Oh Baby!

Pat's cousin just had a baby boy...and I have zero cards in my stash for a baby. I love this sweet little Reverse Confetti set with onesies so I decided to make a quick card to celebrate baby Ethan.  Looking forward to doing a bit of shopping to pick out a gift for him too.

The Just Us Girls challenge was he perfect color palette for a boy card!

Sweet Little One

Pat's cousin welcomed a new little boy into the family last week. He was almost two months early but is breathing on his own. We're so happy to have sweet little Landry in the family.  Hopefully it won't be too long before we meet him in person. They live in Virginia so I think it will be a little while.  So I played along with Fusion Card Challenge to make his card. Loved the fun colors of all the chairs in the inspiration photo. Looking forward to picking out a sweet little outfit to send along with this card!

The Snuggle is Real!

For all my US friends, I hope you have enjoyed the holiday weekend.  I spent a lot of the day in my room doing a very big craft room purge!  There is a huge garbage bag that made its way outside.  And several bags are going to a friend who is a teacher and can use a lot of the old card stock and wooden stamps that I no longer use with her students.  Happy that some of it is going to a good home!

When I was done purging, I played with some stamps that have had yet to see ink...I couldn't let Darnell's NBUS challenge go without playing along. This card is going to Pat's cousin who just adopted a beautiful little girl!  So happy for their family.  I hope your work week gets off to a great start.

Congratulations Shery...Welcome Catherine!

Today, the fabulous design team over at Time Out is celebrating Shery and her new little one, Catherine.  We're so thrilled for Shery that her little girl arrived safe and sound.  Of course, having a house of all boys I had to use lots and lots of pink to celebrate!  Shery, I hope you are having a wonderful start to Catherine's beautiful life and getting lots of cuddles! Love these sweet little butterflies and thought the trio followed the CAS(e) this Sketch pretty well.  

Pat's cousin also had a new little one arrive just a few days ago. Her little one is a boy so I made a fairly similar card to welcome him too!

To Be Nine Again...

Happy Tuesday ...I have a card (a baby card for a co-worker not tied to any challenge!)...and then I have a Marcel post for you.  People ask me all the time, did you keep trying to have a girl?  And my consistent answer is no.  I simply didn't feel done after Collin was born or maybe better stated, I didn't feel like our family was complete.  Sometimes I feel as though people don't understand that as a parent your heart can swell with love for the child you never had, the child you may have lost or all the children you do have.  My heart swells with love for my boys...each for their unique personalities.  Man oh man did I never realize how much love could be inside me for my children.

So...today I'm going to chat about Marcel. That little man (who really isn't that little, but will always be my little man) makes my heart swell and who has a personality that connects people to his heart. Here's a few of my favorites about Marcel at nine years old:

• Mom, "When I get older, I think I'm going to help people with heart problems. And I think Collin will be a cooker at a fast food restaurant."  So why does he talk about helping people with heart problems?  One of Marcel's best friends is Bobby.  Bobby was born with down syndrome. To Marcel, down syndrome doesn't mean a thing.  To him it means, Bobby has a heart problem. He loves Bobby with all his heart.  I would love to see Marcel grow up to "help people with heart problems". 
• He's in Peter Pan this week and next and he LOVES being on stage.  In his words, "I have lots of lyrics this year."  Comparing himself to last year in Oliver, he has about 10 to 12 lines versus one (love that he calls lines "lyrics").  Throughout the whole performance he smiles; even when Hook is yelling at the Lost Boys, Because he is so happy being on stage...he smiles through the whole thing. I wish I could learn that 9 year old lesson. Smile away...when you're happy smile, smile away!  
• He loves music.  He will write out the lyrics to his favorite songs one of which Ryan's show choir sang this year (Twenty One Guns by Green Day). Or he'll share with me, Mom, "Have you listed to the new Twenty One Pilots song?  My  number one wish is that I could get an autograph by Twenty One Pilots."  Of course, this made Ryan's day because Marcel is following his musical taste.
• Conversations with him are hilarious.  He loves vocabulary...now he wouldn't say that he loves vocabulary, but if he doesn't know what a word means, he will definitely ask, remember it and use it in proper contact. Here are a few recent examples:
• "Mom, I went to get Collin from Jake's, but he is slow as a sloth."  Asked him what a sloth was, "I don't know, but it makes sense, doesn't it?!"
• "Or...tomorrow night, the elderlies are coming to watch Peter Pan."  The folks from the local nurse home were coming to watch the show.  We are wondering when you go from being old to being an elderly and decided we might now want to know his answer.
• Pat and I are regularly trading texts about him.  The most recent was Marcel saying, "Screwing is not my thing."  That sounds really off color and Pat was dying laughing, but he was talking about unscrewing a bottle.  
• He may not want to hold my hand very often, but he still loves a kiss good bye or a kiss good night or a cuddle on the couch. Oh how I cherish those moments.

My little man simply makes my heart swell. Here's a picture of him in action at Peter Pan.

And yes..I realize I posted a baby card for a girl...subliminal...not sure!

Welcome Baby

I love creating just for the sake of creating.  I had a bit of time yesterday and decided to play along with CASology.  I have all kinds of extra goodies from my 12 Kits of Occasions Baby kit from a few months ago.  Paired up the patterned paper and sweet little owl with the PaperSmooches Welcome dies and stamps.  Happy to have a baby card for my stash.

The weekend was gorgeous.  Perfect, perfect weather all weekend long!  My mum and I went to see Ryan's play for their final show on Saturday night. He was having an absolutely ball on stage. His hair was supposed to be blond but looked a little green. :)  So fu

And what cold be more fun than meeting up with blogging friends.  Michele and her hubby, Tom, came down for a visit this weekend. We had no problem at all chatting, chatting away!  So awesome to meet Michele in person. We had a wonderful time. Here's hoping we can do it again soon!

12 Kits of Occasions: Baby

Oh my goodness. I am so excited to be the guest designer for the 12 Kits of Occasions. When Cathy invited me I didn't hesitate before saying yes.  Every month I'm inspired by the fabulous kits the designers create and this month was no exception. Look at all the goodness from the kit above. I made five cards and I think I could make about 20 or more without running out!  I've already sent 2 of the five cards out for friends who have recently had babies.

My favorite part of the kit were the pre-cut embellishments.  You can see that I used them on all but one card.  Cathy included several stamped sentiments from Reverse Confetti; I have that set too so a few of the sentiments I stamped directly on my card.

I went for lots of pink on this one!  Love the combination of chocolate and pink and the delicate die cut.

Loved that Cathy included the stamped tags as well as the ribbon to finish them off. This is one of my go to card layouts lately!

Isn't this giraffe adorable?  I tied a little satin bow around is neck to make it a bit girlier.

For my final card I was using several of the die cuts.  Loved the sweet carriage and little onsies.  Completely worth the wait!

Have a favorite?  You can tell I'm a CAS girl at heart when you look at my cards.  Thanks again to Cathy and the amazingly talented 12 Kits of Occasions team for inviting me to participate!

Double the Joy: Welcome Ben & Josh!

The amazingly talented Bev (owner of Uniko Studios) welcomed her identical twin boys into this world a couple of weeks ago. They look absolutely beautiful and we're all so happy that they arrived safe and sound.

The team at Time Out wanted to celebrate Bev's double exciting news by hosting an extra challenge in Bev's honor. The challenge is "Double the Joy":  make two of anything. I decided to use the challenge to make a baby card for Bev's little ones.

We sure hope we come play along with us and be sure to stop by and wish Bev lots of love on the arrival of her beautiful boys:  Ben & Josh. The Time Out Team will be offering a 20 £ voucher to Uniko Studio   Please come play along...the winner will be chosen via random.org.

Welcome Baby

Marion Vagg has the most gorgeous card over at Muse this week.  I am in love with the spectrum of colors and the touch of shimmer.  Beyond beautiful in every last detail.  I was trying to pick the colors out of my stash of card stock, but ended up die cutting the strips from three colors as I didn't have as close a match to Marion's card as I would have liked. At first thought this was going to be a birthday card for the boys to use for a friend but it quickly turned to a baby card...not sure how that happened.

Fussing with my new camera to get the pictures a bit whiter...still have to mess around bit so I'm not thrilled with picture quality for the last few weeks but it will get there eventually!

Welcome Sweet Baby

Hello there.  My posts are short and sweet this week.  Today, I have a card for the current MUSE challenge. Gillian's inspiration card is clean and crisp = perfect.   I cased it making a very simple baby card...letting the polka dots do the talking.  

And let's chat for a minute, how in the heck is it May already?  Have to say I'm happy that the spring weather seems to have arrived.  And it two weeks my oldest baby will be 17.  I'm sure I'm not old enough to have a 17 year old?!  Happy Wednesday my friends. 

Little Baby: Big Love {and hitting the pavement}

Admittedly, I am a bit behind on the vellum trend and why oh why I'm asking myself haven't I jumped on earlier.  Laurie is consistently showing gorgeous cards with vellum.  Her Retro Sketch card from this week was jaw dropping.  I decided to have a go around simplifying the sketch just a bit.  I love the soft patterned paper in the background.  I'll be back on Friday with another card using vellum!  Thanks for a great sketch at Retro Sketch.

I also wanted to share that I'm back at it running again. I'm so thankful for the warmer weather. I've signed up to run the Flying Pig Marathon with two co-workers and Ryan. I'll be the oldest runner in our relay by 20 years.  Think I need to get a move on with my training so that I'm not immensely slower than all of them!  It feels so good to be running regularly again.  I've lost 15 lbs over the last 6 months so this is great momentum to keep me going!

Welcome Kaden!

Happy Saturday my friends!  It's been a really long time since I've posted on a Saturday, but we're here for a very special occasion! Today, we're celebrating Jinny Newlin and her newest little one Kaden! If you ever stop by Jinny's blog, you know what her love of her family is her first priority and she is very blessed with a third little one!  When I originally type up this post, Kaden hadn't arrived yet and he wasn't due to arrive until about 3 weeks from now, but he must have decided he wanted to join the party.  Pop on over to Jinny's blog to welcome Kaden.  He is gorgeous!  

To celebrate Kaden's arrival, we're having a surprise baby blog hop for Jinny!  Julie was nice enough to come up with the idea and organize us all!  Jinny and BJ we are so very happy for you!  Sending you lots of love and happiness!

Please be sure to hop along to the other ladies celebrating Jinny today!

Laurie Willison -www.soapboxcreations.blogspot.com

Angi Barrs - http://cokiepopaper.blogspot.com
Jennifer Turner - www.withlovefromsophienme.blogspot.com
Tracey McNeely - http://inmycreativeopinion.blogspot.ca
Annette Allen - myclevercreations.blogspot.com
Lisa Elton - http://mypapertales.blogspot.com/
Ashley Horton - ashleyhortondesigns.com
Miriam Prantner - http://mprantner.blogspot.com
Monika Davis - www.stampnmad.typepad.com
Leslie Germain - thememorynest.blogspot.com
Julie Tucker-Wolek - http://thetuckerwolekclan.blogspot.com/

Welcome Sweet Baby

I love taking sketches and trying to reduce the number of layers on the sketch.  So...today's card features the sketch over at Just Us Girls.  I masked off all the blue circle and then inked it up to create the oval shape featured in the sketch.  I think stamped the sentiment and border before embossing the sentiment panel. As a final touch, I added the baby die cut.  A sweet little CAS baby card.

What about you?  Layers or no layers as a preference?

Ingredients:

• Simon Says Darling Baby Stamps/Die nd Really Big Thanks
• PaperTrey Ink Linen Impression Plate

{Card Set Inspiration - Day 5}

Good morning and happy, happy Friday!  I'm back with my final card set for the my card set inspiration week.  I think this one is my favorite of the week.  I love all the bright, cheery colors and one of my all time favorite sets, PaperSmooches Reflections.  I made a set of cards using different sentiments as well:  thinking of you and thank you.  This was very, very quick to mass produce these one layer cards.

I also have a baby card to share with you.  Pat's cousin had her first child earlier this week.  A little boy so I wanted to make a CAS boy baby card for her.  I went with a subtle plaid paper and a simple banner to finish of the design. My sketch is from this week's PaperSmooches Sparks challenge.  Hope your weekend gets off to a great start!

 

 

Welcome Baby

 

Today's card is a just because card.  Just because I'm traveling and I don't have any other cards saved off in Blogger that I really like.  Just because I love blogging and I want to post something.   Just because all of those polka dots make me happy. Just because I love PaperSmooches fonts.  Just because I love ribbon and bows.  Just because I've had those Jillibean butterfly stick pins in my stash just about forever.  Just because...

How's that for a post?  Have any fun plans for the long weekend (I hope you get one in your neck of the woods!)  I know I'm really looking forward to it!

Happy Birthday to You

Happy Easter my friends.  I'm off today and the cousins from Pittsburgh have arrived so there will be lots and lots of play time for the boys.  Before our day gets started, I thought I'd share two cards for you.  First up is a card for the current MUSE challenge.  To say I admire this week's MUSE's style is an understatement.  Ardyth is extremely creative.  Her graphic style inspires me.  I follow her on Pinterest and always love to see how she is inspired.  You can tell from my card above and her inspiration below that I followed the layout pretty closely and loved all the colors.  I used an SRM sticker for the sentiment and my new Verve goodies for the flowers.

Two of my co-workers had their first children this week.  I have a baby girl card in my stash, but no boy cards.  So...I quickly got to work on making a boy card following along with this week's Retro Sketch.  Can't say I love this card...but it is out the door!  

Hope you have a fabulous start to the holiday weekend!

Congratulations {and Miami!}

Happy Sunday my friends...I'm popping in with my first card for my guest design spot at The Craft's Meow.  We have five fabulous sets releasing this month.  The first one up is Baby Shelf.  I'll admit to not having a lot of baby stamps.  I'm not sure why, but at the age of 42 most of my friends are past having babies...but I always need baby cards.  So, I was thrilled to get to play with this new set.  I had fun paper piecing that sweet little teddy bear and the coordinating sentiments are fabulous. I decided to frame it with the little scalloped die.  To finish it off I stitched (haven't used my sewing machine in a really long time!) and added a big May Arts ribbon bow.

Be sure to pop on over to The Craft's Meow blog to check out the creations by the very talented design team.   http://thecraftsmeowshop.blogspot.com/

Before I go, I also wanted to share a few pictures from our trip to Miami last week.  I didn't bring my camera, so there aren't a ton to share, but you'll see quickly how beautiful it was!  The two views below are from the hotel pool.    I had two partial days of work on Thursday/Friday, so Pat golfed while a I worked.  It was fabulous to get to know my co-workers and their spouses better and to have time to play. I had a massage on Friday, we spent the day at the beach on Saturday, went on a fabulous boat cruise on Thursday (the picture on the bottom right) and had lots of fabulous meals.  On Friday night, our whole group went out to an open bar in Miami. We had an absolute blast dancing the night away. Anyone who has ever gone to a wedding or bar with me knows that I love to dance!  Five days of spoiling and fabulous time together!

Make a Wish

Oh was I busy in the craft room yesterday...I have a lot to share with you this week...starting off with two cards today!  First up is a card for our niece, Erin, who turns 12 this week!  And along with a little something tucked in the card for her, I'm sending her prayers for a recovery.  She suffered a pretty nasty concussion in gymnastics practice and has been out of school for a week already recovering.  For her card, I kept it very clean and simple and am playing along with the ColourQ Challenge along with the Paper Smooches WCMD Challenge to use pink on a card.

And the second is a baby card (and this was actually a reject from submission...but no worries there) and I'm entering this in the CASology Challenge.  I think these little Verve giraffes are absolutely adorable!

Happy Sunday!  Hope you have a fabulous day!

PS Be sure to stop by tomorrow for a week of Christmas inspiration!

Oh Boy!

Happy Thursday!  Look who has started karate?  Our two little guys, Collin and Marcel, started karate a couple of weeks ago.  Pat has been taking them to their first few classes and I took them on Tuesday night.  First things first, they look so adorable in their uniforms.  Collin is very focused and loving it.  Marcel is definitely paying attention, but he may be just a bit too young to stick with it!  We'll see :)  So amazing to watch them try new things!

Now onto my card...last month I didn't get to play along with the first challenge over on OnCloud9, but I needed a baby card and decided to play along.  I used one of my first WPlus9 sets to create teh borders on the top and bottom edges. Die cut a label and added a Verve Sentiment.  Such a fun layout.  I could layer all kinds of stamps to create the borders :) 

Hope you have a fabulous Thursday...two more days until the weekend!