PTI Blog Hop May

Even though I am in the midst of making banners, wine tags, decorations and a cake topper for my son's wedding next week, I managed to find time to participate in this months blog hop sponsored by PTI.
The inspiration this month was:

 

 I focused on the colors, the hydrangea and the checkerboard pattern.

 The checkerboard design is made from 1/2 inch squares. The hydrangea is from Stacey Stamps. The leaves of the stamp are actually colored with green Copics (YG 93, YG 95) that just happened to photograph as brown. There are 2mm pearls sprinkled on the hydrangea which was stamped in Simply
Chartreuse and then lightly shaded with a green  pencil to give the petals a greenish tinge.
Thanks for stopping by.

Retrosketches # 11

 I've been eyeing the sketch this week at the Retrosketches' blog.

                                                                       Just love it!
                                                    The best part is I got to play along. At last!

   Seems like I am on a purple kick lately. The flowers from Life are stamped in Winter Wisteria and Heliotrope (Versa Color) You can't see it in the photos , but I used Patina Glimmer Mist in the background of the Mat Stack. It really turned out lovely. This was the firs time I used the technique of having the droplets fall onto the CS instead of spraying directly onto the card stock.  Somehow I even managed to get an even distribution.

    Thanks for taking the time to peek at my card.

Vroom Vroom!

My grand-nephew turns 1 at the end of the month. Although he is too young to appreciate a spinner card, I made one for him any way.  This is the first time I have used the Pure Poppy/Blueberry Sky combination that I have seen so many people use.

   An up close shot of the sentiment.

   Can you guess what I am getting him for his birthday?  My sister informed me he LOVES trucks.  I think a fire engine will work.  Here's the tag I made to accompany the card & gift.  Since I didn't pick out my wrapping paper yet, I held off on the ribbon for the tag.

     Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

  Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I hope you have a nice relaxing day and get the opportunity to spend some time with your family. We celebrated Mother's Day last night. My son was in town with his fiancee so my daughter & her family came for dinner. Holidays and special occasions can be stressful for my daughter as her in laws live in the same town I do. I know she wants time as a family with her girls/husband. So I thought it would be easier for her to celebrate Mother's Day on Saturday with me and let her visit her MIL on Sunday.  We had a great dinner and more importantly family time.  To me the best present in the world is Family Time.

 This is the card I made for my daughter celebrating her day as a mother. She is an awesome mom.  So loving, caring, patient, gentle, kind: I could go on forever. Her daughters are truly blessed as am I.

      I stamped the background with Garden Variety additions using Simply Chartreuse and Winter Wisteria inks from PTI.. The sentiment is from Delightful Dahlia.

   At the last moment I decided to add the Tiny Tag heart as I wanted to include a heart somewhere on this card.

Just a little something on the  inside of the card to make it extra special.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek.

Triplets!!!

   The  assistant principal at the school I work is expecting triplets this summer. On Thursday we had a baby shower.  Most of the gifts were diapers! This is the card I made to go with my gift (3 sleepers).

 I had to add the "s" to gift.  Of course there had to be a tag too.

Thanks for stopping by.

A Pocket Full of Cash

    My twin nieces celebrated their birthday earlier in the week.  Being teenagers I thought they would prefer cash instead of the usual gift card. The layout is the same for both cards, but the background papers are different.
                                        Card #1

   I created my own pocket cutting a 2.5" by 2.5" template. I used my sewing machine to add some stitching. Since teenage girls love bling, I used rhinestones to create the design on the pocket.

                                  Card #2

 An up close shot. I created a tag using the sentiment 'celebrate' from Mixed Messages.

 

 Thanks for stopping by.

So Proud of You!

  This is the card I made for my SIL to congratulate his accomplishment in finishing the Flyin Pig Marathon he ran on Sunday. He was disappointed as he did not qualify for the Boston Marathon. He ran the race in 3 hrs and 14 minutes. He needed to do it in 3:10.  Nevertheless, I am still proud of this accomplishment. I couldn't even run a mile without stopping.

  This card is familiar to the one I made for my son's birthday. I just changed the orientation, the sentiments and the frame. This is the sentiment under the zipper.

  A close up shot. The 'pull her'e is something I lifted off of clip art and reduced as I never bought the stamp set.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Mother's Day

     Happy Wednesday! Wow! This week is flying by. I hope it continues that way for Thursday & Friday.  I started making a Mother's Day card for my MIL last week.  I knew that I would use some of the elements from this card created by Ashley Newell.  It sat on my desk for several days since my housekeeping chores took priority.

  I love this lace I had in my stash. It fits perfectly behind the banner.

  I felt this card needed some depth so I propped up the flowers using those itty bitty pop dots.

     Thanks for looking.  Hope your week is flying by too (unless you are on vacation!)

Flying Pig.

My son-in-law, Mike, is participating in The Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati on Sunday. He'll be running 26.2 miles in about 3 1/2 hrs. Whew! I am just tired thinking about it. My husband, daughter, grandchildren and I will cheer him on along various points of the course.  Actually, it is a lot of fun.

Back in November, my daughter was cleaning out some closets and found quite a few of his running bibs from previous races. She suggested that it would be nice to make a "Bib Book" I thought this was a great idea and wanted to do it as a Christmas Gift.  However, short on time, the book  never materialized.  My daughter suggested that it be given to him after he completes the Flying Pig Marathon.
     She picked nine bibs and made them into this book.  Here's the cover.

 My daughter came up with the title. I found the quotation. I tried to add a shilouette of the runner to the right of the words, but had so much difficulty lining up the words & footprints; so I scrapped the idea after fooling around for 20 minutes.

This first bib dates back to 1992 when my son-in-law was a sophomore at Turpin High School. This was the bib for districts. Unfortunately, he was an alternate so he didn't run in that race. Qualifying as an alternate was very meaningful to him though.

The next bib is from a 5K sponsored by a neighboring town. My son-in-law tries to run in it every August as he gets to see many former classmates and old friends.

Every May Cincinnati has a marathon.  It is called The Flying Pig.  Cincinnati was once known as Porkopolis because of its long history as a pork processing center. Thus the name Flying Pig.  The inaugural race was in 1999. 

 

Mike really improved his time in a year.

  One of his many generic bibs from numerous races.

This one is from the Columbus Marathon in 2006.

The next two bibs are from a 10 K race that Cincinnati sponsors every Thanksgiving. Mike has been running in it along with his brothers for years. This might actually be the first time he ran in this race as he was a junior in '93.

 

My son-in-law coaches the Cross Country Team at the high school where he teaches.  Every year he has 1-3 boys qualify for state.  For the first time last year, coaches were given bibs. My daughter thought it would be nice to add this one to the collection.

 This page was intentionally left blank as I will add the bib and data from the race he runs Sunday.

I can't wait to give this to him. I know he is going to love it.Thank you for looking.

Retro Sketches #9

Love the challenge this week at Retrosketches  Since I need to make a birthday card for my niece, I thought this sketch would be perfect. Nothing really creative; but I do like the color combination I used. As usual, I'm submitting it just under the wire.

 

A close up shot of the flowers, butterflies and embossed strip.

 

  If I were to redo this card, I would probably remove the tiny butterfly at the top left. It just makes the layout too busy. I would love to take it off, but then there would be a glue spot. So it will have to do for now.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek.