Quick and Easy Cards

Hello!

I have two cards today!  That's because they were so quick and easy to do, I was actually able to make them in half the time that it normally takes me to make one!  The wedding card was definitely done in under ten minutes and the birthday card, maybe just a tiny bit over ten minutes, only because of the embossing. 

Both cards are Paper Smooches.  A little explanation probably required for the birthday card!  It is for my work BFF.  We have worked together for ten years, and I don't know what I would do without her.  She is AWESOME!  We support each other, we laugh together and we also like to tease each other!  She hates it, HATES it whenever I use words that I am FAR too old to be using, so of course, I use them all them time around her!  "Adorbs" is her all-time most-hated!  Well, that meant I would stamp it as many times as I could on her card!  I giggled the whole time I was making he card!

And onto the cards...

The birthday card:

The inside of the birthday card (because she hates "totes" almost as much!):

And the wedding card:

It was really nice to be able to whip these up in little time!

Hope you're having a TOTES awesome day!!!
Shannon

The Great Escape!

Hello!

I had a chance to play Lisa Arana's Wanna Sketch Challenge #9 today.  No way I was going to miss out on this baby!  I'm going to be away for a few weeks, starting Sunday, so I wanted to make sure I squeaked this one in before I go.  I just love Lisa's sketches - they are so inspiring!

Here's the sketch:

Here's my card:

As you can see, I'm still experimenting with my crazy, hand drawn borders!  I'm not sure if this one makes the card too busy, but I thought it was kind of fun!  The birds and the banner are Lawn Fawn and the bird cage is Jane Doodles.  All the letters in the sentiments are PS - had to do some more creative masking to get the sentiment I wanted :).  The card is for a sweet co-worker of my husband's who has been transferred to another office.  She is quite happy to be "escaping" and looking forward to the change.  I made the "c ya" to represent the flight trail - good thing I didn't have much more room, because I was tempted to make it c ya suckas, just to be cheeky!!

Hope you're having an awesome day!!
Shannon

Do Bones Grow on Trees?

Hello!

Today's card is a little different...a little crazy!!  Well, maybe not crazy, but it just seems like it to me!  I think it's the boldness of it!  It was inspired by four things: 
- the CAS(E) this Sketch challenge for this week
- a card from Savannah O'Gwynn.  She used the little doggie for her tutorial over at Virtual Smooches last week, and I forgot just how adorable this puppy is.  Don't know how I forgot, since Woofers and Tweeters is one of my all-time favourite sets!!  Oh and her card is FABULOUS!  Check it out!
- and a card made by Christine Urias at Scrap Time whom I discovered last week via the Simon Says Stamp blog - I just loved the cards she made!  Check them out here!
- Bev's birthday!  It's so crazy, but I haven't crossed paths much yet with Bev.  I know, where have I been?!!  But when I heard from my friends Carol and Geri that she was celebrating her birthday and that a blog party had been planned, I wanted make a little something to wish her a BIG Happy Birthday!

Here's the sketch:

And here's my card:

Like I said, it's bold!  I hand drew the loop-de-loop border (yup, still loving making my own borders right now!) which was totally inspired by Christine's card.  The sentiment is a masking project that took a bit of time, but I think it was worth it!  And then to add a little humour, I decided to have bones growing on the trees, making the little dog's birthday wish come true, as the sentiment says!

Hope you like it, and hope you are having a lovely day!  AND, Happy Birthday Bev!!
Shannon

A Card for a Good Cause

Hello!

Happy Sunday!   Today's card is for a special challenge over at the Friday Mash Up.  I haven't played along with this challenge before, but I will be in the future!  It is a fabulous challenge!  When I read Barb's post, I knew I just had to play along too.  The challenge is inspired by an organization called H.A.N.D.S. - Hope After Neonatal Death through Sharing.  Please have a look and maybe consider playing along!

Here's the challenge:

And here's my card:

It was very much inspired by a card Kim Singdahlsen at Joyful Creations made a few months back.  I fell in love with it the moment I saw it and always wanted to CASE it.  I thought it was perfect for this challenge.  The sentiments are Paper Smooches (including the "you" - cut out by hand, since I STILL don't have a die cutting machine!) and the sweet little bird house is from Lawn Fawn.  The heart is from Studio Calico, and the rest is just patterned paper and twine.

Hope you like it!
Thanks for stopping by!
Shannon

Card Drive for Grayson

Hello!

Something about me: it takes a lot to upset me.  I'm totally laid back and like to choose to be happy.  But there are a few things that do really hit me, hard.  Mean, rude, thoughtless people do it to me every time.  I have no time for that.  And there are a few other things, of course.  But nothing, NOTHING upsets me more than childhood illness.  My heart breaks every time I hear of any child suffering.  Recently I read a post at the Neat and Tangled blog about a sweet little boy named Grayson and his little brother, Aydan.  Please go over and read their story.  It is heart wrenching.  If sending a card to Grayson and Aydan could put a little smile on their sweet faces, it was the least I could do. 

Here's my card for the boys:

I will be putting it in the mail today (just have to buy a US stamp!).  I would like to encourage anyone reading this post to please take a moment to send a little card of their own to Grayson and Aydan.  I know everyone is so busy but if you can squeak in a little time to do this, your small gesture can make a huge difference!

Thank you SO much for reading this post, and of course for your visit!  It always means so much to me.

Shannon

A Sketch Stretch!

Hello!

I've got a CAS(E) this Sketch (challenge #44) entry for you today!  Although, "CAS(E) + artistic license this Sketch" might be more like it in this case!  I needed to make an anniversary card for my sister and her husband, so I sat down with the sketch and started playing.   It did look like the sketch at the beginning, but then it, um, evolved!  So yeah, I veered off course, but the sketch was the inspiration.  Maybe you can see it???  :)

Here's the sketch:

And my take:

I was so lucky to be selected as a PS Pro Stamper for the SPARKS challenge a few weeks ago.  Such a huge honour!  And such a generous prize!  I just received my prize (and  a *few* extras I HAD to tack on!!) and got to use them for this card!  The speech bubbles, some of the sentiments, the little man and little woman - all from the new stash!  Eeek, it was so exciting to get these in the mail!  Thank you PS!!!  Not a lot to explain on this card - pretty straight forward!  Although I have been totally into creating my own imperfect scalloped borders with white highlight these days! 

I think my sis and her hubby will like this - it is SO them!

Thanks so much for visiting!
Shannon

An Awesome Tutorial!

Hello!

Last week my sweet friend Carol shared a tutorial on her blog and I instantly fell in love with it!  It is SUCH a sweet idea, and her sample is SO adorable - hop on over and you'll see what I mean!  I clicked on the link that Carol so graciously provided in her post, and it brought me to the Scor-Pal site, which included step-by-step instructions on how to achieve Carol's card.  If you want to, you can even make this into a circle pocket.  I thought, why not?!!  Without a die cutting machine, I found a bowl that was just the size I needed, traced it, and cut it.  The flowers on the demo caught my eye, and I'd had a sheet of flowered paper in my stash forever just waiting for the right moment to be in the spotlight.  And today is the day! 

Obviously I did not follow the instructions like I should have though!  I went wrong in two places!

First, I went a little crazy with the glue.  Gluing was necessary, for sure, but after smearing glue all over the back panel, I realized that if I'd left it unglued, it could have acted as the inside of the card, where I could have written a nice message to the recipient.  But it was too late - no amount of glue eraser was going to get ALL that glue off! 

The next boo boo was how I decorated it.  Because of the design of the project, there is a fold that cuts a bit into the circle.  Had I *thought* about it before decorating, I could have angled it so as to obscure the fold.  But nope, didn't think of that until it was too late either.  Trust me, you will see it!

But overall, I love what it looks like!  Thank you SO much, Carol, for sharing such an AWESOME technique! 

Apologies for the dark photo :(

I think I will give this to one of my nieces (11 and 14) to pass onto one of their friends.  I think the "look" is perfect for that age group...although I think it would be just fine for any age :)

Thank you as always for coming by for a visit! 
Have an awesome day!
Shannon

Not Exactly...

Hello!

Just a really quick post tonight.  Made a card for my Mom - she needed to replenish her stash a bit.  I wasn't sure about this one - it was one of those cards that didn't turn out the way I had envisioned it in my head!  But my Mom seemed to like it.  So I decided to post it :)   Maybe I'll take another crack at it in the next little while to see if I can translate the vision into a card second time around :)

Have a look :)

Those sweet little birds are from Lawn Fawn, and the rest is a mix of Paper Smooches, PTI and TAWS.  Got to say, I'm also not sure about the filled in letters!  Before I did it, I felt like the sentiment/word bubble needed "something", but after I did it, I realized it was not the something it needed!  Oh well, it was worth a shot!

That's it for me today.  We have a few things on the go for tomorrow, but hopefully I can sneak in a card as well!

Thanks for stopping in for a peek!
Shannon

Book Store Inspiration

Hello!

Happy Labour Day!  Hope that means you all got a little R&R time before heading back to work and school tomorrow!  And hope even more you were able to get a little time today to make a card or two!  I was able to put one together.  This one isn't related to any challenges.  I tried to work with a few challenges over the weekend, but they left me cringing, and I left them in the recycling bin!  So today I just played.  I got my inspiration for the card from Chapters/Indigo.  Whenever I'm in there, I always get inspired - usually from the designs on their boxed cards, journal covers, home decor, flipping through books and magazines, etc.  It is a goldmine for inspiration!  So I snap a photo of anything that inspires me.  (hmmmm, wait a minute, is that even legal??!!!).  One of the cards I posted earlier this week was also inspired by something I spotted at Chapters.  Funny enough, I don't usually go to Pinterest for inspiration.  I tend to get WAY too distracted by EVERYTHING on there and end up spending WAY too much time on it!  So Chapters is my go-to!

And here's what it inspired:

This is another mish mash of products.  The flowers are Paper Smooches, TAWS and one of my old SU! stamps.  Leaves are PS and TAWS.  Butterfly is PS, the "Thank You" is Studio Calico and the "oh so much" is TAWS.  The flower centres are embossed and the petals of the black flowers have glossy accents on them, just to bring out the colour a bit better.  For the border, I randomly cut a scallop pattern at the top and then drew a white border.  Finished it off with twine.

And that's it!  Thank you SO much for visiting - I love it when you do!
Shannon