Peace, Love & Joy

Yesterday, Marcel had since first wrestling match of the season.  He did really well - one the first match and lost the second by two points.  Pat and I love watching him out there.  It takes so much confidence to be out there by yourself competing.  But...during wrestling matches there is a lot of time in between waiting for your turn.  I took the opportunity to start addressing my Christmas cards.  Then I came home and counted how many more I have to make...a lot!  So yesterday afternoon I spent time making cards.  Today I have two cards.  The first one is for the MUSE Christmas Visions challenge. 

Second up was a card for the normal MUSE challenge and Just Us Girls water coloring card. I think you can see how I was inspired by Michele's fabulous card below.  How about you?  How are those Christmas cards coming along?

Happy Birthday

Good morning! I'm coming off of a wonderful birthday weekend...celebrating number 4-5...getting closer and closer to the big 5-0!  But a few more years to go yet. I was thoroughly spoiled by my family with lots of time together and a yummy dinner with my mum last night.  Pat also spoiled me with a new Mac. Jonathon has been getting everything set up for me.   Pays to have one of the boys like technical things!

Hope you all have a wonderful start to your week. This card was inspired by the layout on Ardyth's adorable card below at Muse.  Aren't those pandas adorable?

Merry Christmas

Four days in a row with Christmas cards!  This time I'm playing along with CAS(e) this Sketch.  Not sure I love the stars, but I love the color combination and the fonts on the sentiment.  I'll be playing along with this My Favorite Things set for a lot more Christmas cards. Stay tuned!

Joy to You and Yours

I loved Bety's Muse:  Christmas Visions card.  The joy sentiment, holly and musical notes were all fabulous.  Feel like I can hear the Christmas carols in the background when I look at her card.  I took inspiration from just about every element on the card.

Time to keep rolling and finish up my Christmas cards!

Merry and Bright {and printer questions}

After making my card yesterday for the PTI Blog Hop, I was in the Christmas mood and made three more Christmas cards. They all look kind of similar, but I'll still share them one by one over the next few days!  I hope you like them!

Can you see how I was inspired by the layout of Anita's gorgeous MUSE card below?

Also, we are in the market for a new printer.  Ours is many, many years old and is saying it has a printer jam, requesting new ink when new ink cartridges have just been installed, etc. Think it's time for a new one!?  We use for printing the occasional picture and primarily for school papers. Any suggestions on reliable color printers?

Thanks (and a sale question)

Happy Monday...I am in thank you card mode.  I had zero thank you cards in my stash...and I was in need of a lot of them...so this week is all about the thank you cards!  My first up is a quick one using some patterned paper in my stash. Inspired by Michele's super fun MUSE inspiration card.  Love those fun little type writers!

Feeling like it is time to purge my stamps and do a stamp sale....we'll see if I get my motivation up to do that! I'm curious - where do you have the best luck selling your stamps or do you keep them all?!  I get overwhelmed when I have too many.

Muse Inspired Sympathy Cards

Last week I was in need of several sympathy cards.  I turned to the gorgeous inspiration from Joan over at the Muse Challenge.  I loved the water color feel of her card and the strong message of hope and support.  For my first card, I used pinks and purples as my friend's mother loved purples and on the day she passed she posted a gorgeous sunrise of all pinks/purples.  And I love the Irish Blessing as a message of love and support. For the second card, I went with the orange and yellow inspiration from Joan's card.  My co-worker lost her grandmother who had lived to 100!  

Love how both of these came together so quickly.

You Make My Heart Melt {and I met Tracey!)

This weekend, I was on a Christmas card making role.  I loved the sweet little snowman from Marilyn's card at Muse:  Christmas Visions. For my card, I used a very CAS PaperSmooches snowman and then colored just a touch with my Zig markers.  Very simple, but one more done for the Christmas card stash!  I'm also entering this over at Virginia's View All Things Colored Challenge.

Yesterday, I was so thrilled that Tracey and I got to meet in real life!  She is as much of a sweetheart in person as she is in blog land and we hit it off like we had been friends forever.  Thankfully, it was a gorgeous day out and we sat outside and chatted over lunch in my little town of Loveland.  I wish we had longer, but am so thankful for the time we had together.  Next time, we are most definitely going to need more time together...and to get our hubbies together too. When James dropped Tracey off, I think the guys could have talked for hours too.  I feel so blessed to meet such wonderful friends through blogging.

Merry Christmas

I'm in the groove making Christmas cards. Need to find a few more designs that I absolutely love to make a few in multiples so that I can feel even better about being ready in time for Christmas!  But for today, I have a card inspired by two challenges...Darnells's NBUS challenge and MUSE Christmas Visions.  I'm using new goodies from Frantic Stampers (the background star die) and the PaperSmooches City Scape die. I've had both of these for a while, but they have yet to see time on my craft table. I love that Darnell inspires us to get out our never been used goodies!

Thanks a Million

Happy Friday my friends!  Popping in with my final thank you note of the week! This one was inspired by the awesome MUSE challenge card for this week. Don't you love all those sentiments?  I certainly do.  I loved the layout and the touch of ribbon too. Think you can easily tell how I was inspired!

Peace, Love, Joy

Continuing on with creating more Christmas cards. This one was a bit tedious so I won't be making more than one!  I water colored some paper for the insides of the trees and then adhered it to the inside of the die cut.  Love how it looks (even if my trees aren't straight)!  I had to cover up a sentiment that I didn't stamp straight to finish off the card.  Playing along with the gorgeous inspiration below over at Muse Christmas Visions!

Wishing You Much Joy This Holiday Season

I was on a roll this weekend...making lots of Christmas cards.  I have been itching to play along with the MUSE Christmas Visions challenge, but haven't gotten to it nearly as often as I would like, but I am changing that this week!  Love all the black and white on Kristie's inspiration card below.  I think you can see how I was inspired. I made twelve of this version of card and am so thankful for my MISTI....it definitely made making twelve of these much faster!  You might have noticed too that my Christmas cards are all square. I'm taking Ardyth's lead as I love her square cards!

Happy Birthday

Happy Monday my friends. My awesome friend, Michele, is the MUSE over at MUSE this week and is encouraging us all to get out our embossing folders and play along with her.  I admit that my embossing folders are often neglected so it was the perfect time to pull out a very old Stampin' Up embossing plate. I finished off the card by die cutting one of my favorite PaperSmooches die cuts three times: once in green and twice in black. I love how it adds a touch more dimension to the card. This card will be put in the stash for September birthdays.  I have a few that I'll need to have ready to mail!   Can you tell how easily I was inspired by Michele's card below?

Thanks So Much

Saturday night was an exciting one at our house (just kidding...I crafted while the boys played with their friend was spending the night...and Pat was across the street helping our neighbor's build a new deck).  Love having crafty time...so that means I have a lot of posts lined up for this week.  First up is me starting to build up my thank you card stash.  Loved the awesome inspiration from Joan at the Muse Challenge. Such a CAS beauty.  I was inspired by the multi-color sentiment, leaves and twine.  Love easy to mail cards!  Thanks so much for the beautiful inspiration Joan!

Peace, Love & Joy

Three days in a row of blogging on the fly before I head out the door to work!  Marcel is in Peter Pan this week and next so the late night practices (getting home at 10:30 the last two nights!) have gotten the best of me.  Feeling a bit tired at mid week!  

But...I did have a card to share for the current Muse: Christmas Visions challenge. Sneaking it in right before the challenge ends.  Not my typical style card with the patterned paper scene but this is how I was inspired by the gorgeous layout on the inspiration card.

With Deepest Sympathy

I'm running very late getting my MUSE card in for this week...and I really should be getting ready for work, so this is  very short post!  This is the fabulous Vicki's last week at MUSE and I wanted to play along.  At first I was going to stamp three butterflies but when the ink hit the paper, a different card came out!  Don't you just love the gorgeous CAS inspiration in Vicki's card?

His and Hers Muse Inspired Birthday Cards

 This weekend I was in a bit of a crunch needed to make six sets of cards for teacher gifts...so clean and simple stamping and easy mass production was in demand!  I pulled out my MISTI (only the second time I've used it) and man oh man did it come in handy. First up were his and hers birthday cards inspired by the first current MUSE challenge.  For some reason the gold foil is not photographing well, but I love the CAS end result.  For the guy version I left off the gold embossed cake.

 I think you can see how I was inspired by this gorgeous card below.  Love those sweet little gold hearts!  Happy Monday!

Dream Big

Time to move into serious graduation card making!  I love the in laid dies and the grey/white combination in the MUSE inspiration this week.  I am also inspired by this gorgeous card from Maureen. The 2015 was cut out with my Cricut in both white and grey and finished off with a Verve sentiment and a pop of orange as a nod to our school colors of orange and black.  I'll be back tomorrow with another graduation card!

Appreciation is the Memory of the Heart

What's that?  A post in the middle of the day!  I know for my normal readers this is a bit out of the ordinary, but I'm off this week and was able to sneak in some crafty time.  That makes this girl's heart happy.  

I decided to play along with the MUSE challenge with Kristie's fabulous inspiration card. I pulled out one of my all time favorite PTI sets and some distress inks for the masking. I didn't really intend to make a rainbow with my inking but I did. Sara's gorgeous cards here also inspired me.  Aren't they amazing?

Hope that you are all having a beautiful and relaxing Easter week.

Thanks

I'm a bit late to the MUSE party, but as they saying goes...better late than never.  We were extra busy this weekend with the start of the show choir season.  Friday night we were cheering Jonathon on and Saturday we were cheering on Ryan. Very proud to say that both their groups took home grand champion awards along with best vocal, choreography and band.  A fantastic start to their show choir competition season. 

But, back to my card.  I loved the tiny pop of color on Michele's Muse inspiration card below along with the tough of negative space  I have a bit more color and mimicked the touch of negative space.  I'm also entering this over on the CASology challenge as I've used Simon Says Stamps inks for this card.  I haven't been thrilled with my Stampin' Up inks so I bought five of the Simon Says Stamp inks. Have to say I love them.  Much better ink coverage.  So...this is my NBUS item. I couldn't miss the change to play along with this challenge inspired by Darnell!

I'm off to bed for the night to get ready for the work week!  Hope you all have a fabulous start to your week.