Who doesn’t love a little CASADIA, especially on Valentine’s Day?! I am joining in on Wida’s fun card chain today. This began way back when Jennifer Rzasa CASE’d Laura Bassen, and then Wida CASE’d Jen… kinda of like a paper form of the game of telephone. Dozens of cards later…here I am!

My spot in line comes after Nora Noll, who made this card:

What I really love about Nora’s card is the general layout and the Valentine’s theme, so I grabbed the Simon Says February Card Kit and went to work. Right away I knew I wanted to use the doily and the envelope to mimic Nora’s circle and tag layering, but I used ribbon as my vertical element instead of stamping and diecuts as she did. I also decided to stamp the long sentiment alongside the ribbon too.

It took me a few tries to get the flower and ribbon to look right to me. There were a few failed attempts at a bow, then a knot, and then I decided on the layered ribbon look, adding some crochet thread behind the flower as well. The finishing touch were the three small blush pearls in the bottom corner.

Thanks so much for having me, Wida! If you would like to learn more about CASADIA or Wida, head on over to her blog here!

Happy Valentine’s Day!
Suzanne

I am reporting from storm central with a card for this month’s Cloud9 Blog Hop, which starts today at 10am. I have been passing the time with cooking, crafting and QVC (because normal TV has ceased to exist with all the network coverage of the snow). This month’s inspiration photo was a fun one for me - the simplicity in each of the treat bags, as well as the stripes in the background, are what I tried to incorporate into my card.

I used two different Wplus9 sets on my card: Background Builders, Hearts and Love You More, as well as the Timeless Tags die.

I hope you’ll join in on all the fun…the hop lasts for three days, so you have plenty of time to join us.

XO,
Suzanne

What a happy post this is - I am over-the-moon excited to tell you that I am this week’s Guest Designer at the Muse Card Club!

I didn’t get a chance to play along with the first Muse challenge, but was totally inspired by Amy Kolling’s use of flowers in her Muse card last week. Since Raspberry Fizz is my all-time favorite color to craft with, I started with a piece of cardstock and went through my patterned papers until I came across the matching American Crafts XOXO stash. As it turns out, I did not use any stamps or bling or ribbon on this card!

The top edge of the card was cut using an oval Nestabilities die. It was pretty easy to do, but in case you’re still not sure, I made a quick video for you:

The photo of my card has been removed because the card is out for publication. Thanks so much for looking!

I hope my card inspires you, and that you’ll interpret my project in your own special way and join in on the fun this week! Will you choose the layout? The colors? The hearts or flowers or arrows? The patterns? I can’t wait to see what you make!

Many thanks to Jackie and the Muse Card Club for having me this week! I feel so blessed to be a part of this new journey and a member of this fantastic card club!

Suzanne

We’re getting closer to Valentine’s Day and I thought it would be fun to make some cute treat bags for my post on the Neat and Tangled blog today. For all the details, please head on over to check it out!

Before I go, though, I want to let you know about a very special card drive being organized by Danielle Walls, owner of Neat and Tangled, on behalf of one of her friends.

Just before Thanksgiving she heard the news that a girl she went to high school with and her family had embarked on an incredibly difficult journey. They had discovered that their sweet little 2-year old boy, Grayson, has a tumor on his brain stem. Since then they have been on a roller coaster ride, and this is only part of the journey. Grayson will begin chemotherapy this month as the next stage of his treatment. Through all of this, the family has stayed strong, hopeful, faithful and positive, and Grayson is a strong and spunky fighter. Grayson’s mom, Jackie, has a blog she keeps updated regularly, so you can get to know more about Grayson HERE.

Danielle wants to light up Grayson’s life with some serious happy mail! She talked to Jackie, and found out that Grayson and his brother love to get mail…so, here we have the Happy Mail for Grayson Card Drive.

Grayson is super lucky to have a big brother, Aydan, who is 4, so please be sure to send some awesome cards to him too! These boys love all things “boy”: Rescue Bots, Geotracks, Angry Birds, Thomas the Train. Send these little men funny, happy, cards! We all know how much love goes into a handmade card, and even better how personalized they can be!

The drive will run from January 21 - February 28; if they arrive late because they are International that’s okay too!

I’m sure Jackie and the rest of the family is also spending lots of time in the hospital, too…and I may send her some happy mail as well.

Thanks very much!
Suzanne

My card is out for publication….

Today’s my first post for Design It Monday at Precious Remembrance where I’m so happy to be sharing a Valentine’s Day card that I made using the Thanks Stamp Set. If you’d like to read more about how I made my card, please head on over the Precious Remembrance blog.

Thanks to everyone who left comments about my very first video…I am glad you all seem to like my accent. Have a wonderful week!

Hugs,
Suzanne

I am throwing my hat into the ring for this month’s CARDS Blog Challenge, which is to create a card using Chartreuse, Aqua and Light Grey.

I used the Paper Heart collection from Crate paper and Love You More from Wplus9 to make this card. I diecut and glittered the hearts to make the banner using a Xyron and added some matching pearls to finish off the card.

There’s still a little time to join in on the challenge - and there’s an awesome Paper Smooches prize up for grabs!

Thanks for stopping by!

XoXo,
Suzanne

It’s the 9th of the month, so that means it’s time for another Cloud9 Blog Hop! It starts today at 10am EST and runs for 3 days. Here is this month’s inspiration photo:

I decided to use the color scheme to make a non-traditionally colored Valentine’s Day card, just to show that you don’t always need to make a card for the theme shown in the photo. I also had the Scrabble letters in my stash from a trip to my local stamp shop last summer, and was excited to use them on this card:

I used much less silver than I had originally had hoped to but I still love how this turned out. The mini dots in this patterned paper from Studio Calico are so cute, and I used up some metal bling from one of my Christmas kits to add in some silver. I also made the cream tag on my own using a combination of other dies.

I hope you will join us for our first hop of the New Year!

Suzanne

I decided to make a non-traditional Valentine’s Day card this week:

There are boatloads of goodies on here from Ribbon Carousel, including the lace ribbon, the twine and the stick pins {{swoon}}! Please see below for a list of the other supplies… and have a great day!

I just wanted to let you all know about a really awesome card drive that is going on through the end of this month. Winter Sims is collecting cards for St. Jude Hospital, Vanderbilt, Texas Children’s Hospital, and St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

I stamped a stack last weekend and I am hoping to mail them off by Saturday:

It would be great if you could participate too! Please be sure to read the list of guidelines found in this post, which is also where you can find the mailing address. Winter is giving away prizes that have been generously donated by many companies; if you would like to donate too, please contact her at wintersims1 at aol dot com.