Just in Time!

This will be short on deets to make the deadline, but I'm happy to make the Blog Hop this month. Thank you so much, Tina, for the reminder tweet! :) We were away for the long weekend and just got back this afternoon. So I just whipped up this card so that I could join in on the fun.

The theme was autumn and we were supposed to include texture. We have this wonderful bush outside our house, which served as my inspiration piece. I think it came out well all things considered - LOL.

Thanks so much and I can't wait to see all the wonderful creations! :)

TIC #6 - Better Late than Never

So it's a bit late, but I was inspired by the wonderful photo from TIC #6 to create this card. After a busy week last week, that left little time for creating, I was glad to get some time to craft last night. Such a great way to wind down a day, right? ;)

My inspiration starting point this time was the arches, which made me think of this oldie, but goodie from SU. I remember when this doodle set was all the rage. I still love pulling it out and using it (hence why I have a hard time parting with any of my sets - I still have almost every set that I have ever bought!). I love the line art look of this set. I colored it with copics that I drew from the pic - purple, grey, green and the pops of pinky-red from the flowers. I love purple... I need to use it more often - so thanks for the inspiration, Tina.

Off to work - hope that you have a great day! :)

Happy, Happy Day

Hello, hello and good morning! Little neglectful (think I just made up a word!) of the blogette, but I did have a card for this morning. I've been working on thank you cards for my littlest's birthday party from a couple weeks ago, and it is a bit slow going... but I'll get there eventually. So I have yet to get to any challenge cards this week (maybe tonite...).

I made this card over the weekend for a birthday party that one of my kiddos is supposed to go to today from 11-2. Well, I say "supposed" to, because he was invited. But unfortunately, he won't be going. Now I know there is no rule that birthday parties HAVE to be on the weekend, but it makes it very hard to partake when it is in the middle of the day during the work week - and you (meaning me, in this case) work. But then again, it's their party and you can have it when you want to, and there is a great part of the population of SAHMs and kiddos that are able to take advantage of it ... I'm just not one of them - LOL! Plus it's the summer, so I do get it in the whole scheme of things. So no complaints - luckily this doesn't happen too much so the kids don't often miss out. I'll be dropping off the gift at some point this week - just not during the day!!

Anyways, I hope you have a great Wednesday, no matter what you are doing! We're almost to the back half of another week already...

Mind your manners...

And say thank you.

It's been a few days, but tonight I have been spending my time saying thank you (well, actually making cards that say it) to all the wonderful camp counselors that have taken great care of my kids. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I can never say thank you enough to these wonderful peeps that teach, entertain and play with my kiddies while I'm at work. Can't believe the summer is on the back end already. Tomorrow is the last day of camp and then we enter the part of the summer when we have to piece together coverage through weekly camps until I am off for the last 2 weeks before school starts back up again. Gotta get creative since I can't take 4 weeks off (could you imagine?? LOL)

This will be a quickie, so here is one of the cards I made. Used a little Basic Grey goodness to pretty much make this card and finished off with a PTI sentiment, nestied Enchanted Evening CS and some buttons. Gets the message across, no?

Well, off to bed... it has been a long week for me work-wise. Lots of late nights to get everything done (altho it never is "done," it seems, but such is life, I guess). Looking forward to the weekend... but then again, who doesn't ;)

Beach Inspired Birthday...

Whew- how weekends just fly by!! I felt like it was Friday evening... and then I blinked, and now suddenly it's Monday night.

This past weekend, we celebrated my littlest one's 4th birthday. We celebrated a month later due to the hectic baseball schedule that ruled our schedules for most of July. I wanted to pick a date that I was sure we'd have all 5 of us free. Have to give everyone their time and I am a firm believer in celebrating birthdays to the fullest - after all, you just get one a year. And at the age that my boys are, there aren't very days that are more important in a year ;)

But I did make a point of carving out some time last night to get inspired. We had a beautiful pic for this week's TIC. Can you imagine having this scene out your front door? It is certainly different from the view I had in suburban America as well. The closest thing that I've seen like it in person was in Hawaii on my honeymoon. What an amazingly wonderful place to visit. We keep talking about going back, but we laugh as there is a part of us that doesn't want to go back for fear of ruining the image of Utopia that we have built in our memories. It probably will be quite different going back to visit with 3 kids - haha. I'm definitely NOT to the point where I'd be ready to eave the kiddos for an extended period of time. We've only taken one airplane trip without them, but we were still on the continental US.

Anyway, so back to the card... the first thing that jumped out at me was of course the color of the ocean and sky, but also the tropical foliage in the bottom right corner. I'm guess that is palm leaves and some other tropical plant. So those are the main elements that I used to create my card. I used this SU die of the branches and leaves and layered it on two different shades of blue. The color looks like a light blue closer to the shore, which I mimic'd with the bitty dots paper on the PTI EE card stock. And lastly I stamped the sentiment in vintage cream... like sand.

And there you have it. Thanks, Tina, for the challenge and thanks, Claudia, for the inspiration pic :)

Every Day... (RSCC13 &2S4Y)

So, quick post, then I have to be getting to bed. Way too many late nights in the last few weeks (I'm due for a 9pm early bed time re-charge soon), but I do enjoy down time each night after work, no matter how late my down time starts. On a night like this, I just sit, relax and enjoy the silence while I am making a card or scrapping a page. No music needed at all. I wonder if I am the only one who will trade in much needed sleep just to have an hour or so to myself before turning in for the night...

Back with another Raspberry Suite challenge and this time I combined it with my first try at a 2 Sketches 4 You sketch. I had heard and read about the sketches from perusing all the other blogs, but decided I would try it after seeing Sharon's card (Paperfections) today. Love those apples! So about my card... I had a slightly different take on the sketch since the vertical panel had the sentiment and I didn't want to cover it up. So I just put the oval behind it. But all the pieces are there!

I made this for my husband's cousin's daughter (still following me?) who graduated from high school this year. We couldn't make it to her party (baseball game!), but still want to make sure we send her a congratulations gift.

She's off to college next year. Ahhh to be heading off to college. I remember that time for me like yesterday (even if it has been way longer than that - LOL)... what a wonderful time in my life... my history. Too bad I don't realize it fully at the time (does any 18 year old?). But you know what they say about hindsight... Do you ever wish to go back and do any of your life again? Part of me wishes I could go back, but in the end, I wouldn't change anything I did or really want to go back. My life TODAY is a wonderful gift and I can't imagine not being exactly where I am. So my goal is to work hard to enjoy each day to the fullest, because in the end you never get any of it back anyway...

Ok - that was a random tangent... this was just supposed to be a grad card! Definitely time for me to head to bed! Later.

WSC 90 (almost!)

Hello, hello! Checking in with my try at WSC 90. This is one penguin who is very secure with his inner penguin! I wanted to dust of this guy this weekend to make a birthday card for young girl. So I figured that a healthy dose of pink, with some green would do the trick. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it - LOL!) And of course you can't forget the purple pail.

I used the sketch as a guide and pretty much only deviated in that I used a circle for the main image instead of the oval. The penguin wouldn't fit in an oval, so that made that easy. ;)

On a side note, I can't believe it is only Monday... Well, it just means there is that much more week to enjoy LOL (again, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Trying to enjoy the moment - no matter what kind of a moment it is). Have a good one!

Deets: Inky Antics Penguin; PTI - Birthday Basics (sentiment); CS: PTI: Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet and White, PP (can't remember where it's from since it was a scrap); Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Other: Prismas & Gamsol, Copics, Sweet Blush Ribbon, Nestie