A little me time...

Hello again!

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a little "me" time this morning while my husband slept.  So I took advantage of the opportunity and whipped up a card for the PS SPARKS challenge this week.  It's a Picture Perfect challenge and the inspiration photo is so soft and pretty.  I had to make a sympathy card for one of my friends at work, and I thought the colour pallette would work well for the card. 

Here's the pretty picture:

And my card:

Thank you for stopping by to see me!
Shannon

Aloha!

Hello!

Hope everyone is having a nice long weekend!  And for those who celebrate, Happy Easter!  No kids over at our place, which means no egg hunt for us this morning :(  Our Easter treat is just to sleep in!  In fact, my husband is still fast asleep after working a night shift last night.  I think I will have to take advantage of the "me" time with a bit more card making until he wakes up!

I made today's card for one of the lovely ladies that I work with.  She is heading off to Hawaii in a few weeks to celebrate her 50th birthday (she doesn't look a day over 29!).  This trip has been in the works for a very long time - I think she's been counting down the sleeps for about a thousand days now!!   And it's just a few weeks away now!  I wanted to make her something special that celebrated her trip and her big day.  I pulled out my Paper Smooches Get Outta Town set and just started playing.  I love all the images on this set!  I just played around with stamping and colouring, and here's what I came up with.

It's a little busier that I would normally do, but I wanted to squeeze all the elements onto the card.  Hope you like it, and I hope to be back again tomorrow!

Happy Easter!
Shannon

Hello, Blog - Is That Really You?!!

Hello!

My poor, neglected, little blog!  March was just a crazy month for me, and sadly card making and blogging time was pretty much non-existent!  And I REALLY missed it!  It feels so good to be back.  It's Easter long weekend, which gives me four glorious days off work, and I managed to spend a good chunk of yesterday making cards!  I was so ready, and so excited to get back into it, but unfortunately my "mojo" wasn't quite as excited.  In fact, my parents are in Mexico right now, and I emailed my Mom to be on the lookout for my creativity on the beach, and if she found it to please bring it back home!  But I did manage to sqeak out a few little cards, starting with one inspired by the CAS(E) this Sketch challenge this week. 

Here is the sketch:

And here is my card:

I've started keeping a stash of my cards at work and some of my co-workers have asked that I keep some kids cards on hand.  I thought this one would be good for a little boy.  All Paper Smooches, and that dinosaur is perfect for practicing my Copic colouring.  PS images are so great for this and that dinosaur - gah - is adorable!

Be back again tomorrow with another card and hoping to squeeze in some more card makign time over the long weekend, so I can get back into a more regular posting routine - did I mention how much I missed card making and blogging?!!

Have a good weekend!
Shannon xx

Happy Birthday and Happy to be home!!

Oh dear blog, how I have missed you!  I was away for work last week, and my card for today is very indicative of how happy I am to be home!  I was on a course that was quite demanding and kept us up late into the night each night - which completely ruined my plans of making cards in my hotel room after class!  Yup, I lugged a big box of supplies up with me and was anxiously anticipating five nights of cardmaking...but it was not to be!  And there was some withdrawl.  Serious withdrawl.  But I'm back at it tonight playing along with the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge.  It is a Trend Watch this week - theme: smiles!

Here's the challenge photo:

And here's my card:

You can tell by the card that it's quite simple - but I was pleased by the idea the challenge "sparked" and happy with the results.  The circle is from a little mini set called Gently Seasoned and the Happy Face is from Healthy Vibes - it fit just perfectly into the circle!  Sentiment is from Sentiment Sampler.

So happy I got a chance to play along this week after having to miss out last week.
Thanks for stopping by!
Shannon

Casology - Word Inspired

Hello!

Just a quick little post today :)  I played along with the Casology challenge for the first time!  I really love the concept of the word inspired challenges, and I LOVE that the winner and honourable mention cards are spotlighted with such beautifully worded reasons of why they were chosen. 

The inspiration word for this week's challenge is "CIRCLE" and here's what I was inpsired to make:

This is a simple card that I made for a friend.  I love the idea of "just because" cards and I love that the sentiment from PS is so perfectly sized.  And that little chickie from Chubby Chums, along with the "one cool chick" sentiment just brought this card all together for me!  I love that the two sentiments and the little chickie are all from three different stamps sets, yet works so perfectly together!

Thank you for coming for a visit!!
Shannon :)

Paper Players Sketch #134

Hello!

Guess what?!  I discovered another challenge site!  This one is called the Paper Players.  Seriously, I don't know how I didn't realize there were so many challenge opportunites out there!  And I just love discovering new finds :)  This week's challenge is #134 and I loved the sketch.  Nice and simple!

Here's the sketch:

And here's my card:

Although I'm not 100% happy with the proportion of the longer strip - I think it should have been cut down a bit vertically so that the distace from the side edge was the same as the distaces from the top and bottom edges.  but I had already stamped the swirl onto both the patterned paper, and the kraft paper to match up, and decided that I was okay with it!

All Paper Smooches on this one :) 

Hope you have a lovely evening!  I'm off to cuddle on the couch with my husband and watch a little TV.  Early to bed tonight as we have a birthday to celebrate tomorrow :)

Shannon :)

Retro Sketches #52 - Wild Card!

Hello!

Today I'm posting the card that I made for the Retro Sketches challenge this week.  It's week 52, which means they are celebrating their one year anniversary.  The challenge is to pick any one of the 51 previous challenge sketches - so I figured I might as well start with #1!  I briefly (obviously too briefly!) studied the sketch and made a mental not - three longer vertical pieces and two panels - one smaller than the other.  And that's what I walked away with as I headed off to make the card.  I was so excited about an idea I had to use tree trunks in place of the three vertical pieces.   A little outside the box!  So I went about making my card, which turned out exactly how I had envisioned it (we all know that doesn't always happen!), and then went back to the sketch.  Well, when I *briefly* looked at the sketch before making the card, I had overlooked...well, a major detail!!  I left out an entire panel - the key panel, which was supposed to overlap the vertical strips!  Uh oh!  Oh well...

Here's the sketch (not the one in my head - the *actual* sketch - ha ha! :

And here's what happened:

It's a little busier than I normally do, but I'm pretty happy with it.  It is all TAWS, and mostly from Trees Company (loooove that set!).  I think I'll still post it on the Retro Sketches blog...hopefully my little oversight will be overlooked!!

Thank you for coming to see me - I really appreciate your visits!
Shannon

Priceless Butterfly!

Hello!

I was just so happy to play along with a challenge today!  But...I'm going to share that with you tomorrow.  Today I have the last of the cards that I made on Saturday.  This one, another free-style, is for another lady at work who asked me to make a "just because" card for a little girl.  I used the butterfly from the TAWS Priceless Joy set, and the clouds are from TAWS Trees Company (they are tree tops that work beautifully as clouds).  The sentiment is Paper Smooches.

And here it is:

That butterfly. I just love it. It is so perfect colouring, paper piecing, anything. I find it's a perfect size as well, and really stands out as the focal point of any card.

Hope you like it!  And thank you so much for looking!
I'll be back tomorrow with my Retro Sketch challenge card that I made today.
Shannon :)

Baby Time

Hello!

Just a quick little hello tonight with the card I promised to share today.  It's another baby card that I made for one of the ladies at work.  As I mentioned yesterday, I was struggling with the challenges - nothing was coming together!  So I free-styled, and today's card resulted!  I was hoping that the challenge-inspired card making would reconvene today, after it went on the blink yesterday.  But unfortunately I just did not have a chance to play today :(  I did take the day off of work tomorrow though so I'm going to sneak a little bit of card making time in for sure!

And now for the card...

Again, it's using the old CHF baby set I mentioned in yesterday's post, as well as the Alphadot, (time) Woofers and Tweeters (heart) and Word Up (baby) sets from Paper Smooches.   Even though that adorable giraffe is from the old set, Paper Smooches does have a similar giraffe in their Zoo Crew set that you could use in it's place.

Hope you like it!  I'll be back tomorrow with another one of the free-style cards that I made yesterday, and hopefully I'll get a few more cards made tomorrow that I can post throughout the week!

Have a really good week!
Shannon

The Challenge that Never Was...

Hello!

I had big plans today.  Big.  I was going to play along with challenges galore.  Unfortunately, my brain had other plans.  Challenges were not to be had.  :(  It was just one of those days where, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't seem to pull a card together based on a challenge.  Maybe I tried too hard!  So I decided to free-style instead.  Maybe the challenges will cooperate with me tomorrow!

I had some of the ladies at work ask me to make a few cards for them, so that's what I decided to work on.  I was happy that I got them all done - I'll share them throughout the next few days.  Two of them were requests for baby shower cards.  Whenever I make baby cards, I, without fail, reach for my go-to set.  It is a Kim Hughes set from back when she was designing for Cornish Heritage Farms.  I wish I could remember the name of it off the top of my head, but it is *the* most adorable baby set you will lay your eyes on.  I made the card in a baby-neutral colour scheme using yellow, brown and red.  Not a colour combo I use a lot, but I was happy with how it turned out.  The sentiment is from TAWS Priceless Joy, another baby set you will want to feast your eyes on!

And here it is:

Hope you like it :) 
Be back again tomorrow with the other baby shower card I made.
Thank you as always for looking!
Shannon