Today it’s time for the SUO challenge, and the theme is Spring. Aren’t we all happy to say hello to Spring and some warmer weather? I know I am!! When I think of Spring, my thoughts turn to early bulbs bursting into bloom and adding some colour to our day. I love to see crocuses opening with their bright purple colour.

It truly is a beautiful day when kindness touches it, and when you get a sneak peak at some gorgeous new Designer Series Paper. My card today is for the Fab Friday challenge that is on right now, and gives you just that.

It’s CAS(E) This Sketch time, and I made a thank you card. People seem to be more casual about sending thank you cards and notes these days, so it is a great way to show how much you appreciate someone, or something they did, and so easy with a beautiful hand made card.

I recently attended a Stampin’ Up! Canada event. It was a business focused seminar, but any time a bunch of demonstrators gather there is bound to be lots of sharing of ideas, both business and creative. I made some swaps to share, because we all love to swap!

It is an exciting time in the stamping world. The new Stampin’ Up! catalogue will go live in June, but before then we have some goodbyes. Today I am wishing a fond farewell to a stamp set that I love, Artistically Asian. I love the beautiful images and encouraging sentiments in this set.

I am often surprised how inspiration comes to us, and how it evolves as we start to create. That is the case with my card for today. The bonus with this card is that I used something from my Box of Bits - always a good feeling!

I love Paper Pumpkin. Who doesn’t want a pretty box full of crafting delight all ready to play with delivered to your door every month. When my box arrives, I drop everything, rush to the door, bring it in and open it up. I’m always excited to see what wonderful project waits for me inside.

The Fab Friday Challenge has FIVE colours for us to play with. WOW! That is like a whole rainbow!!! It doesn’t actually cover all the colours of the rainbow, but it does give us lots of bright spring colours to create pretty cards.

Thank you for stopping by my blog today. This post is part of Kylie Bertucci’s International Blog, and you can vote for my card. The theme for this month is Encouragement. We could all use some encouragement at one time or another, and sending someone a hand made card to give them some support can have an amazing impact and be very meaningful to the recipient.

Any time a card comes in the mail it brings a big smile to my face and warms my heart. That is just one of the reasons I love to make hand made cards. When I give them to friends and family it brings a smile to their face and brightens their day. Sometimes after I have made a card, just looking at it makes me happy.

Last week I posted a new feature - Cut and Create Crafty Cards. You can see the original post here. Today I have some more for you, using some of the pieces that were left over from last time. When we are making cards we end up with strips of left over card stock and Designer Series Paper. Each time we cut our layers, there is a strip left, so what can you do with those?

The Stampin’ Up! Only challenge this week is Celebrations. Such a broad subject, there are so many wonderful things to celebrate, starting with each new day. For today though, my card is for a birthday celebration.

As a crafter of any type, we end up with left over bits, projects half done, and pieces we were going to use in a project, but changed things up and did not. In one of my posts I mentioned I had gathered up all those bits and pieces to make them into cards. While I did use some bits at my last Girls Get Away Weekend, I still have lots of goodies in my box, so I’m going to try to pull some out on a regular basis and make them into something!

The sun is setting on the city, the sky brilliant orange, red and purple as night time starts to descend, leaving the buildings in silhouette. A lone cyclist rides through the streets enjoying the quiet beauty nature provides. Hopefully you see that captured in my card for today.

I know Father’s Day isn’t until June, but hey I posted a Christmas card recently so surely I can show a Father’s Day card now!! While I was playing with the Geared Up Garage stamp set, I set a goal to use all the stamps, so I made a Father’s Day card to use that stamp.

Welcome to a new feature on my blog, Cut and Create Crafty Cards. These posts give you some great ideas to get your lovely Designer Series Paper off the shelf and actually use it to create beautiful cards. Many of us love the stunning DSP that Stampin’ Up! offers, but many of us also have difficulty cutting it and using it! We want to save it for the exact right project. Unfortunately that often means it sits on the shelf for way too long, and never gets used. I’m here to help inspire you to USE it. You will love the results, have lots of gorgeous cards for your friends and family, and let’s face it, you can always get more!!

Today MSH (My Sweet Husband) and I are celebrating 3 months of marriage! If you have been married for many years, congratulations! Relationships take work, and I commend you on working throgh the tough times. You also know that the early days mean adjusting to new routines, and being with the one you love each and every day. MSH and I are settling in to our new routines very nicely, and I love how our days play out. As newlyweds, we celebrate each passing month, making it our special date day. Of course this is the man that bought me flowers every month we were dating, so his romantic side is not new to me! Each month I make a special card for him to celebrate.

All I can say is WOW, I love this month’s Paper Pumpkin kit. It has a Distinkive stamp set. A what you ask? Distinktive stamps are totally unique and give you photo-realistic style images. They are available only from Stampin’ Up! Distinktive stamps have a special texture that gives added depth and dimension in a single step. The stamp set in the April Paper Pumpkin kit has two of these. A GORGEOUS flower, and a leaf sprig. I couldn’t wait to make the cards!
Click here to join Paper Pumpkin right now, and don’t miss the next amazing collector kit.

I know it is early spring, so I can’t even say I’m doing Christmas in July, but I do have a Christmas card for you today. I was playing with my Stamparatus, and wanted to use a stamp in a non-traditional way, and following my nose (or my stamps, ink and paper), I ended up at Christmas!

If you follow my blog, you have seen cards that I post to various challenges, and today I’m playing along with a new one. I have seen cards posted to the Fab Friday Challenge in the past, but this is the first time I decided to play along, and it is a great one. Here is the card I made to share.

I have had fun making some #simplestamping cards with the retiring In Colours. Today my card combines my two favourite retiring In Colours, Lemon Lime Twist and Fresh Fig, along with one of my favourite fun stamp sets, This Little Piggy. I’m so happy that this stamp set will still be available when the new annual catalogue comes out. It makes great happy and fun cards.

If you follow my blog, you have seen that I am celebrating some of the soon to retire In Colours. Today I have another #simplestamping card for you in Lemon Lime Twist. This is one of my favourite In Colours, and I will be sad to see it go. The blow has been softened a little though, with the new Granny Apple Green that Stampin’ Up! introduced in last year in the colour refresh!

We are moving close to the end of the Stampin’ Up! catalogue year, and that means the 2017 - 2019 In Colours will be retiring soon. I wanted to celebrate some of these colours, starting with Fresh Fig, and some simple stamping. Anyone can make beautiful hand made cards, using very few products, creating quick cards to send to friends and family.

Today I am celebrating another In Colour that will be retiring soon, Berry Burst. I had the perfect opportunity to really showcase this colour for the Global Design Project challenge this week.

In my post on Thursday I mentioned that I was using up bits and pieces of card parts at my Girls Get Away Weekend (GGAW). Some of the bits I gathered had been waiting for a while to be turned into beautiful cards, and have actually retired!! No worries though, they still make lovely cards.

I hosted a Girls Get Away weekend in March, and we had a blast! It is a great time for socializing, crafting, girl fun, and just general de-stressing from our busy lives. Everyone brings whatever craft they want to work on, and we share ideas and inspiration. We have lots of scrap bookers, card makers, those that knit, crochet, read, do flower arrangements, and we had our first quilter at the event in March! It was a wonderful crafting weekend, and I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Spring is in the air - - at least the last few days, although I suspect we will have some more cold weather and probably some more snow. But let’s not think about that for now. Instead, let’s think spring and pretty colours. That’s what I did as I created this card.

I’m off to the Spring Stamp-a-Stack, and I’m totally excited!! We will enjoy a great afternoon of crafting and socializing as everyone makes 16 beautiful hand made cards.

There are dog people, and there are cat people, and there are those that love both. I like dogs, but I am definitely a cat person. I have owned cats for most of my life, and love their unique personalities. My cat Pogo is a beautiful Siamese cat who turned 18 last month. He certainly has a personality, and for the most part he is the boss in our house! He gets pampered and catered to, because after all, he is old!!!