A Deer Friend

Hello!

Oh how I miss my card making and posting!!  Things have just been busy, busy, busy, with no sign of it slowing down.  Work is busy, life is busy.  I know we are all in the same boat!  I did carve out some time to make a card yesterday...for a VERY special reason.  My sweet, sweet, most awesome friend, Carol is now an Inkspirational DESIGN TEAM MEMBER!!!  WOOT, WOOT!!!  Those of you who are lucky enough to know Carol, know that this team has struck gold having her on their team!  So what better way to celebrate, and congratulate her than to make a card for the challenge?!!! 

The word prompt is "bloom" and here's what I came up with.

I love that the word prompt allows for such range in how to apply it.  I went subtle, and stamped my blooms in a "supporting role" on this card, but really love how they look.  I used Lawn Fawn (the deer, and the "deer"), Mama Elephant (the blooms!) and some old PTI stamps to finish off the sentiment.

If you haven't already, play along with me!!!

Congrats again, sweet Carol!!  Just a matter of time before more DT's come calling to snap you up!!!

Thanks for coming by to see me!
Shannon

It's a Miracle!!

Hello!

It's a miracle - I made a card!!  It was nice to get back into my craft room!  I made a Mother's Day card for my sister...and here it is!!

I also made one for my Mom and my mother-in-law (they're getting the same card - I just made two of them!).  No need to show it here, because it's a total CASE by one of my FAVE card artists - Heather Campbell.  Have a look at her version here (it's much better than mine!) - she created it for Ellen Hutson's "The Classroom".  I just replaced the sentiment with Happy Mother's Day.  (In fact, you will notice little hints of her inspiration in my sister's card too!).  If by some crazy chance you have not seen Heather's blog already, check it out - you will fall in love with everything you see. 

Thanks so much for stopping by - have an awesome Sunday!
Shannon

No card, but maybe you can help!

Hello!

Gah!  So bummed that I haven't been around much these days!  Hopefully life's craziness will settle soon and I can get back into my craft room!  But in the meantime...

 

Just wanted to share a story with you that touched me deeply.  This community is so thoughtful and caring, and I thought it would touch you too.  It's a local news story here in Vancouver that was shared recently about a fifteen year old girl named Brooklyn who suffers from a form of autism and epilepsy.  She was involved in an exchange program with a group of students from Prince Edward Island, on the east coast of Canada. 

 

As planned, students from PEI visited Vancouver first.  During that visit, Brooklyn had an epileptic seizure.  As a result, a board determined that Brooklyn would not be able to make the exchange trip out to PEI with her peers.  This decision was devastating for Brooklyn and it broke her heart.  Watching her story on the news broke my heart too.  If you have a few moments, please watch Brooklyn's story here.

 

For more information, you can visit Brooklyn's Facebook page.  A petition has been started to reverse the decision and help Brooklyn get to PEI.  I signed it and I'm hoping you will consider signing it too.  It will take less than five minutes and it could help this sweet, brave, intelligent girl get what she deserves.

 

Thank you so much for letting me share this with you!

Shannon

Two Cards for a long overdue post!

Hello!!!

Oh my goodness, it has been so long since I last posted!!  My work schedule has changed significantly, and it has completely eaten up all of my card making time!!  And I am not a happy camper about that!!!  It's also affected my ability to comment on all of your blogs, which is most disappointing of all for me :( .  I just love connecting with all of you, and feel terrible that I haven't been able to be as "active" as I was.  I'm not sure things will be back to "normal" anytime soon.  But at every opportunity I have, I will drop by for sure.

Okay, and because things are still crazy, I am going to make this short and sweet!  Two cards today.  The first one is for Lisa Arana's Wanna Sketch Challenge.  I LOVE this challenge, and just couldn't let this one pass me by!!  And I love the PS Sparks Challenge as well, and this week, it's an Anything Goes.  So I took a little time today to play, and here's what I came up with:

And this second card is one that I made for a 50th wedding anniversary that friends of my parents were celebrating.  I think 50 years SUCH a milestone.  To love and support each other, though all that life would have offered them through the years, the good, the bad and the ugly, is something to be honoured.  Love and commitment in its truest form.  No challenges on this one - I just winged it!  And here it is:

Thank you SO much for coming be, especially since posting has been non-existent around here lately.  It means a LOT to me!!

Shannon 

Love Birds...I mean Bees!

Hello!

It's a rainy day here, and what better way to spend it than make a card!  Of course I had to play along with Case Study again this week, with Joni being the muse!  I also wanted to try a technique that I learned over at PS Virtual Smooches a while ago.  Have you seen the videos Savannah and Emily do for this site - nothing short of AH-MAZING I tell you!  The technique I used today is to use a stamp to create a frame.  It took me a few tries to get a non-wonky oval, but in the end it turned out pretty evenly (just don't look under the banner - it may or may not be covering up some severe wonkiness there - ha ha!).  I'm going to enter this into the PS Sparks Challenge for this week as well - it's an Anything Goes!

Here's the card:

With wedding season approaching, I thought I would make a wedding card to add to my stash.  I went with love bees!  Just fussy cut them out and coloured their wings in blue.  Added glossy accents to kick it up a notch!  That heart in the middle of the two bees is just some white enamel that I shaped into a heart.  To create the oval, I just traced an oval with pencil and then tried to somewhat evenly space the flowers around it.  Background is distress inks.  Added the "forever" die cut and that's it!

Here's the inspiration card from Joni:

Hope you're having a good weekend and sneaking in a little crafty time!  Thank you SO much for stopping by!
Shannon

A Special EAD Blog Hop for Emma

Hello!

Today is a very cool day!  The amazing Amy Tsuruta asked me if I would like to participate in a very special blog hop that she is hosting along with a bunch of other EAD Designs fans!  EAD Designs is a company that created vinyl stickers and rub-ons, but unfortunately the company closed their doors over a year ago.  (unfortunately for sure - Amy sent me a few of their stickers to play with for this hop and they are AWESOME!).  Even though the company is gone, these ladies continue to inspire each other to use their fun goodies.

What all of our projects will have in common is that we are all using EAD goodies. 
And our challenge is:
KID-FRIENDLY

Not only was I honoured that Amy would ask me (and said YES right away!), but I was also touched by the reason behind this hop.  All of our cards from today's hop will be going to a special girl named Emma.

 Please read about Emma's story and the card drive hosted by Kelly.

Here's my card for Emma:

Isn't that owl adorable?!  Both she and the "cutie" sentiment are from EAD.  I put the owl on some Bazzill textured paper, and loved the grid look that it created on the owl.  Seriously, these stickers were SO much fun to play with!  Hope Emma likes it!

I also wanted to make a card for Addison:

That little bird, also EAD!  SO sweet!

And guess what?!  There is a surprise blog candy!  The more you leave comments on the blogs that are participating, the more chances you have to win!

Want another chance for a prize?!  Make a kid friendly card for Emma!  We'd love for you to join in the card drive!  Make a card for Emma, send it to Kelly and link up over on Amy's blog!

Commenting/Card link up open until Monday, March 24th at 11:59 pm pacific
Winners posted on Amy's blog on Monday, March 31st.

Have fun hoppin'!

Amy 
Colleen
Julie Smith
Julie Tucker-Wolek
Katie Brooks
Kelly
Lauren Bergold
Liz
Rose
Shannon
Stephanie
Wendi

Thank you so much for stopping by today and please consider sending a card to this special girl.
Shannon

Chugga Chugga Chu Chu!

Hello!

Well, it's no secret that I am a HUGE fan of Joni Nina Andaya.  She is a huge inspiration to me, and many of the techniques I try here are because of her.  So when I saw that she is this month's Case Study, you KNOW I had to play along!

This one didn't come about very easily.  A LOT of trial and error!  But just like the little engine that could, I kept on going...chugga chugga chu(chee) chu!!  I knew I could, I knew I could (it's in my name, afterall - ha!).  And here's what it looked like in the end (nothing like how it started, btw!!):

Big mix of everything going on in this baby!  The background flowers in grey are Casual Friday, the polka dot label is Stampin' Up.  The flowers on the label are WPlus9 and the birdies are Lawn Fawn.  Both sentiments are Studio Calico/Hero Arts.  Finished it off with a little distressing of the edges to frame it up a bit and a little baker's twine.

And here's Joni's inspiration card:

Gorgeous, huh?!!

Thank you so much for coming by today!!  Hope you enjoy your Sunday, and please stop by if you can tomorrow...I am participating in a very special blog hop and I'd love for you to be a part of it too!
Shannon

Two Technique Re-Try!

Hello!

So last week, I tried combining two new techniques on one card, and everything was going just fine until a couple of unfortunate incidents ended up in the entire card being ruined!!  It's okay, I've managed to stop the tears!!  So being the tenacious girl I am (sometimes!), I decided to try again today. 

The two techniques were from Kristina Werner and Donna Mikasa.

Kristina has been using the "smooshing" technique a lot lately - you can see an example here.  And recently Donna posted a card using "water stenciling" and as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to give it a try.

And here's the result:

Can you see the water stenciling in the background?!  It's subtle, but I love the little bit of extra it adds!

Not only did I combine two techniques, I also combined two challenges.  In fact, two of my favourite challenges: Lisa Arana's Wanna Sketch and PS Sparks, which is an anything goes this week.
For the sketch, I was inspired by the arc that the flowers created.  Play along if you can - I just love Lisa's sketches and I'm pretty sure you will too ;)

Thanks for the visit!!
Shannon

A Soap Opera?!

Hello!

Well, here's a card that started out totally differently...

I wanted to try two new techniques that I have spotted in blog land lately, on making your own backgrounds (which I am loving right now).  I actually combined the two techniques into one, and was pretty happy with the results.  I designed the rest of the card and put it together.  And then two things happened:

- First I used a cluster of balloons from Mama Elephant, which I had the rabbit holding from string.  As a last minute thing, I decided to add some Wink of Stella to jazz up the balloons a bit.  But hardly any glitter was coming out.  So I squeezed the top...a little harder than I should have, and a giant blog came out of the pen and all over my balloons!!!  Gah!  But, okay.  It only hit the balloons and the background was still salvageable.  So I tore off the balloons and went to work again.

- Rather than using the ME balloons, I thought it would add more dimension if I used some PS balloons and coloured / cut them all out separately.  I figured the result would be worth the effort.  And it was.  Perfect, the card was fixed and ready to be photographed.  But wait a minute.  Was it?  Nope.  When I replaced the ME balloons with the larger scale PS balloons, the card was totally off centre, and totally off balance!  Grrrrr.  What can I add to balance it out?  Hmmmm.  I tried a few things, but nothing looked right.  Then I thought: splatter, that will even things out!  So I covered up all of the parts that I didn't want splatter on and went for it.  I liked the look.  I took off the mask hoping it was done, but nope, it needed splatter in a few other places.  I masked it all back up again, added a bit more splatter and it turned out just how I wanted it to.  I took the panel and glued it to a note card.  What I didn't realize was that the splatter hadn't dried yet and there were black splatter smudges everywhere!!  My little creation was ruined!!! 

So I ripped off the balloons again, along with the bunny.  This time, I gave up on creating my own background (for now - I will try again another day!) and just pulled out some patterned paper.  And here, after all that blabbering and complaining, is what it ended up looking like:

Because I had given up trying to do the background technique, I thought I'd try a different VERY new to me technique - sewing!!!  I sewed the banner on!!!  Mom, if you're reading this, I really did!!!   I left the threads dangling like I've been seeing so much lately.  But aside from that, just stamps, patterned paper and some Copics.  Now that I see the photo though, I'm going back for one last final surgery - that heart (from PS heart dies) on the left on it's side is driving me crazy!   (With all these surgeries, this card might as well be starring in an episode of General Hospital!).

Hopefully I can make a fresh start on the background technique in the next day or so and have a little more success this time around!  I'll show you as soon as it's done :)

Thanks SO much for stopping by to see me!
Shannon

Trip to Hawaii #2

Hello!

A week or so ago I made a "Bon Voyage" card for a friend of mine who was going on holiday to Hawaii...and today I made another card, for another friend who is going next week!!  When's it my turn?!  Ha ha! 

Here's what I came up with this time around:

Still using Get Outta Town, and used some of the same, and some different images on this card.  My fave part of this card is the sentiment!  I am in LOVE with those alpha dies as well as with the trend of "stacking" layers underneath to create a chip board effect.  I just doodled the border with my white gel pen, added some Wink of Stella to the flowers and a bit of Glossy Accents to the centre of the hibiscus.  And that was it! 

Going to enter this into the Paper Smooches Anything Goes challenge this week.

Thanks for coming by!
Shannon