All in One!

Hello!

Day 4, Week 3 over at the Summer Card Camp class.  That means just one more day :(  Man oh man has this class been incredible!  If you are a beginner or a seasoned card maker, there is seriously something for everyone.  I learned so much during the last few weeks and each day came with so much inspiration and so many ah-ha moments!  It certainly got me to stretch myself from my regular style and I attempted some cards that I would have never otherwise made.

Today was challenge day!  And the challenge was to go outside the box - make a card in a style outside your comfort zone.  I felt okay with this challenge, since that is what I have been trying to do for the most of the class.  The colour palette alone this week is outside of my comfort zone!  I decided to use Sketch #2 as well, but took a few artistic liberties!  Since this is the first card I have made for class this week (dog ate my homework??!), I tried to use as many of the techniques and inspiration from the entire week that I could.

Here's the card:

I made this for my Mom's birthday coming up this week.  It does say Happy Birthday inside the card!  The purple did throw me for a bit of a loop at first, but I found a way to incorporate it in without being too over the top.  The Mom in light purple was stamped from a Lawn Fawn set, and the second, overlaid turquoise Mom was another one of my DYI's.  The I Love You is from one of my favourite sentiment sets from Avery Elle.  I have no idea who makes the patterned paper, but it is so pretty.  I got it in a class I took recently at a local store, and it was pre-cut.  It was actually a copic colouring class, and card assembly was optional.  I decided just to bring the pre-cut pieces home and use them on something else - and I thought it worked well with this card.

That's it for me today.  Hope you're having an awesome day!!
Shannon

2/5 Already?!!

Hello!

I just can't believe we are on Week 2 Day 5 in the Summer Card Camp!  Just one more week to go :(  On Friday, some new colour combos were introduced to work with.  I chose to use hot pink, grey, light blue, orange and white (second combo from the top on the left hand side).  I also took inspiration from Kelly Rasmussen, one of the guest artists to create my card.

And here's what I came up with:

Just a little post from me today.  Looking back on my recent posts, this may be a relief to many!  I have been a big blabber mouth lately and my posts have been about a thousand words too long!!  No promises that short and sweet will continue, so enjoy it while it lasts!  Ha ha!!

Have a fabulous Sunday!
Shannon

Challenge? Oh YES it was!!!

Hello!

I'm behind on my homework for Summer Card Class - because I spent way too much time, again, working on this card!  Thankfully, a day and a half later (!), I like how it turned out!  Thursday was challenge day over at class.  And the challenge was to use a holiday set to make a non-holiday card.  I went searching through my Christmas stamp sets, and fairly quickly found a TAWS set that I thought would work.  First I tried embossing them, one by one, to create a background.  Nope, didn't work.  Then embossed them again, one by one, on watercolour paper and tried that.  Nope!  Then I decided to try the rock and roll technique that Maile Belles showed in week one and I loved how it turned out.  That only took a couple of hours.  Not bad.  So now, I had this really pretty background with a giant question mark hanging over it.  I could not figure out where I was going to go for a design.  I tried everything.  Embossing, banners, embossing again, birds, frames, twine, move this here, no, how about there, nope!  Nope, nope and nope!  I was struggling and almost gave up on it.  And then, finally, FINALLY, seriously a day and a half after I started this epic journey, it came together!  And just in time to get the last little bit of outside light to snap my photo tonight before the sun goes down!

Here it is!

And here's the Christmas stamp that I used for the challenge:

A couple of my friends are celebrating Eid coming up.  I thought the background had a bit of an eastern flare, so thought that's what I would do.  One of the hiccups for this card is that there are no Eid stamps - anywhere!  At least not that I know of.  There's Kwaanza and Hanukkah but not any Eid to be found.  And I didn't have any alphabet sets that really worked with the style of this card.  Whimsical just did not fit the bill for this one!  So, I created my own.  I hand wrote Eid on some heavy weight cardstock and cut it out.  It's not perfect, but it will work!  All I can say is that it's a good thing Eid is only three letters long!

Phew, a challenge it was, but I'm glad I finished it!  Going to try to make a card over the weekend using the new colour combos.  Lots to choose from and they are lovely colours.  Hopefully it won't take as long as this one!!

Thanks for the visit!
Shannon

Now that's more my style!

Hello!

Just one more really quick post for today.  Made another card for the Summer Camp Class and used sketch #2 along with the colours for this week.  I'm so happy with the way it turned out.  This time I didn't "force" a style, I just let it happen!  It's so much more "me"!!!

Here's the card:

I used a lot of Paper Smooches on this card.  The hexigons, the "you" and the "are going places" are all PS.  The arrows and "dream big" are from Studio Calico / Hero Arts.  I coloured the hexigons with my Copics and had to do a little creative work to create the PS sentiment.  I was kicking myself again today not having a die cut machine, because the gorgeous "you" die cut from SSS would have been perfect for this.  But I got resourceful and found a PS you, embossed it with white embossing power and then cut it out with a craft knife. 

I made this for a good friend of mine who has an interview next week for her dream job.  I am SO excited for her!  Hopefully the card will be her little good luck charm (not that she needs it!).

Hope to see you again tomorrow!
Shannon

Trying some new things

Hello!

Summer Card Class continues today!  We're half way through, and man, am I going to be sorry to see it end!  But we won't think about that just now!

I tried a couple of new things for my card today.  This one took me a long time to make.  I think because it is outside of my style comfort zone, but I'm really trying to stretch myself with the lessons learned in class.  So it's all worth it!  First new thing to try was a brilliant technique shared by Jennifer McGuire to use a craft knife to create slits in die cuts resulting in added texture.  I never would have thought of this - and wow, does it ever create a cool effect.  Since I don't have a die cutting machine, and obviously no dies, I tried to make this work just using my stamps and good ol' scissors, and it seemed to work!  Jennifer also used distress inks to create her card, but I don't have those either (added to my wish list among the zillions of other things added!).  So I just used regular dye ink with water, and it seemed to do the trick.  The technique was hard to see in the photo of the card itself, so you will see that I took a close-up shot of it so you could see it a bit better.

The other new thing I tried was to create a circle window card.  Again, something that I wouldn't normally do, but I wanted to give it a shot.  I sandwiched some vellum in between the circles too. 

And here's the card:

I think it might be missing something - too much brown???  I did try adding some stamped circles onto an earlier attempt with this card (yup, there were a few re-do's!), like Jennifer did, and like the sketch showed, but they just weren't looking right).  And I also noticed after I took the photo that something was crooked between the polka dot strip and the brown panel, but after spending way too much time on this card, I decided I would not pull it apart (again!).

Hoping to create some more again today!
See you later!!  Thank you so much for coming by!
Shannon

CASEing Kristina

Hello!

I'm catching up on my homework for the Summer Camp Card Class.  Just when I think this class can't get any better, BAM!  It does.  They keep raising the bar every day.  Yesterday, Kristina made a card that I totally fell in love with.  Normally, I don't CASE cards, I like to use them for inspiration and put my own little spin on them.  But today, I just had to CASE Kristina's card. 

Here's mine:

This is the first time I've ever made a circle card.  Probably mostly because I don't own a die cutting machine (I know, I'm living in the stone age!).  But in watching Jennifer's video from yesterday, I was inspired to use things around the house.  So I found a few circular items, traced them, cut them out, and I had all the circles I needed!  Of course, die cutting would have been MUCH easier and faster, and I am on the verge of getting one...hopefully soon!  I also really wanted to try Kristina's technique for creating the background on her smallest circle.  I LOVED how it turned out so thought I would make an attempt myself!  I didn't have the gorgeous floral stamp that she did, so I improvised, and used some images from my Paper Smooches Reflections set and embossed them on to water colour paper.  The I used the same technique that Kristina used (I love how she calls it mushing!), only instead of distress inks, I used regular dye ink, and it seemed to work okay.

Now I'm off to create some more...hopefully be back later today with something else!
Shannon

Ten Minute Challenge and my Film Debut that never was...

Hello!

This is my third post today - if you'd like to see the others, just scroll down :)

Today I did two things I never thought I'd do:
1.  I did the ten minute challenge for my Summer Camp 2 homework (although it took me 15 mins!)
2. I filmed it!!!

Okay, I will first start by saying that this is NOT one of my favourite cards.  But I love it anyway, because I broke out of my comfort zone and went for it, even though I was a bit on the terrified side to do it.

The under ten minute challenge came out on Thursday (and yup, it took until today for me to work my nerve up to do it!) and a whole set of new colour combos came out on Friday.  So I decided to use one of these combos to make the card.  The colours that I chose were grey, coral, hot pink, yellow and sea foam green (at least those were the colours on my screen!). 

As I said, I am certainly not in love with this card.  I went way too heavy on the sea foam green and it just doesn't look complete to me.  But I'm so glad I gave it a try!

Here's the card:

 

Now for the BAD NEWS!  I filmed the video on my iPhone and can't seem to upload it :( .  I'm such an amateur!  So disappointing!  So much for my movie debut!  ha ha!!  You didn't miss much - 15 minutes of unedited raw video with about a thousand "um's" in it!

Thank you so much for checking it out!!!  See all of my fellow summer campers in school tomorrow!
Shannon

Summer Card Class - Catch up: The Artsy Look

Hello!

I'm just catching up on a few things that I wanted to complete for Summer Card Class, Week 1, which I just didn't have a chance to get to until now.  My card today was inspired by one of the guest designers for the class from Day 2 - Tami Hartley.  I just loved her card, and her style.  Even though I tend to lean toward "cute" in a lot of my cards, I do like to try my hand at the artsy look now and then.  I don't feel like it's a natural style for me, but I wish it was, because I LOVE it!!

Here's what I came up with:

I used the colour palette for week one.  The blue background was actually inspired by the technique Shari Carrol shared, also on Day 2, which had me drooling a bit!  Shari used Gelatos (I need some of these!) with water and dragged the colours downward to create a very  cool watercoloured background.  I do have some watercolour crayons, and attempted to create a similar look with them, but it was a bit of a *fail*!!!  So I tried something else.  I took my blue ink pad and dragged it from top to bottom, just like Shari did with her stamp and gelatos, and I really liked the result.  I decided to drag the ink pad across the paper too, to get a little bit of a criss-cross effect.  Then I stamped the flowers from Casual Fridays Stamps, Truth Is set.  I used yellow/orange embossing powder to "colour" the petals, and I also scattered the embossing powder onto the blue background to make it look like it was pollen floating in the air.  I then took a Sharpie, just like Tami did, and outlined the stamped image to really give it a bold look.  I used Liquid Paper (don't ask me why we have this in our house, but it worked like a charm!) to create the painted dot look.  I ran my white gel pen along the black stems of the flowers, added the happy birthday, the xo's (to balance the card out a bit) and the black twine.  And one artsy card was complete!

Hope you enjoyed seeing something a little different!  I really did enjoy making it!
Shannon

TAWS Be Inspired - And I was!

Hello!

It has been way too long since I've had a chance to play the TAWS Be Inspired Challenge.  So I put my Summer Camp projects on hold for just a tiny bit to make a little something for this challenge. 

Here's the inspiration photo:

And here's my card:

Even though it was a bit tedious, I had a ton of fun making this card.  Yup, I punched out all of those grey scale circles in the background and glued them, one by one to the card.  I did the same thing for the little bird, using yellows and a pink tone.  After taking the Summer Camp lessons this week, I realized that I should not have tossed all of that vellum paper I had years ago, thinking the trend was so over!  It is back - big!  When I was assembling the card, I realized that a vellum speech bubble was just what I needed to finish off the card.  So I took a quick trip to Michael's to grab some, came home and did just that! 

And that's it.  A card I would have never made had it not been for these awesome challenges and classes!

Hope you like it!
And hope you're having a good day!
Shannon xo

Summer Camp Class Day 3!

Hello!

Day 3 today of Summer Camp Class!  So.much.fun!!!  This week is focussed on three sketches and one colour palette.  Honestly, at the start of the week, I thought I would quickly tire of using the same colours every day.  But that hasn't been the case.  Each day brings a new challenge, and new inspiration to see the colours in another light.   Today was also full of inspiration from guest artists.  My card today is inspired almost entirely by Laura Bassen's video.  I used sketch #2 again (I'm struggling with #1, but I am determined to use that sketch before the week is through!).

Inspiration from Laura:
- use paper scrap stash to create the panels
- colour bling with copics to match them to your card (who knew?!!)
     - I'm not a big fan of the gems, so I only used a little one on the stork's bag, but had to try this out!
- stitching (I couldn't stitch or sew if my life depended on it, so I had to go with faux!)

Inspiration from Kristina Werner:
- selective inking (she did this on day 1 with her bee antennae, I did it for my stork's feet)
- stitching as well - she did some faux too - phew, I feel better!

And here's the card:

Obviously not a birthday card, so I didn't get a chance to complete the fifth birthday card for my Mom.  But maybe I will have some success with that pesky sketch #1 later and will be able to complete her "order"!

Thanks for the visit!
Shannon :)

Summer Camp Class Day 2!

Hello!

Oh wow, I am loving this class!  Today is Day 2, just the beginning, and already I have learned so much and am making cards that I never would have otherwise.  I love how it's allowed me to stretch myself and think outside my box.   And the gallery is just full of amazing creations!

Today I used, of course, the required colour combo and this time I went with Sketch #3.  I used Jennifer's technique for stamping multiple colours using one stamp.  Originally, I tried it with masking, but masking a chevron, with all the angles, was a bit of a job!  So I changed my mind.  I went with some very old markers that I have for the blue, pink and orange and transferred the colour from the stamp to my paper.  I didn't have a yellow marker in the pack, so I used a yellow ink pad for that one.  BUT, I didn't do any masking.  I just ran the pad along the top chevron line and stamped it.  The previous three chevrons were already "imperfect" and I kind of liked the look, so slopping on the yellow ink gave me a similar effect.  I did mask at both ends though to give me clean lines at the end of the chevrons.

Then I added a few solid hearts stamped in the magenta, and then doodled some black lines around the heart to "artsy" them up a bit!  I wanted the look to compliment the artsy look that came out in the chevrons.  Finished off by heat embossing white on black paper - same thing I did yesterday :)  But I think the pop of black really sets a nice tone for the bright colours.

Enough blabbering...here's the card!

That's four cards done for my Mom now, just one to go!
Hope you like it!
Shannon

Summer Camp Class - Day 1!

Hello!

Today is Day 1 of the Summer Camp Card Class, and I am LOVING it already!  It's three weeks long, and I am so excited about what's to come.  Everything is just so well done, professional and organized.  Oh, and fabulous instructors, tips and tricks, yeah, pretty much fabulous everything!  I completed my homework for today, using the colour palette, and one of the three sketches available to choose from.  I'm hoping to have time to work with all three sketches, but for today's homework, I picked just one. 

Here's what I came up with:

It's a little abstract from the sketch, but the sketch was definitely the inspiration.  I do have a bit of a weakness for speech bubbles, but I've never used this many on one card!  But I kind of liked how it turned out.  As mentioned in yesterdays post, my Mom has asked for five birthday cards.  I've already given her the two I made yesterday, and this one will be on it's way to her soon as well!

Thanks for coming by to see me!
Shannon :)

Two Quick Ones

Hello!

Just popping in quickly to share two cards I made today.  My Mom asked me to make some birthday cards for her, so that's what I did!  She actually asked for five of them - but I only managed to squeak two out this afternoon.  But that's okay, because Summer Camp starts tomorrow, and I know there will be lots of inspiration to complete the other three!

Both cards were inspired by challenges.  The first one was inspired by a "new" challenge that I just stumbled upon, although being that they are on Challenge #117, it's obviously just new to me!  You need to check it out - it is a ton of fun, and I plan to play along again and again!  It's called The Friday Mash.  But, I'm not going to link my card up.  This week's challenge was a Tic Tac Toe, and I chose flowers, colouring and buttons.  But as the card was coming together, I couldn't make it work with buttons.  So I guess mine is just a Tic Tac!  Here it is anyway:

The second card was inspired by the Freshly Made Sketch Challenge #93.  I'm not sure if by adding the large scale bird I stayed true to the sketch, but I couldn't resist - the bird is so adorable!  I'll let you decide for yourself *wink*!!

Here's the sketch:

And my card:

 Just some sweet and simples today, using TAWS and Paper Smooches stamps.  Pretty self explanatory, but any questions at all, just leave me a little note and I will get back to you :)

For those of you starting in Summer Camp tomorrow, I'll see you there!!
Have a good night!
Shannon

So Much Talent!

Hello!

Oh my goodness, have you seen the cards submitted so far to the Case Study challenge #148 this week.  If not, you HAVE to go over and check them out - they knocked my socks off.  Seriously.  And there's still almost a week to go!  I'm throwing my little contribution into the mix, even though it certainly doesn't measure up!  But that's not what it's all about, right!!  The challenges are SO inspiring, and have made me grow as a card maker ten-fold.  I love looking at all of the other work and have learned SO much from other card makers.  The talent out there just leaves me in awe!

Here's the inspiration card:

And here's mine:

I was also very much inspired by Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner's cards for the Hero Arts blog hop this week.  They both made similar cards, and I just loved them both!  I also wanted to try adding some fine, diagonal lines to my Lawn Fawn alphabet set.  I just love this look, but didn't have anything in my stamp stash to give me this effect, so I thought I would try to create it for myself.   A few butterfly stamps (Stampin Up), white embossing powder, some splatters and some black twine completed the card!  I think I will use it for a wedding card :)

Hope you're having a good day!
Shannon

Well, that didn't take long at all!

Hello!

*my second post of the day*

As opposed to the card in my last post which took forever to put together, this little guy came together quite quickly!  Oh was I happy about that!!!  Playing along with the Paper Players Challenge #152 for this week - and it's a Tic Tac Toe!!  I went with the top line: birds, blue and birthday.  Have a look at the other options Tic Tac Toe options below and play along with me!

Here's the "grid":

And here's my little birthday card:

Went CAS on this one.  The banner is from Studio Calico/Hero Arts (I love those doodle lines on the back!), the 'happy' and 'birthday' are PTI, the 'to you' is Avery Elle and the birds (coloured in copics) are Lawn Fawn.  Just let me know if you need any more specifics on the stamps used :)

Quick card, quick post!
See you again soon :)
Shannon

Well, THAT took forever!

Hello!

Here's a card I made for both the CAS(E) this Sketch Challenge #34 and Dynamic Duos #59.  The Dynamic Duo's challenge was a sweet one - to pair grey with any colour choice.  Any choice!  So many beautiful options to choose from that look fabulous with grey.  And so what did I go with you ask?!!  Brown!!!  Don't ask me.  Weird, I know.  It all started because I wanted to use one of my wood veneer Studio Calico butterflies.  I embossed the butterfly in a light gray which gave it kind of a cool grunge look.  Again, weird, because I don't really associate butterflies with grunge!!  And then I wrapped some brownish twine around the butterfly to create it's body and antennae.  I liked the look of that, and thought - well, I guess I've got my second colour now.  So I had to work the whole card around brown, grey and a bit of grunge.  And let me tell you, it was a marathon to come up with a finished product.  It started last night, and finally ended this afternoon with a card that I can't even now say I totally love.  However, I do think it would be a good masculine card for someone going through a tough time.

Here are the challenges:

 

Nothing like "forcing" a card!  But here it is:

As I mentioned I heat embossed the butterfly with white embossing powder and then rubbed it down with grey ink.  But before embossing, I used a versamark pen to dab on some polka dots just to jazz it up a bit more (not sure if you can see them in the picture - they're quite subtle).  The leaves are from Paper Smooches Reflections - I stamped those in white ink first and then gray overtop (a little tip I learned from Julie Ebersole's blog) and then I used a white gel pen to put dots on the leaves (and that little nugget came from Jennifer McGuire's blog just yesterday).  I created a subtle grid background as well with brown ink which represents the vertical panel on the sketch.  Added a little grey button under the twine and some grey liquid pearls finished the job.

Hope you like it! 
And thank you so much for visiting!
Shannon

Twins? Nah, Not Quite!

Hello!

Just popping in to share the card that I made today, combining the Play Date Café challenge #188 along with the Retro Sketches #70 challenge.  And without planning it, it looks kind of like yesterday's card - just by pure accident!  The colours in the Summer Camp pre-class and PDC challenges were similar, so that explains that similarity.  And I pulled out my Bird Brain set from TAWS and used a bird very similar to the one I used yesterday from Tag Alongs, just because it seemed to work well with this card.  Both are very CAS as well, which also lends to their alikeness.  But they do have some difference that make them their own ;)

Here are the challenges:

 

And my take:

As mentioned, the bird is TAWS, as is the little speech bubble.  The flowers are from PS Reflections, the heart is from Jane's Doodles (I love this heart!), and the sentiment is from Lawn Fawn.  I coloured the bird in with copics, and that was it!

Hope you like it, and hope you are beating the heat where you are!  I'm not a huge fan of the heat - in fact, I'm not a fan at all!  Give me rain any day!!!
Shannon :)

Sometimes You Just Got To Let it Go!!

Hello!

I worked on my pre-class homework today for Summer Card Camp 2.  And I worked on it.  And I worked on it some more.  And nothing, absolutely nothing was taking shape.  Problem: I had this idea stuck in my head of what I wanted it to look like.  I don't know how many times I tried to translate what was in my head to paper, but I know it was enough to send a few sheets of *good* paper in the garbage, and enough to have spent four - yes FOUR hours in my craft room trying to make it happen.  At last I just gave up with forcing *that* idea.   I just started to play - no pre-conceived ideas of how it was supposed to look - just playing.  And guess what - I ended up with something I liked!  Totally different from what I had planned originally, but it did come together at last!

On the off chance that I don't get to make another card before class starts on July 8, I thought I would combine the two challenges.  The first is a colour challenge.  The colours (as displaying on my screen, which doesn't necessarily mean they are the intended colours!!) are mauve, deep purple, pink, light blue and white.  The second is a sketch.  And the two together, in my card anyway, look like this:

Went totally CAS after the original plan foiled dismally.  And I mostly used the TAWS Tag Alongs set.  I did get brave, and decided to doodle my own sentiment.  I kind of liked how it turned out - thought it went well with the little bird, and it gave my a place to sneak in the light blue!  I was thinking about adding some splatters, and still not sure if maybe I should have, but it will have to do!

Hopefully I'll get a chance to play again - I'm totally looking forward to the class!
Thanks for coming to check things out today!
Shannon