Merry Christmas

Happy Sunday morning my friends...I'm up early and happily enjoying the quiet house while I craft in the basement.  The house is a bit emptier than normal.  Pat is out of town with his brothers, Jonathon is at a friend's bakehouse for the weekend and Ryan and his girlfriend headed back to OU yesterday afternoon. I love having a full house, but also love the quieter moments too.

So I'm up and happily crafting. I have about 10 cards ready to mail out to friends I'm thinking of and about four graduation cards for dear friends children.  But the first card that I wanted to create this morning was for the current Muse Challenge. It has been way too long since I have played over there and isn't Anita's inspiration card gorgeous?

I hope you all are getting time to create today too!

Believe. Dream. Achieve.

Happy Monday morning. I'm popping in quickly before I head off to work to share a trio of cards I made yesterday.  I'm finishing off card sets and have a few things to celebrate with others so it was a busy day of crafting yesterday!  

First up is avery CAS card for my sister-in-law, Elizabeth. She just received a promotion to CEO of a large real estate development firm. She works super hard and is amazing. So thrilled for her. This one is being entered in the CASology gray challenge. Love this gold and gray background and I thought the sentiment was perfect for her.

Next up is a graduation card for a co-worker who completed his under grad degree this week. He's been taking classes at night for quite some time so this is an awesome accomplishment!  Played along with the current CAS(e) this Sketch for this one. Love having these challenges to quickly inspire me!

Last but certainly not least is a card for the Muse Challenge.  Loved Tracey's CAS one-layer beauty and I was in need of a few more Christmas cards.  Okay...off to get ready for the work day!  Hope you all have a fabulous week!

With Sympathy

Happy Sunday my friends. I know I say this every year, but I'm not sure how we are two weeks away from Christmas again!  I'm traveling for work this week, so am feeling even more rushed!  Lots to be done before Santa arrives at our house.  But!  I sneak in some crafting today. Trying to finish up the card sets my mum asked me to do for her friends.  So this sympathy card was made in multiples to put in the sets.

It was inspired by Anita's gorgeous card over at Muse this week. I love using challenges to jump start my crafting!

Thanks!

Tracey had the most gorgeous CAS card over at Muse this week and I had to play along.  I decided to use some new PTI stamps that Jen had sent to me (thank you again Jen!) for the feathers. I love my Fresh Inks...they are gorgeous and were so fun to do this rainbow of feathers.  I'm off for a couple night get away with some girlfriends at Norris Lake so keeping this post short and sweet. I hope you all have fun weekend plans scheduled too!

PS  Sorry the photo is a little blurry...over cast here and I am running out the door!

Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams

It's graduation season...and with the age of our boys...there are lots of friends graduating from high school...so last weekend I went to work on making the last of the graduation cards for the year.  This card was inspired by Ardyth's gorgeous layout below. It look everything in me not to make a floral card (because I love floral cards and bold pops of pink!).  I was inspired by the layout and the tilted panels. I did try my hand at inking the edges...but honestly distress inks and me are not really friends!  So that panel was thrown in the garbage!  So here's the end result!  Thanks for all the gorgeous inspiration Ardyth!  Enter this over at Muse and Addicted to CAS.

Happily Ever After..

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!  We had an incredible time in Pennsylvania visiting Pat's side of the family and celebrating his cousin Ryan's ordination as a deacon. This time next year he will be ordained as a priest. The mass was absolutely beautiful and it is amazing to watch Ryan's faith continue to go. He certainly is a gift to those he will serve.

We got back midday on Sunday so yesterday was a very laid back day. The kids are thrilled that we have a pool in our neighborhood and the added bonus is that it is only two doors down from our house.  I was down there with them for a bit and then came back to sneak in some crafty time. Over at Muse, we're celebrating Ardyth's 50th...and she is 50 and fabulous for sure!  So the challenge is to case one of her cards. This was oh so easy to do as I absolutely love her style. I'm regularly pinning her cards so I decided to create one of her cards she made last week. I loved her card! This card is going into the mail to my brother and his fiancee! They just got engaged on Friday so lots of celebrating to do around here!  Ardyth - you are a dear and I hope that your family spoiled you rotten. I'm so thankful for our friendship!  xx

You've Got This

Happy Sunday my friends.  We had a super fun weekend. We went to see Maroon 5 on Friday night (to meet my boyfriend Adam!) and then wandered around downtown Cincinnati on Saturday morning. The perfect date night for us.  Saturday night I was up late waiting to pick Collin up from show choir so I had time to get some crafting done.  I wanted to make a card for a fellow show choir mom who had a skiing accident earlier this year. She has a really long road to recovery as she tore her ACL and MCLs in both knees.  So this card was for her and was inspired by Michelle's gorgeous card over at Muse.

Here's a few pics from our night out on Friday...me with my handsome boyfriend of 31 years :)!

and my new boyfriend Adam!  I hope everyone has a great weekend.

And here's Michele's gorgeous inspiration card from Muse.

Happy Birthday

Good morning...an extremely quick post before I head off to work this morning. Made this card quickly yesterday for Valentyna's gorgeous MUSE inspiration card below. This card was for my niece who celebrated her birthday yesterday. Time flies so fast. She graduates from college in May and is off to San Francisco for her first job in chemical engineering. So proud of her! 

Hope all of you have a great start to the week! 

With Sympathy

Happy Sunday my friends.  I was up super early yesterday (my internal alarm has been going off at 4:30/5 am - yuck!) so I figured I might as well get up and craft.  I am past due sending a sympathy card to a friend who lost her sister to cancer. She fought so hard for so many years.  The Muse Challenge was the perfect challenge to play along. I liked the neutral color palette and the way the sentiment slightly overlaid the die cuts. My card used stamps instead of dies. Love how CAS both cards are.  Hope that your weekend is a relaxing one!

O Holy Night

I am woefully behind on Christmas cards, but wanted to play along with the Muse: Christmas Visions.  I love the circle masking.  I took a little bit of a different twist cutting out a bit of patterned paper and then stamping the image and sentiment. I finished it off by die cutting the stitching behind it.  Think I'll be making a few more of these. Similar to my card yesterday, this card was inspired by the Stamping' Up catalog too. They had a card with a touch of striped paper similar to the striped paper I used on this one.  Love the jump start from both the catalog and the beautiful Muse card below. The embossed details on the ornament are amazing!

Dream Big

We are officially six days from Ryan's high school graduation. He takes his last exam tomorrow and the younger boys all finish school for the summer on Friday.  Life is good with lots of end of year activities.

The two cards I have to share today are for graduation. The first one one top is for the CASology challenge and goes to my sister-in-law. She made a ton...and I mean a ton of cookies for Ryan's graduation party.  I am beyond thankful for her. She loves to bake...so this card will be going to her with a gift card for one of her favorite places.

The second card is going to a dear friend's daughter for her graduation. She reads  my blog (Hi Katie :)!).  So wish we still lived in the same city so we good celebrate together.  Miss her tons! Playing along with Tracey's gorgeous card over at Muse. 

Okay...that's it for tonight!  Off to get ready for the work week ahead.

Ingredients:

Stamps: PaperSmooches Reflections and Thanks Set, Verve (Dream Big)

Stencil:  Tim Holtz

Inks:  Impress Fresh Ink

Keep Up the Fight

Happy, happy Sunday. We are having an absolutely beautiful weekend and I'm sitting outside on our patio relaxing as a type up this post.  The younger boys are outside playing on our neighbor's swing set and running through the sprinkler....and the older ones are in the basement singing their hearts out getting ready for a jazz band concert where they will be performing and singing.  I love when the house is full of kids.

So...I snuck down for a bit of time to create.  I couldn't pass up creating a card inspired by Tracey's gorgeous Muse card this week. The colors are vibrant...and seriously how does she stamp so perfectly on the dies!?  My card is pretty much a straight case of hers and will be going to a good friend's older sister who is currently recovering from a stroke.  Sending it with lots of love and prayers for her.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend! Hope it is a beautiful one.

 

Celebrate

Happy Friday my friends.  Blogging live this Friday morning.  I set up a draft of my post earlier this week, but didn't get a chance to write it up until just now.  We have a busy weekend ahead with Marcel finishing up his play tonight and tomorrow and Collin/Ryan finishing up their show choir competition season tomorrow.  It's so strange to think that Ryan is at the end of competing for show choir. It has been five absolutely amazing years.  I've loved watching him grow and most importantly have so much fun. He has made so many fabulous friendships and truly grown as a performer. I'm sure there will be a few tears tomorrow (from us senior moms and from the kids) with gentle reminders to all of this to truly cherish these times.  The time is near for Ryan and his friends to bloom.  The countdown to graduation is just a couple short months away.  

Back to my cards...Lindsey from Occasional Crafting was so kind to send me one of the 12 Kits of Occasions last month. I just got around to using this amazing kit.  I love it! So many fabulous details. My first card up top is inspired by Anita's gorgeous MUSE inspiration card below.   I loved how she placed the sentiment. Instead of masking I used a series of die cuts.

My second card used this adorable elephant and fabulous die cuts.  Don't you just love the colors?

And this card went to a very dear friend who is celebrating her birthday this week...I love the combination of gold and coral. So stunning together!  Thank you again Lindsey for choosing me as the winner of your amazing kit!  I'll be sure to make more cards from all the remaining goodies!

 

For Unto Us a Child is Born

Happy Sunday my friends. Popping in to share a quick card I made several weeks ago, but it goes well with the current Muse Christmas Visions challenge. Don't you just love Chrissie's inspiration card below? I love all the gold...and think I'll need to think about another card with gold embossing instead of the traditional black I did on my card above.  

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend...ours was busy with show choir and Marcel's play. I'll be back soon with some pictures of the kids happening.  Popping off now to sit in front of the TV and do a few Project Life pages!

PS Apologies for the blurry picture!

Thanks

Happy happy Monday my friends.  We had a fabulous weekend celebrating my dear friend, Danielle's, wedding. So wonderful to see two people find love after both losing their first spouse to cancer.  I'll share pictures in a few days when I get a bit more organized.

I couldn't miss playing with the MUSE challenge this week. I absolutely loved Tracey's inspiration card below. The colors are fabulous.  So crisp and clean.  My card didn't really translate from my head to paper, but I'm okay with the end result.

I hope your week gets off to a great start. I'm heading to Dallas for a few days for work. 

Now & Forever

I've been thinking, thinking, thinking about this adorable MUSE card from Michele this week.  I love black, red and white together.  I had some new dies arrive on Saturday from Frantic Stamper so I of course had to put them to use. You can see that I followed the color scheme and layout pretty closely from Michele's inspiration card below. Added a few gems and the sentiment and Pat's Valentine is ready to be written out and sealed :).

Hope you had a great weekend.  Ryan and Collin had the start of their show choir season on Saturday.     Hard to believe I have one just starting and one finishing.  I love, love, love this picture that my friend took off them from their holiday show.   It should be another exciting year.  Collin is my shy one, but he is loving it.  Proclaiming, "my second performance was so much better than  my first.  I know the moves."  He's adorable up there!  Here is is hamming it up with a couple of his friends before they performed.

 

Good Tidings

Happy Friday friends...popping in quickly before I head off to work. I bought this Christmas set from Simon Says Stamps over Black Friday as I absolutely loved the cards Virginia was making with it.  Love the fun fonts and you all know how much I love flower/leaf sets.  This set is perfect for a touch of coloring which I did with my Zig markers. The images were all embossed in black before I did the coloring. Think I'll be making a few more of these.

I'm linking it up to the current MUSE card.  Love the pink/green combination.  I might have to play along twice this week!