color Cue Challenge.  I took the lead from Dawn's card and choose to stamp a white background image on kraft and pop the other colors in with the sentiment, twine and button.  Definitely a CASE! 

Ingredients: PTI Kraft Paper; Stampin' Up Cherry Cobbler and White Craft Ink; Twine: The Twinery; Stamps: Wplus9

As I type this, it is 8:30 on Sunday night and three out of my four boys are crashed out!  Marcel and Collin fell asleep on the way home from Nana and PopPop's house and have been asleep since then! Our weekend was extremely busy and filled with lots of family and tons of food.  I feel like I could run for a week non-stop to get rid of all the candy and yummy Easter dinner/brunch!

Here are just a couple of fun shots from Easter morning!  I'll have more pictures to share (but somehow I need to widdle down the 166 pictures I just downloaded).  The boys were up at 6:30 (and I should say "the boys" don't include Ryan.  I sent Marcel to wake him up...you can imagine the teenage groan that came from his room). 

The boys playing with their new legos..

We couldn't go outside for a group shot because of the rain...so we tried inside...and started with these faces...

Quickly moving to faces of disgust by Ryan...

And me then losing patience and moving to close up shots of whomever was cooperating at the moment! :)

I love the untucked shirt...

 And his handsome brown eyes...

 And a sweet cuttle with his oldest brother and of course, his new legos...a little grainy, but still sweet.

Happy Easter!

Confessions of the Easter Bunny

Ingredients:  Patterned Paper:  My Mind's Eye; Hero Arts Lace Trim; Ink:  SU Baja Breeze; Pacific Point, So Saffron and More than Mustard; Verve Blessings Stamp; PTI Larger than Life

Before I get to my subject line, I'm popping into share a card for the current Embellish Challenge.  It has been a really long time since I've played along with one of the challenges.  I really adore them.  I used my PTI Larger than Life set and matching dies.  I had to have the dies, but candidly haven't used them too much, so it was time to break them out!  Unfortunately, this sympathy card is already in the mail for one of my co-workers who lost their mom to cancer after a long battle with lung cancer.

Now onto the title of my post.  Here it is…I am not a good Easter Bunny.

Rewind:  Spring 2010: Pat and I went out shopping last year a few days before Easter and picked up a some goodies for the boys Easter baskets. Needless to say, we forgot to bring them in from my van. Fast forward a few hours and we’re telling all the boys to get in the car to go out for dinner. We then come outside and they are literally pilfering through the Target bags. So what do we do? Not so gracefully say…oh sometimes the Easter bunny needs a helper and hope they forget what they saw when they get their Easter baskets a few days later.

Fast forward: Spring 2011:

Last week: As Easter approaches, Collin and I have been talking a lot about Good Friday, Easter, etc. Interwoven into these conversations, “Mommy, remember the silly Easter bunny from last year when he left our treats in your car? Wasn’t that so silly?”  I just smile...

This week: Some mommy has picked up a few little Lego packets. They just may or may not be from the Easter bunny. A sweet little boy named Marcel happens to see a yellow Lego bag in the closet that is rarely opened (even if it does contain the vacuum…no comments please). Last night I come home from work and Marcel takes my hand, “MOMMY, COME HERE….I HAVE TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING!” I quickly diverted him and told them they were a surprise. I had given him one at a baseball game to keep him occupied (since he gets to go to the games of his three older brothers and not play yet). He hasn’t thought about the Easter bunny but is now asking when the next baseball game is…and was very disappointed when we didn't go to Jonathon's game today.

I think this Easter Bunny needs to go back to Easter Bunny 101 school!

PS  Let me know what your best hiding spot is for the Easter Bunny and Santa...

Easter Wishes

Ingredients:  Jillibean Soup Butterfly Pin; Practicing Creativity, Verve and PTI Stamps; Stampin' Up Pretty in Pink Ribbon and Ink.

Hello there!  This week's Wee Memories Challenge is color inspiration.  I clearly made a spring time card as I love that the flowers are starting to bloom. I imagine we'll get a small April snow here in Cincinnati as we seem to every year, but that doesn't prevent me from thinking spring!  I also love pink and green together.  I think that goes back to my love of the "preppy" phase of life with grosgrain ribbon bows and wooden handle purses where you changed the covers (my favorite was a pink gingham cover with a red strawberry on it).  How many of you out there had lots of big grosgrain hair bows?  I had a huge collection!  So...my card was inspired by spring but also by the "preppy" colors and styles of my younger days. 

PaperTrey Ink Blog Hop

Happy Weekend to everyone....this month's PTI blog challenge is to create using embroidery floss.  Wow....I have a lot of embroidery floss from my cross stitching days.  It has been a long time since I have used it.  I went very simple with the idea that I would create a very springy card.  I liked coordinating the polka dot border with the embossed larger polka dot pannel with all of the colors of the embroidery floss complimenting the fun colors in the stick pin flowers.

And...with spring coming...I get to take pictures outside of my cards...that makes life so much easier!  I have been having a really hard time getting good pictures inside! 

Happy blog hopping!

Ingredients:  PTI Polka Dots; Mega Mixed Messages; SU Whispher White and Pretty in Pink Cardstock; Kaiser Kraft Gems; SU Certainly Celery and Basic Black Ink; Jillibean Soup Stick Pins

Cards for All Seasons

Hello Wednesday.. I thought it would be fun to do a cards for all seasons post...one card for each of the seasons...  First up is Spring = Easter...and some sweet little bunnies.

 Ingredients:  Basic Grey Paper; PTI Daily Design Sentiments and Daily Design; Kaiser Kraft Gems; Stampin' Up Pink Pirouette and Marina Mist Ink; Bazzill Basics Cardstock

Next, is a bright and cheery summer card.  This card was inspired by Susan's post on masking here.  Have to say...this is my favorite of the bunch.  I stamped the text background by masking the outside edges and applied a little distress ink to the edges as well. I then colored the floral stamp and stamped it off to the side.  I've entering this for the current Moxie Fab challenge to stamp with markers.

Ingredients:  PTI Text Styles and Beyond Background Basics; Hero Arts Stamps;  Stampin' Up Markers; PTI Twine 

Recently, I've been inspired by a variety of cards...in particular this card by Karen, to stamp on patterned paper versus plain cardstock.  For this card, I stamped three distress inks on the wreath and then stamped in on the card.  Love the fall colors.  The Hero Arts wreath stamp is really versatile for any season.

----Thanksgiving---Removed for Publication in November 2011  - Cards Magazine

 Ingredients:  Stamps:  Hero Arts and Verve; Range Distress Inks; Crate Paper Restoration Paper; Button and Twine:  PTI; Felt Leaves:  Hero Arts

My final card is my first Christmas card for next year and another card where I stamped on patterned paper.  Love the simplicity of this card...I'll need to make some more of these.  It's always nice to have Christmas cards that don't require a ton of postage.  The Verve stamps on this card are newer too.  They'll be getting lots of use.

Ingredients:  Paper:  Crate Paper Restoration Collection; Ink and Paper:  Stampin' Up Cherry Cobbler; Stamps:  Verve; 

Hope you've enjoyed the tour of the seasons!

Happy Easter!

Good morning, wishing everyone a very Happy Easter!  After church, we're off to my brother and sister-in-laws this morning with my side of the family.

We are so very blessed to have our family close by.  We've been together with the Mangan clan for the last few days...Pat's brother and sister-in-law, Tim and Kara, host us every year the day before Easter for an awesome Easter egg hunt and dinner.  The boys had a ball playing pickle, lacrosse and dancing with their cousins!  Here's a few pictures of the entire gang...hard to get them all to look one direction!

Happy Easter! 

And the day before at the zoo!

Easter Wishes

Tonight my dear friend Sandy is coming over with her daughter, Ashley, and we're going to have some stamping fun!  I've made a few girly cards up for us to work on together.  I tend to make more girly cards, but it will be extra fun to have a little girl in the house!

Keesh's challenge was the inspiration for my layout today! 

Ingredients:  SU Pink Pirouette & Whisper White Paper, SU Certainly Celery Ribbon; SU Certainly Celery, Black and Pretty in Pink Ink; PTI Daily Design & Daily Design Sentiment, Mega Mixed Messages, Polka Dot Backgrounds Stamps & KaiserKrafts Pearls