Festive Friday: Prince of Peace

It's always great for Friday to arrive and even better for it to be a Friday when there is a Festive Friday challenge.  Similar to my card I posted last Friday, this is one I had made a while ago and I think it fits this inspiration photo well. I love the touch of patterned paper and the awesome fonts from the Verve sentiment.

I'd love to see how you are inspired.  Please pop on over to the Festive Friday blog to check out the gorgeous inspiration of the design team!

Festive Friday Reminder: Christ the Savior is Born

 Happy Friday...I'm popping in with a card that I made several months ago but had yet to share on my blog. It goes with the current Festive Friday inspiration photo so I thought it was the perfect time to post.   Please pop on over and play along with us.

Have any fun plans for the weekend?  Pat will be camping with Marcel this weekend with the YMCA Indian Guides program. This is Pat's 12th year of Indian Guide campouts.  One more year after this one!  The boys absolutely love it.  I'll be hanging out at home with the other three boys.

As I type up this post, Collin is in the kitchen making "stress balls".  Balloons filled with flour for the school entrepreneur fair at school next week. He's having fun, but it looks like a flour bomb went off!  I'm off to make some and of course, be clean up crew :).

Festive Friday: Dashing Through the Snow

Oh la la!  Check out this inspiration photo for this week's Festive Friday challenge. There is a ton to be inspired by for your Christmas cards.  At first I wanted to create using the trees on the pillow, but changed my mind when I saw the reindeer on the table.  I decided to stamp grey on kraft and do a touch of embossing.  At first I had the snow hill without it filled it and then I remembered that I had a Wink of Stella pen.  I went a bit crazy with it filling in the snow hill!

I'd love to see how you are inspired.  Please pop on over to the Festive Friday blog to check out the gorgeous inspiration of the design team!

Festive Friday: Peace, Joy & Love

Happy Friday my friends.  It's time for another challenge at Festive Friday! Don't you love those cookies...I personally love sugar cookies so these are likely right up my alley. There is so much inspiration in all the patterns on the cookies.  I was originally going to go with polka dots for my card, but decided to go with the candy cane stripes and a nice crisp red and white card.   

How does the photo inspire you?  Be sure to pop on over to the Festive Friday blog to play along with us and be inspired by all the fabulous design team creations.

Festive Friday Reminder: Love & Joy

Happy Friday my friends.  Have any fun plans for the weekend?  Hoping the weather clears up and that we have a nice weekend for baseball, soccer and the Flying Pig (Cincinnati) Marathon on Sunday.  Ryan will be running with me in the relay.  He has leg 3 and I have leg 4.  I hope to snap a couple pictures to share with you.

Before I go, I wanted to share a reminder card that there is one week to go in the current Festive Friday challenge.  I loved the woodgrain and decided to stamp it instead of using patterned paper.  I'm continuing to keep those Christmas cards flat for mailing!

Festive Friday: Peace, Love & Joy

Happy, happy Friday.  It's time for another challenge over at Festive Friday.  This inspiration photo has so many elements to inspire by you...the bold red ribbon, the wood grain, the spruce branches or the blocks in the upper right corner to name just a few of the elements. I've been wanting to use the sentiment below from by Christmas PTI set.  So...I used the blocks in the upper right and the woodgrain as my inspiration. If you look closely you'll also see a few snowflakes embossed on the woodgrain. A nice flat Christmas card for mailing!

I hop you are inspired to play along!  We'd love to see your gorgeous creations over at Festive Friday!

Festive Friday: Merry Christmas

It's Friday and it's time for another challenge over at Festive Friday.  I loved the touch of sprigs and ribbon in the above inspiration photo.  At first I was looking to stamp a candle from the photo, but only had one candle stamp.  I decided to go with a softer stamp and used my WPlus9 stamps.  I added a touch of ribbon, thread and jingle bells to finish it off.  I love the soft feel of the inspiration photo and my card.

All of the creations each week are absolutely beautiful.  I'd love to see how you are inspired.  Be sure to pop on over to the Festive Friday blog to check out the amazing creations from the design team.

Festive Friday: Peace & Joy

 Happy Friday my friends. It's time for another challenge at Festive Friday!  We're one quarter of the way through the new year (how the heck did that happen?!).  How are your Christmas cards progressing?  I have about 20 done and send out about 150 so I have a ways to go but am happy to be moving along thanks to the Festive Friday inspiration.  I love the gorgeous inspiration photo above. There are so many elements that could inspire you.  I picked up the stripes from the siding and the pine cones as my two primary elements on my card.

I'd love for you to pop on over to Festive Friday and share your inspiration with us!  I love perusing through the gallery to see what you've created!

Festive Friday: Merry Christmas

 

Okay...so today really is Friday...unlike the post I published yesterday where I said happy Friday...hmmm...think I'm running in a circle!  My cousin, Sandie, said to me she was sure I had everything on a to do list and that I was keeping track of it all. Most of the time I do, but not this week!  We missed a recital for Collin on Saturday and almost forgot about his school concert on Tuesday.  Yikes!  I'm ready for the weekend!  But...before I head off to Wisconsin, I want to share my card for this week's Festive Friday challenge.  Check out that fun inspiration below.  I have a small tree of crystal snowflakes that my mother-in-law gives me for our anniversary each year. They are beautiful.  You can't tell, but my snowflakes are embossed with a touch of silver/white embossing powder. 

So what do you think?  Want to come play along with us at Festive Friday?  Pop on over and show us your gorgeous creations!  And...really...happy Friday!

Festive Friday: Sweetest Wishes

Happy Friday friends!  Have any fun plans for the weekend?  We'll be heading out to a show choir competition on Saturday for both Ryan and Jonathon.  Sara from the Unhurried Life and her gorgeous family will be visiting for the weekend, as Sara's daughter, Michel, is competing as well. We always have a blast with Sara, Andrew and their girls. We're looking forward to having them here.  I'd love to hear what you are up to this weekend.

But before I go, we're back with another fun Festive Friday inspiration photo.  Those cookies look yummy to me. At first, I had in my mind that I was going with the holly from the inspiration photo, but once I got started, I went a completely different direction using my Fresh Squeezed Stamps sets.  I love the sweet little gingerbread man.  I'd love to see how you're inspired to play along with us at Festive Friday!

Festive Friday: Merry Christmas

Happy Valentine's Day my friends!  I hope you have some romantic time with the one you love this weekend!  Pat and I will be volunteering all weekend...so we'll be celebrating Valentine's Day later!

We're back today with another gorgeous inspiration for the Festive Friday challenge.  I love the combination of red/white and the mix of patterns. I went literal (yes no surprise there) picking up the colors and a touch of the stripes.

I hope you have a fabulous weekend and  I'd love to see you come play along with us!  Be sure to pop on over to the Festive Friday Challenge Blog and check out what the design team has in store for you!

Festive Friday: Peace Joy Love

Hello there...can you believe two weeks have passed and Festive Friday is already on our second challenge of the year?  I absolutely loved all the gorgeous entries from our first week!  We're back with another gorgeous inspiration photo for you. I love the rustic feel of the inspiration.  When I saw it, I immediately thought of a thank you note my mother-in-law sent me that had a gold wreath on it. I pulled out my WPlus9 stamps to play along. 

I'm making a conscious effort to keep my Christmas cards as flat as possible!  This one definitely fits that goal!  I'd love to see you come play along with us!  Be sure to pop on over to the Festive Friday Challenge Blog and check out what the design team has in store for you!

Welcome Back Festive Friday!

Hello Friends!  Welcome to the first Festive Friday Challenge of the new year!  When Meredith asked me if I wanted to be part of the design team, I was an immediate yes.  Festive Friday definitely helped me get a jump start on my Christmas cards last year.  I'm looking forward to playing along this year and hope that I can provide inspiration to you to work on your cards early this year.  No doubt, the rest of the design team will continue to knock your socks off with their creativity.

When I looked at the inspiration photo above, I was immediately drawn to the contrast of the bold red against the white.  I made a super CAS card below.

And I was also inspired to make a more rustic version of the card too. Unfortunately the card is a bit out of focus.

 

 Have a favorite  of the two cards?  I'd love to see you come play along with us!  Be sure to pop on over to the Festive Friday Challenge Blog!

Be Jolly {for Jonah}

Happy Monday my friends. I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend with lots of family time.  We had an awesome time with our family.  Unfortunately, Pat's mom was ill all weekend.  I feel so bad that she wasn't feeling up to getting together with all of us.  I'll pop back tomorrow with a few pictures for the weekend.  I'm popping in today with a card for the current Festive Friday challenge. This the last challenge of the year and you can pick any of your favorite challenges from the prior year. I decided to play along with the whimsical theme. This card will be going to Jonah.  Please pop on over to Susan's blog and you can find out more about an amazing card drive for a very sweet little boy.

Before I go, I thought I'd also share a before and after picture of Jonathon and his friends from this year and last year.  You can see how much he's grown in a year...he's now a bit taller than his friend Aidan and last year he was several inches shorter.  We'll be heading out shopping this week again as he's outgrown his jeans from the beginning of the school year already!

{this year - Matt, Cam, Aidan, Jonathon}

{last year - Cam, Kyle, Jonathon & Aidan} 

 

Snowflakes! {and a word on Project Life}

Whenever I go away on my crafty weekend, I tend to take too many supplies with me, but this time I didn't take as much and I used just about everything (including these snowflakes!)  I decided to make two cards with them:  one for the Festive Friday Challenge and one for CASE this Sketch.  Two very CAS cards...not surprising at all.  I've decided that one night I need to sit in front of the TV and die cut a whole bunch of things so that I use my dies more often!  How about you?  Are you good about using your dies?  Me...I'm pretty hit or miss on using them!

Now...let's chat about Project Life. At the beginning of the year, I decided to do digital PL.  I did about 10 pages worth of layouts and it was driving me a bit crazy. I spend a lot of time in front of the computer for work. So, I moved back to the traditional form of PL.  I'm so much happier!  It takes me a lot less time and my albums were quickly up to date. Do you scrapbook?  Digital or traditional? Project Life? I'd love to hear how you capture your families memories!  Our family album is PL and I do individual albums for the boys activities/school events and they are super simple! 

 

 

 

Festive Friday: Guest Designer

Hello my friends!  It's a super fun day for me today as Meredith asked me to be the guest designer for Festive Friday.  All of you know that this is one of my favorite challenges so when I was asked I jumped at the chance.  The challenge this week is to create a holiday card with a wreath.  I had pondered which stamps to use and decided on my WPlus9 Fresh Cut Florals and a PTI sentiment for the end result.  I love the subtle layering of stamping with the Fresh Cut Florals set and that it is just as easy to use this set for summer, spring, fall or winter.  

 

 I hope you are inspired to play along with this challenge. I  love that it is a two week challenge...plenty of time to play along!  Pop on over to the Festive Friday Challenge to check out the inspiration from the design team!

Merry & Bright

Oh how CAS cards make me smile.  I am loving the variety of sentiments in the Instant Photo:  Holiday Stamp Set from PTI.  I made two versions of the same card for this week's Festive Friday Challenge.  Only ink and stamps on these!  

Do you have a preference?  Hot pink or green sentiment?  I made the green one first but decided I liked the pink one better.

 

 

Super Fast Christmas!

I'm normally a stay at work a little later to finish up work and then come home and relax, but last night I went up and worked for a few hours after dinner. Come 9:45...I was itching to create and it didn't hurt that a new box of PTI goodies had arrived at my house (the benefit to living in the same town as the PTI headquarters).  So I went downstairs to my craft room for my own personal 10 minute craft dash. I die cut, adhered the dies, stamped and photographed.  And now I'm posting!  I think this would be a pretty easy card to make in mass.  Love the layering of the gorgeous PTI snowflakes!  Thanks Festive Friday for the color inspiration to make this go even faster.

Have any new goodies on the way to your house now?

 

May Your Days Be Filled with a Whole Lot of Merry! {and more England}

Happy Sunday my friends!  My sleep pattern is a bit out of whack...after getting up very early yesterday (5:30 am) I fell asleep on the couch at about 8 pm to wake up an hour later and be wide awake.  So I was happy to go down and sneak in a little inky time.  To get my mojo going after about a three week hiatus from my craft room, I decided to play along with the Festive Friday element challenge.  I used some striped Christmas paper to follow the candy cane theme.

I also had a new die that I had ordered right before I left so I created another Christmas inspired card below.

 I'm going to attempt to share all of our England pictures over the next week so feel free to skip past this if you aren't interested!  Here we go we slept in a bit and then decided to head up to London.  We took the bus tour and viewed the sites of London.  Such amazing sites:  Houses of Parliament/Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, London Eye.

We were quite often on the tube riding into London and the boys kept themselves occupied with their iPod or by playing a game of sticks.  Any of your kids play this game?  I had never seen them play it before, but they loved it and by the end of the trip we were all playing.  It's a great game for younger children to learn to add/subtract quickly in their head.

After the bus tour, we went over to my Auntie Anne's for dinner.  She had a life size Jenga game. We all got a huge kick out of it and played at least 10 games.  Jenga is one of our favorite games at home. You can see we got better and the game was taller than Collin at one point.   Lots of concentration going on here.

Here are snapshots of my family relaxing.  From top left:  my cousins, Keith, Andy, Auntie Anne, Marcel and Paula, Paula and Pat.  The best part of our trip was most certainly spending time with our family.  We are on our fourth generation of having a US/UK family bond.  It started with my grandparents knowing each other, them introducing my parents, my generations and now my children and my cousin's children. It makes my heart happy to see the family continuing to spend time together. And you can tell by the smiles...we had a lot of laughs on this trip!