Go Confidently

My cousin's daughter just graduated from university (in England) and is about to start her first "real" job. I'm thrilled for her as she has done really well with her studies and will be working for a great investment firm.  I'm so pleased for her!  Wanted to send her a quick note of congratulations in the card above.  We were thrilled that Elizabeth (on the right) with my niece, Madeleine, was able to come on vacation with us a few weeks back.  My card features one my absolute favorite sentiments from Verve.

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Popping in with a CAS card to wish my beautiful niece Olivia a happy 14th birthday (one day early but we'll be celebrating with her tonight). She loves, loves, loves horses so this card is perfect for her.  She's growing up right before are eyes and she is such a caring, gorgeous girl.  Love her to pieces.

Love how close she is with the boys  too.  She and Jonathon are 10 months apart and have always been close.  Here they are on vacation a couple of weeks ago. They used to go back and forth on who was taller but he passed her for good about a year ago. She gave him a great big squeeze after this picture.  Love these two! They both got the skinny gene! :)

We did it! {A Half Marathon in the Books!}

 Happy Monday friends, popping in with a card for no particular challenge and pictures from yesterday at Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon. We had gorgeous weather for race day. Warmer than we've had all year.  My niece, Elizabeth, wanted us all to run so despite not training together we've all been keeping up to date on how we've been doing. We were all super pumped up.  Neal and I stuck together for the first 7 miles and then I told him to go ahead when we were going up a huge hill.  Couldn't quite keep the legs going!  We were cheered along by our parents, Pat and a special treat to have my Uncle Danny and Auntie Pat visiting from England (Sandie's amazing mum and dad).  Neal finished up first at 2.07.59 and I came him behind him at 2.14.02. 4.40 better than my previous best. Elizabeth didn't have as much time to train and Cindy stuck with her.  Elizabeth gave us a scare at the end (her temp went up really high...see her in the ice tank below), but most importantly she is okay...and still finished with an amazing time at 2.30.  Love all the smiles!  Happy Monday...another one in the books...not sure I'll do it again! Third time might have been the final!

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Happy Friday my friends.  My beautiful niece, Olivia, turns 13 today!  We were lucky that she and my brother spent this week with us on vacation. The boys absolutely loved having her here. We've had a great week tubing, fishing, jet skiing and playing lots of games.  Olivia is an amazing horse back rider and she certainly loves live. I'm so proud of what an amazing person she is.  A hard worker at school, a great friend and all around gorgeous person.  

Love you Liv!  Happy 13th! xoxo  

PS...this is her card with a gift card tucked inside to her favorite tack shop.

Faith Hope Love

Hello my friends and happy Monday.  The super talented and kind Darnell is the Muse over at the Muse Challenge this week.  I'm sneaking in at the last minute to play along. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month and Darnell's inspiration, I'm playing along using my PaperSmooches dies and stamps.  

I also thought I'd share my pictures from last weekend in New York with my mum and niece, Madeleine. We had an awesome time.  Below are several highlights from our awesome trip:

• First up was the 9/11 Memorial.  A peaceful, beautiful tribute to those that lost their lives on such a tragic and still unfathomable day.
• Dinner in Soho after Madeleine got off work for the day.
• Grand Central Station...amazing architecture. The pictures simply don't do it justice.
• Rockefeller Center. The ice ring is up and skaters were skating!
• Chrysler Tower.
• Madeleine outside the Michael Kors store.  She is interning in their corporate offices this semester.
• Central Park
• Time Square before we went to see Pippen. A fabulous show.

We had an amazing weekend.  Lots of laughing, tons of walking and we saw all kinds of nooks and crannies of New York. Madeleine definitely knows her way around the city. I'm looking forward to seeing her soon when she's home for Thanksgiving!

 

Hello

Hello, hello...we have beautiful, cool weather tonight.  The boys are outside playing and looking forward to only two more days of school until summer!  I had a quick play with this week's MUSE Challenge.  I was inspired by the blues and yellows in Laurie's fabulous card.  At first I tried to ink up stripes, but after three attempts, I threw that card away!  So...I went back to my trusty PaperSmooches dies, a Lil Inkers Polaroid frame and off I went.  Another CAS card in the books.

Before I go, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures from Elizabeth's graduation party.  We had a great time celebrating with her this weekend. Hard to believe she'll be off to Ohio State in a few short months attending their Honors Engineering program...clever girl she is!  Ryan has passed her in height...Jonathon's growing but needs a few more years!

I love this picture of Elizabeth and my mum.  I think you can certainly see the family resemblance!  Hope you have a great Tuesday!

Here's Laurie's MUSE inspiration card...

Hats Off!

Hello there...I had a few minutes after baseball games today to sneak in a card.  I had this little Doodle Bugs graduation cap sticker waiting to be used in my craft room!  The colors on my card are the Ohio State colors so this card will be going to my niece, Elizabeth, in a few weeks as she'll be heading to OSU in the fall.  Erin shared the fabulous pleated May Arts ribbon with me and I had to put it to immediate use.  A very quick CAS card but I think the end result is perfect!   The current Retro Sketch is fabulous.

Hope you are having a fabulous weekend!

 

Elizabeth's Senior Prom

Hello there, I'm popping in quickly to share a card for this week's Retro Sketch.  I'll be giving this to my co-worker who is celebrating his 5th anniversary in a couple of weeks.  I love this sketch...and had a lot of ideas for it so I'm sure I'll be back using it again soon.

Before I go though, I wanted to pop in and share pictures of my amazing nice, Elizabeth.  Saturday was her senior prom and if I do say so myself, I think she looked absolutely stunning!  Her friend, Taylor, did her hair and make up and it was perfect.  I took a few close ups of her hair so that you can see it. In the top right...I love the eyes she is making.  She's had that particular look since she was a very little girl.

 Here are a few more shots of her dress and she and her boyfriend, Allen. He looked very handsome!

I love this picture of my mum and Elizabeth...they were cracking up about how much taller Elizabeth was than her since she was wearing heals. Their smiles make my heart happy!  I feel so blessed to have so many of our family members close by so that we can share these occasions!

Show Choir Weekend

Happy Tuesday my friends!  I'm popping into share a card I made several months ago but it never made it to the blog!  For the background stamp, I used a floral Hero Arts background stamp that the super sweet Anita sent to me as a thank you.  I put several distress inks on a craft mat and sprayed them with water before inking up the stamp.  I love the blend of colors.  Added a few buttons and vintage ribbon from my Nana to finish it off.

And...I am so happy that I'm doing digital Project Life.  Two months in and I have eight pages created.  I'm really considering switching over to this for the boys' albums.  Now that I have very, very basic PhotoShop skills it is going quickly.  So...here are pictures from our show choir road trip1

I had to pull this one out even though it is in the layouts below.  We were just about to leave to go to the hotel and I asked my mum to get with Ryan for a picture...do you love how she's giving the star a kiss?  Gave us all a good laugh!

The competition started at 8:30 in the morning and we got there around 1:30. Ryan's group was performing at 3:30.  Here we all are enjoying the show (on the right hand side).  It's really like going to a rock concert as great music is played in between the shows too...and the groups will get up and dance and sing to whatever they are playing.

Ryan's group came in 2nd for their division during the day and placed 5th overall (out of 15 or 16 groups).  The groups at this competition were the best I've ever seen, so I was super pleased that they made it to the night show.  They performed again at night and came in 5th again.  So pleased for them.  We really didn't see Ryan much at all during the day as after they perform they go to video review and before they perform they warm up for a good hour ahead of time.  I wasn't leaving though until I snapped a few pictures.  

After they performed at night, we went pack to our hotel and yes...we enjoyed our bottle of wine! 

{show choir road trip}

We're off on a road trip this morning to just south of Cleveland. Ryan's show choir is competing today and I'm heading north with my mum, sister-in-law, Laura and two of my nieces, Elizabeth and Olivia.  We're really looking forward to watching them and time for the girls to hang out together!

So...how do we prepare for show choir weekends?  Well, here's the text from Ryan on Thursday:

"I need flavor blasted goldfish like last time...pringles...and for drinks can i have vitamin water it has to be screw on caps though...Also i need strawberries for french...And axe hair gel for the night show (: thank you i love you mom your the best! i hope you feel better too...and i'm not sucking up to you(:

The kids all ride up on a bus and it is about a 4 hour drive so they do need snacks, but I have to tell you the hair gel cracked me up.  During the day show he doesn't use hair gel, but if they make it to the finals the girls typically get a hold of the boys' hair and his normally has gel.  I'm not a big fan of it, but did you know that Axe sells all different types:  refined, messy, spiked, charged.  I went with refined...and I did tell him he was sucking up to me!  Thankfully the head cold from early this week seems like it is just about gone.

And how does my mum prepare for show choir weekends?  Email from Thursday night:  Lynn, Do you need me to bring anything for this weekend? (wine?) Love, Mum.  Well, of course, we need some wine (don't worry, we'll have a night cap in the hotel room!

If you've made it this far, you may be wondering about my card!  My card is for my beautiful mum.  Today would have been my parent's 50th wedding anniversary.  We certainly still feel my dad's love everyday, but I wanted her to know I was thinking of her today and we'll have a special toast with our wine tonight toasting the 42 years of wonderful marriage they had before my dad passed away.

My card was inspired by the fun colors and patterns on the Muse card for this week.  I think the sentiment is perfect for today.

 

Christmas Eve {and Dare to Dream card}

I have hundreds...and hundreds of photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...so I thought I'd pop in and share a few.  Here are the first few shots from my mum's house.  The after church photos (before the little boys started to change out of their "handsome" shirts).  Olivia and Jonathon are in the upper right hand corner.  They've gone back and forth over the years in height.  Right now Jonathon is a couple inches taller.  We'll see how long that lasts!

Then Christmas dinner with our annual Christmas Crackers...followed by the children anxiously awaiting present time.  Olivia loved her iPod case which was a horse - love that face!  You can see Marcel changed shirts into one of his presents...Ryan got a yukele and my mum is showing off her earrings Madeleine made...then last but not least the kids are playing their new game Headbands.

Of course if wouldn't be Christmas if you didn't model your new gifts.  Madeleine shows her new black coat (perfect for her internship in Alaska), Marcel shows off his machine gun (I wish you could hear him imitate the sounds!) and Elizabeth is showing off her new coat too.  The top right is all the cousins together!    So blessed to be surrounded by our families for the holidays.  I'll be back with pictures from Christmas day soon.

And before I go, I had lots of craft time yesterday and today...which I am so thankful for.  I simply love to create.  I have a super quick card using Verve's Borderline set and the current ColourQ palette.  This card will go to my niece, Madeleine, who will start her first internship in January for her fashion design major.  I'm so proud of her!

 

Super. Amazing. Spectacular.

Happy Friday my friends.  Are you gearing up for the new year?  As long as everyone is healthy here, we'll be having our family over tomorrow for Christmas brunch.  But...I wanted to pop in a share a card along with an amazing Christmas gift.   The card above is going to my niece, Elizabeth.  She is incredibly talented.  Over the summer, I took pictures of Ryan at his All Star tournament and asked Elizabeth if she would do an oil painting of him.  She actually saw Ryan standing on the fence and quickly came over and said, "Auntie Lynn...take one of him there!"  Without Ryan knowing, Elizabeth has been working on this over the last few months.

I love Ryan's facial expressions as he is opening it up. So cool!

Look at the pride on Ryan's face...and check out Marcel's face...what a crack up!

And here's the best one!  The artist showing off her painting!  So proud of Elizabeth's incredible talent.  And Ryan has a life long gift.   Truly amazing!

And here's a close of up the picture...click on it to see all the incredible details.

And last but not least...to show how talented Elizabeth is...look at what she painted yesterday while she was "bored"!  Beautiful!

Olivia! and Christmas Inspiration: Day 2

Before I get to my cards today, I had to share a couple of pictures of my niece, Olivia. She absolutely loves horseback riding and she had a HUGE competition this weekend.  She just started jumping her horse, Lucy and her mom sent me this first picture from competition practice on Friday night.   It made me a bit emotional.   I'm so proud of Olivia.  Her commitment to learning and riding is incredible!  I love how focused she looks in this picture (and Laura did an amazing job capturing the perfect photo).

And first of all, she looks so adorable in her full dress for her competition.  But, her hard work paid off!  She took first out of eleven in her jumping class and third out of eleven in her flat class!  Incredible!  I'm so proud of her!!

For my Christmas inspiration today, I have two different cards with the same stamps, but slightly different layouts.  I love blues and browns together on snowflake cards.  What about you?  Do you have a preferred color combo for snowflakes?  Which layout do you like better?  On the first one I wish I stamped the sentiment in black versus chocolate!  Oh well...still keeping it!!

 

Runway Inspired Thank You and My Talented Niece

Hi there.  We are having a super busy week here...so I'm popping in really quickly to share a card for the Runway Inspired Challenge. I loved the plaid and used my Hero Arts Envelope Background stamp to stamp a plaid inspired pattern.  Kept it ultra CAS!

Now...I have to have a bragging moment on my niece, Elizabeth.  She is an amazingly talented oil painter.  Look at this gorgeous ballerina that she painted.  Isn't is absolutely beautiful?  I am in awe of her talent!!  And I adore the monochromatic feel of this.  So stunning.  

 

Back Flips & Under Dogs!

As promised yesterday, I'm going to have lots of pictures this week!  On Saturday, Marcel kept asking for me to "under dog me on the swing Mommy."  I was going to give it a try, but wimped out and put Jonathon up to the task.  I think he did it as least ten times.  In the last month or so, Marcel can now swing on his own!  My little guy is growing up!

Thankfully there was lots of room to practice gymnastics, dance routines, wiffle ball and throw the football!  It took me about ten tries (and she was game to keep on going) for me to catch Erin mid flip!  They come to Cincinnati every 3 to 4 months and every time she is here she has a new skill to show me.  I am in awe of her talent!

 So...I'm way behind on making thank you notes for Ryan's birthday and I have to admit that I'm a fanatic about my boys writing thank you notes for their birthdays or other celebrations.  When I saw this week's Play Date Cafe Challenge, I thought it would be the perfect color combo to make a set of thank you notes. Eight in total and they were super easy using The Craft's Meow Typically Teen set (yes...you will still be seeing a lot of this!) and a quick PaperSmooches sentiment.