Life is a Blessing

Monday was a bit stressful.  Nothing terrible going on, just stressful.  One of those days when I needed to remind myself that everything always gets done.   Everything always works out.  And throughout the day I was reminded that there are so many blessings in life.  Here are just a few of my blessings from Monday:

• A text from my 14 year old, "Thanks Mom. I love you."  There is nothing like hearing your child say I love you first. 
• Collin all dressed up and ready to go for his school concert and his sweet face on stage blushing like crazy.  He's my shy little guy and oh so adorable.
• Having my mum living ten minutes away and first to be there for all of the boy's events.  They are always so proud to show her around and have her there to share their special days.
• An email from my cousin, Sandie, when I mentioned I was stressed, "breathe deeply and focus on your breathe going in and out-focus on your belly rises and falling."  This definitely helps.  

And now to you...I'd love to hear how you are blessed?

I also wouldn't want to leave you without a couple of cards today.  Using the Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler set.  First up, a mini card for this week's Wee Memories Challenge:

And second...a fun chip board card for this week's CAS-ual Friday's Challenge.

Thanks Ever So Much

Hi ladies, I haven't been chatty this week as I have been traveling for work...but I am home now and happy to hug my sweet boys.  Jonathon's face/mouth are healing, but he now has a bunch of canker sores from the cuts he got inside his mouth.  I hate canker sores and the ones he has are huge, but he is being a serious trooper and is heading back to school this morning. Hopefully his day goes well and school keeps him busy and not occupied by the cuts/swelling in his mouth.

Now...onto this week's Wee Memories Challenge.  I love when the DT does a "free for all" challenge.  This is a card I made a while ago having fun with masking and spray mists.  Hope you like it!

 

Autumn Wishes and a Layout!

Hello there, this week's Wee Memories Challenge is all about the sentiments.  I decided to make a simple CAS card for the challenge.  I used a bit of woodgrain paper along with a strip of the Basic Grey Oxford Paper...and yes, the misting mades it way out again this week!  Stamped the sentiment several times in brown and once in red to make it pop!

While I'm here, I thought I'd share a layout inspired by the challenge at Artful Delight!  Not the best photo, but I loved scrapping these pictures from last weekend.  Here's the journaling, "Whenever the Pittsburgh Mangans are in town, there is always a game to play.  This weekend it was tackle Monkey in the Middle with the dads: Pat/Mike, Ryan, Connor, Erin and Jonathon."  My niece Laura was behind the camera!  The little ones (Collin, Ally and Marcel) were busy riding bikes most of the weekends.  When I say "All Out" Monkey in the Middle, I mean it...full tackle...no place for soft hearts when we're playing! 

Happy Thursday! The weekend is fast approaching! 

PS If you have any tips for photographing scrapbook layouts I'd love to hear them!  I never feel like my layout photos are very good!

A CAS Thank You

Hello there...this is a late entry for the current Wee Memories Challenge to create a clean & simple card.  Oh how I love CAS cards.  The design for this was inspired by many of Cristina's cardsd.  She has a love for medallions and so do I.  Easy and simple.  The stamp set is from PTI Simply Stationery.

Hope you are having a fabulous start to your weekend!

Beyond Excited

Okay...so I'm bouncing off the walls a bit this morning!  Maureen is coming to Cincinnati.  Just had to share that my dear blogging friend, Maureen, is coming for the PTI event at the end of July.  I can't wait to meet her in person. Now...just to make we get registered!

...Back to regularly scheduling programming.  A card for you.  This is a card that I'm entering over at Wee Memories.  The challenge right now is anything goes.  I'm also entering this for Virginia's amazing blog candy.  Her challenge is to create a card based on something that inspired you.  I was inspired by Andrea's soft card here.  Love how she used the distress inks over the embossed dots.

Ingredients:  Neenah Solar White Paper; Hero Arts Background Stamp; Paper Smooches Stamps; SU Basic Black and Pretty In Pink Ink; My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose Paper; Maya Road's Chipboard and Mist

Inspired By...

Ingredients: PTI Background Basics Text Style, Tag; Ink: SU Basic Black and Melon Mambo, Ranger Pumice Stone; PTI Twine; Hero Arts Gems:  SU Whisper White and Melon Mambo Paper

This week's Wee Memories Challenge is to be inspired by a photo from Pinterest.  I haven't had a ton of time to look around Pinterest, but last week when while I was on a business trip, I spent some time looking through it at night.   This photo popped out to me.  It certainly inspired a variety of ideas for text with cut outs or banner cards.  My interpretation for this card was fairly simple.  Hope your weekend gets off to a wonderful start!

Joe Extrovert

This little guy does not have a shy bone in his body.  He was fully prepared to be the center of attention on Saturday night when his grandparents were over to celebrate Ryan's birthday.  You should see the dance moves...lots of spins and he definitely has rhythm.

Here are a few of the funny things he's saying these days:

• After Marcel had sneezed several times.  Collin:  "Marcel, do you have allergies?"  Marcel:   "Yes, Call-yin...I think I do.  I've been having lots of bless youing days." 
• Marcel:  "Mommy, can I go outside and ride my bike with Callum?"  Me:  "No Marcel, it's raining."  Marcel:  "It's raining men, hallelujah, it's raining men, hallelujah" I think maybe they've been playing Wii Just Dance II a little too often...
• Randomly (to prove he has all brothers) "Mommy, I can't figure out how to do that fart armpit thing...."

Keeps us smiling for sure!

Now...onto a very quick card for this week's Wee Memories Challenge. I have a whole bunch of SRM Stickers...perfect for the challenge!

Happy Mother's Day (again :)!)

Good morning, now that Mother's Day has passed, I can pop in and share my mum's Mother's Day card!  She is a regular blog reader so I couldn't post it earlier.  I'm entering my card for my mum and for my mother-in-law in this week's Wee Memories Challenge. 

My first card is using paper and embellishments from the Crate Paper Restoration Collection.  This is one of my all time favorite packs of paper and it is just about all used up.  It was perfect that it came with a teapot chipboard sticker as my mum loves her tea!  She starts her day with a cup of tea and has many cups throughout the day. 

My dear mother-in-law's card is using some of the My Mind's Eye So Sophie papers and embellishments.  Love the soft traditional color tones in this.  Blue is one of her favorite colors too, so I added a touch of blue Bazzill ribbon.

Hope you enjoy the cards today!  I'm off to work...and then at lunch leave for jury duty!  Fun...!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Ingredients:  Stampin' Up Basic Gray, Pink Pirouette and Whisper White Paper; Pink Pirouette, Pear Pizazz and Regal Rose Ink; My Mind's Eye DSP; Verve Stamps

Hi there...this week's Wee Memories Challenge is "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun".  I decided to combine this with the Verve April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge too and make a frilly girly birthday card!  And of course, I  need to highlight the girls in our family!  Here are some Easter pictures..

First up Easter Saturday:  Erin showing us her gymnastic moves....

Shelby...learning how to do a headstand with Uncle Pat...don't you love all the colors on her leggings, skirt and shorts...

 Easter brunch:  Elizabeth, Madeline, Cindy, Laura and Sally...getting brunch ready!

Elizabeth and Madeleine...teasing Nana/Mum....Madeline is absolutely cracking up!

Smiling after the giggle fit!

The sister-in-laws...blonde...red...and brunette...almost a rainbow!

Laura...Olivia...and Vegas!

Circus!

Ingredients:  Cardstock:  Bazzill Basics and Archiver's; Stamps:  Hero Arts; Gems:  Kaiser Kraft; Canvas Stickers and Ticker Paper:  Imaginesce; Ink:  Stampin' Up Real Red; Twine:  The Twinery

Hello there...and welcome to the circus!  I'm entered these creations into theMoxie Fab World Gift Wrap Challenge and Wee Memories Twine Challenge.  Don't the bright, cheery colors on this bag and card make you happy?  And of course, the twine. I purchased the sampler of twine from The Twinery a little over a month ago...and man have I been using it.  Mainly because of all the wonderful inspiration on Emily's blog.  She is an enabler when it comes to twine...and many other things for that matter! 

Here are a couple close up shots of the bag and card before I sign off...

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. 

For You

Time for a double challenge today...I made this monochromatic card using lots of Hero Arts yumminess...two of my favorite sets - the banner set and the French script...love them both.  To make the card I stamped the script on the vanilla paper and then used the distress ink around the edges.  I stamped the banners, cut them out and adhered them with dimensionals.  I tied knots in the twine and adhered with glue dots. The For You sentiment is with stickers from the My Minds Eye Stella and Rose collection.  You've seen a lot of that paper on my blog posts lately!  I thought it would be fun to enter this for both the Wee Memories Challenge (Free Your Creativity) and the Hero Arts Birthday Challenge.

Ingredients:  Paper Company White Cardstock; Stampin' Up Very Vanilla and Basic Gray Cardstock; Hero Banner and French Script Stamps; My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Stickers; Ranger Distress Ink Pumice Stone; Twine from The Twinery

Now...I thought I'd share some pictures from our bowling outing on Saturday.  First things first...I was the winner (I never win in bowling!)!  My score was 157...I even achieved a "turkey".  In bowling terms, a "turkey" is three strikes in a row.  Now that I've filled your mind with bowling trivia there are no pictures of me bowling.  Pat took some pictures of me, but they were a close up of my rear end...no need to share that with anyone!!!

Here are some much better pictures...first up is Marcel...anytime he would knock down some pins would turn around and show us on his fingers how many.

Next up is Ally (don't you love her curls?) who had this patented move everytime she made a good shot!

This picture absolutely cracks me up.  If you look closely you can see our niece, Erin, pointing her finger at her dad...and her dad,  Mike, saying, "I'm not saying a word."  Erin is very competitive and she was not happy that she didn't have bumpers.  Bowling without bumpers is hard...and she didn't like  that she wasn't doing as well as some of the siblings and cousins.  She had taken her dads advice on how to bowl and when she didn't do well quickly turned around and told him not to say another word.  We were laughing our heads off..true Erin style!  That competitive drive serves her very well...she is an amazing gymnast! 

Here she is a little happier with her dad!

Nana and PopPop treated us to the bowling outing...PopPop was checking out the scoreboard.

PopPop with lots of concentration...

And to finish off...Marcel and Laura relaxing while waiting for their turn...