USA Pride

I made this card while I was thinking of my brother Jason.....he is such a great brother. He is brave and strong. I love him very much. I miss him too......I have not seen him in several years. The military moved him to Alaska, and he has served in Iraq several times. He is there now.....he will be there till September. This is his 3rd tour over there...... I think of him when I think of Freedom, Pride, and the great USA and why I am proud to be an American and to live here in such a wonderful country!
I am proud of my brother and I know that if you could meet him, you would just love him too! I am reflecting on great memories and fun times with my brother Jason. He is a great hero to me.

My brother.......My friend. I love you Jason. xxxoooo

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge #8 with Dawn McVey

Dawn is back with another great color challenge! These colors are sooo soft and work very well together! :) Very Nice!!

My card starts with a Cream Card Base. I used this pretty Bright Pink paper from Me and My Big Ideas! I Love this DP! It's soooooo yummy! I also broke out my American Crafts Thickers in Kraft for the sentiment and my American Crafts Darling Accents for the fical point of the card.
I used my scallop punch from SU! and punched the bottom of the card and the DP. I used Chocolate ribbon form SU! for the top of the card. I rounded the top of the dp with my Round Corner Punch. That is pretty much it on my card! Fast and Fun!

I have had to play catch up on my sleep this weekend....and I am still making Father's Day cards that I will share with you all later.....so this was fun and fast card today. The deadline is tonight at 9pm.....so I had better get over to Dawn's blog and get this card posted! I never wait this close to the deadline to play along......but sometimes sleep is the most important thing!!! :) Ya know what I mean!!?? LOL! Have a great Sunday everyone and be sure to comment if you get a chance to stop by!! :)

A Birthday card for Nita....

This card is for a friend of mine that I met through Janet.
This is a Birthday card for Nita. Nita is such a sweetheart!! I have made several cards for her and for her to give to other people. :) She loves my cards and I am sooo thankful for her!! :)

The floral papers and the homemade flowers are SU! The dark green paper is Bassil Swiss Dots papers. The brads inside the flowers are from Bo Bunny. That beautiful ribbon is from my SIL, Nathalia. She gave it to me a while back and I can't remember who makes it....but it is soooo pretty! The flowers were made with my SU! Scallop Punch.....and I have tried looking for the original post that these cuties came from....and have not been able to locate it yet.....but I am going to keep looking!! It's super easy and the flowers are just adorable!
Happy Birthday Nita....
I hope that you have a wonderful birthday and a blessed year! You really deserve it!

For a Dear Friend......for Courage and for Strength...

Here is another card that I made for my dear friend and co-worker Janet. She has been fighting Breast Cancer for well over a year.......and this is another chapter in her life that she will add to her story.
This card is to wish her Best Wishes for her next step in her journey. She has decided to have a Mastectomy and continue to fight this disease. She decided to do this because she is a strong and brave woman who almost died twice during her fight and has a strong desire to live.





I am proud of my friend for taking this next step and to keep fighting.
I love you Janet and I am proud of your courage and your strength.

And here he is.....Sweet Niko! :)

I finally found time to post pics of Niko! He gave his poor mama a pretty hard and long 9 months.....but boy oh boy......he is such a sweet baby boy! :) This first pic here is of Barbie, Amanda, and I. Barb was having contractions here.....pretty strong ones too...but you would never know it. This woman is something else! I truly have a whole new respect for my friend. She handled the pain like a trooper! She is amazing and I am very proud of her!
Amanda is also a great friend of Barbs and we saw her all the way through the birth. A whole 26 1/2 hours of labor!! I was honored to be there with her and I will NEVER forget this experience.
Here is Barbie and Niko together for their first pic! :) He is so sweet and beautiful! Barb looks amazing after everything she had just been through. I love you both very much!! :)xxxooo


Here is Nick, the proud papa! You guys did good!! Congratulations to you both for such a precious blessing!

And here is Niko with his new favorite Auntie Kimmie!! I am so very proud of this little man! Thanks so much Barb for allowing me to be a part of this amazing experience. I love you all so very much and I pray blessings and love to you and your beautiful family!! xxxooooo

Welcoming Niko......

I had to make these for Barbie's new little bundle of joy!! He is not here yet.....but Niko is going to be here Tuesday or Wednesday.....Yay! I know Barbie is ready!! He has been giving her a really hard time these last 9 months!! But I know he will be such a joy when he gets here!!!

I will be going up to the hospital tomorrow evening to be with her and her family. I am sooo excited for this little guy to arrive.....I have made him several cards already....but I wanted to make him something for his room. So I decided to make him a Personalized Shadow Box. I also made him another card!! (I couldn't resist!)

I will take these up to the hospital tomorrow to give to Barbie. I was not sure what colors to use, Barb has not decided on colors yet.....so I went with Parisian Breeze SU! paper.....It is perfect for a baby! The Chipboard is also SU! that I painted with Acrylic Paint. The buttons are from my stash and the ribbon is Grosgrain from SU! I used my SU! Scallop Punch to add some details.......It looks sooo cute and I just know that Barbie and Niko will LOVE it!

(Here is a pic of the frame outside of the glass)
The card is simple. I used just Blues for this one.....but the paper is all from the same Parisian Breeze SU! line. Those clouds are so precious! I also used Grosgrain SU! Ribbon on the card......it just screams "Baby" to me!!! The Sentiment is from the March Sale a bration, Congrats!

I ordered so much stuff in March that I think I have every Sale a bration set in that mini! LOL! :) But that is definatly a good thing!

Ok...well I have to get some rest.....I have been as busy as a bee making all of this stuff! I have to rest up so I can be there for Barbie. I am so excited that she wants me to be in the room with her when she has Niko! I have never been on that side of the hospital bed before! It's going to be great! And I will definatly be posting some pics of the little guy just as soon as I can!! :) Have a great week! Thanks for stopping by!

Liberty and Justice For All......

The gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery are graced by U.S. flags on Memorial Day.


This is why we take this day on Memorial Day, to remember what our Armed Forces have sacrificed for us to have Liberty.

My brother is in the Army. His name is Jason S. LaBreck. He is in Iraq right now fighting for MY Liberty. He is fighting for all of us to be Free and to remain Free. He is fighting with thousands of men and women who fight for our Liberty every single day. That is what they do. That is how they keep us Free.

I want to say Thank You to all of the men and women who are fighting for me and my family to be Safe and Free in the country that we live in. I want to say Thank You to all of the men and women who have died to protect my Liberty.
I say a prayer for the families that have lost their heros. And I say a prayer today for the bravery of men and women who continue to fight. To be safe and to always remember what your fighting for. LIBERTY. May God Bless you as you put yourself in harms way for my LIBERTY. Thank You for that. In Jesus Name. Amen.


Here is a card I made in your honor, Jason.
My Brother. My Friend. My Hero.

CaardVarks Shape Up Challenge Card #2

OK...I know that I already posted a card for CaardVarks Shape Up Challenge here on my blog.......but after looking at all of the beautiful, handmade card shapes.....I felt like I needed to make my own card from scratch. I found this cute Flower Card Tutorial and decided to go with this instead of a pre-cut card.

I started with a white card stock and cute out the card. I inked it up real good with Rangers and distressed the edges to give it a vintage look. I dug out my chipboard and die cuts from K&Co. I love these funky colors and designs!! I stamped the little birdie in Timber Brown Satzon and cut him out and distressed him too!! I added some ribbon from Club Scrap......and that was it!! Fun, easy and oh soooo cute!!

Ok..... Now I feel better. You girls over at CaardVarks are something else!! I really felt like I needed to step it up a bit!! You girls are amazing!! Thanks for inspiring me to push myself and try to keep up with your awesome and creative talent! The other card that I made is posted on CaardVarks also......I posted it as #1. I had to ask my homegirl Nathalia if it was ok for me to post 2 cards. :) She said yes.....so both cards are on there now. Thanks for your help Sistah!! xxoo

I am having sooooo much fun this weekend!!
Thanks for looking!
I am going to see what else I can make........hehehehe! :)

CaardVarks Shape Up Challenge!!

CaardVarks is having a really fun challenge over at their blog!
You must create a card that is not square or rectangle!! Yay! I just had to join in on all the fun and play along! :) Go check it out .......
http://caardvarks.blogspot.com/2009/05/shape-up.html

My card was pretty easy to make I have to admit. SU! has these adorable carousel note cards and they are already made round and scalloped! So, I have been going through all of my papers and pulled out a lot of Club Scrap dp that I have not touched in months. What a shame! They have awesome paper!! So I took out an old kit that I got a few years ago......Its a Father's Day kit and the papers and sentiments are yummy!!! These are some of my favorite sentiments for fathers and men in general. I love this one! :)
I also used some White Thickers that I have from a previous 2Spotted Dogs kit. I added a few glitter flowers from K&Co. to finish it off! Easy peasy!!
Thanks for looking and leave me a comment if you drop by, so I know you were here~ I love hearing from you! :)

~~Creating hugs!! ~~

Raspberry Suite Color Challange #7 with Dawn McVey

Another fun Color Challenge with Dawn!!
These colors are so pretty and look awesome together!! Aren't those flowers pretty? They came from her Garden! :)

For my card I used a White card base. I matched up the colors as best I could. I used Club Scrap papers and SU! Raspberry Suite DP. The flowers are made with my SU! Circle Punches. I used 1 3/8, 1 1/4, and a small punch for the center of the flower. The brads in the middle are from Bo Bunny. The flower petals were made with my flower punch from Marvey. I got this punch on sale at Michael's a while back, this is the first time I have uesd it. It punches out the petals and I adhered them with glue dots. I curled up the edges a bit to give the flowers some dimension. The leaves were made with my Martha Stewart Leaf Punch. The Butterfly is also by Martha.
The bottom of the card I made to look like grass.....it was cut, folded and distressed. I curled up the edges to make it pop. The Sentiment is also SU! and stamped with a combo of pink inks to match the Raspberry dp.
Nice color challenge Dawn! Thank you for the inspiration!!! And Thank you for dropping by! Say hi if you can......I love hearing from you all.
Hope your still enjoying your weekend!! :)