little tweets

Posted on April 18, 2010 by Shauna

Hi there, and happy Sunday!  Wait.. that means Monday is tomorrow.. well, I hope it’s a good week.

Today I’ve made another sketch card for Unscripted Sketches  sketch #51.

I’m loving the colours and, of course, the vintage book paper.. Don’t you love the little birdie too? Squishably cute, I think. Thank goodness for Verve Stamps!

I picked up this raspberry cardstock at a shop somewhere near Washington DC when I was there.  I’m going to be sad when it’s gone, as I don’t know if I can get it again.

Les instructions
  • Make a card from a 4 1/4” x 11” piece of raspberry cardstock, then cut a strip of patterned paper and punch out a scalloped piece to match (2 1/2”).
  • Tear a strip of vintage book paper, then cut a square (2” diag) from a blank spot in the book.
  • Make a flower from 5 punched book pieces, attach with a brad and crumple.
  • Stamp birdie in Black on white cardstock, and again on patterned paper.  Cut out wing and attach with pop dots.
  • Stamp sentiment (AMuse) in black.
  • Edge everything with Antique Linen distress ink (I love it!), and attach together.  Voilà!

And here’s the sketch

SK-sketch-24-US-sketch-51

Shauna
Posted in birthday, challenge, sketch, Thinking of you | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Clean and Simple dots

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Shauna

Heyya,  it’s been a little while.. and a busy work week for me, so I just had to do some card making today.

This is for this week’s Clean & Simple Stamping layout.. Sketch #86.  I’m still enjoying those vintage paper butterflies, but who wouldn’t be?  This time around I used brads in the centre.

And here’s the sketch I worked with.  I love how pretty their sketches always look.  It makes me want to try them!

FTL86

Shauna
Posted in birthday, challenge, sketch | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Clean & Simple: Butterflies

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Shauna

Heyya,

Yep, another butterfly card.  I simply never get tired of these pretty little creatures.

Today’s card was for sketch 85 over at Clean & Simple Stamping.  I used punches, embossing in white, a lovely button, and some sheer ribbon.

Stamps are by Personal Stamp Exchange and Inque Boutique.

And here’s the sketch! Go try it out!

FTL85

Happy Monday :-)

Shauna
Posted in challenge, sketch | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Project 52: Birthday Date

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Shauna

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

My handsome-face turned ‘very old’ on this week’s date night, so we got to go out and celebrate and call it a date!  He chose a delicious Thai restaurant that had be recommended to us (and which I highly recommend to you!).  It’s called Sookjai Thai.  Seriously, go there. It’s delicious.

See these spring rolls? I’ve had a lot of bad ones over the years, but these were suuuuper tasty! And not overly greasy (well, as good as you’re gonna get for something deep-fried).

We shared some delicious food and had good chats about our week, random thoughts, all that good stuff.  It was a fun date!  Then we went home where I’d got him some flowers (hey, I benefit from those too), and a delicious dessert called a “kleinberg bar.” If you find one, try it.  It’s basically a peanut-butter-rice-krispy layer topped with a layer of rich and creamy icing topped off with a layer of hard chocolate.  YUM.  I can’t find a recipe anywhere, so if you know it by a different name, let me know!

Aren’t these the prettiest?  I love me some daisies :-)

Check out Simply Modern Mom where Project 52: Date Night started.  You can read about Tiffany’s date as well as the dates of other participants.  So many good ideas!

Shauna
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Goodie bags!

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Shauna

Nathan’s birthday came around, as it usually does on April 8th.  His one request?  To have an “old school” birthday party, like back in grade 3.  The result?  Fun times, indeed!

These are the tops of the goodie bags I made.  I was so excited to get to make them and fill them up with delicious candy.  I made 14 in all using patterned paper, a circle punch, an Inkadinkado Thank you stamp and some versafine ink. 

Not super glamorous, but better than an old paper bag, non?

The rest of the birthday party involved hanging out with a whole bunch of friends, chatting, watching a hockey game, playing video games, drinking beer (and delicious martinis), and eating copious amounts of pizza and ice cream cake!  My boy was in heaven :-)

Shauna
Posted in birthday, craft | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Butterfly circles

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Shauna

Heyya!

I had a morning of the stupids.  I got called in to work for this morning.. turns out I didn’t listen to the date and it was actually for NEXT Friday.  Oops. 

So instead, I made a card with my 3 favourite things!  Butterflies, buttons, and ribbon.  Oh, one more – vintage book paper.  How can you go wrong with so many lovely goodies?

I had a lot of fun with this card, which is from sketch #33 (so great!) over at the fabulous Get Sketchy blog.  All of the lovely design team’s creations are amazing.  Go check them out.

I hand-cut the circles after tracing them from a little container I had.  Yep, random stuff around the house can be super useful for crafting.

And here’s the sketch I worked from:

gs33

Happy weekend.  Have a great one!

Shauna
Posted in challenge, sketch | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Teal seahorse

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Shauna

Hey there,

Well, the sunshine lasted most of the day and I got to do a bit of celebrating for my husband’s 29th.  (Happy Birthday!)

I came across another sketch and challenge that I liked over at Just Add Ink.  (It’s Challenge #12).  And although I have no Stampin’ Up! products, I decided to take part anyhow.

I coloured in my swimmy friend there using watercolor pencil crayons, then added some dimension to the bubbles using Diamond Glaze.. That part doesn’t really come across in the photos.  Neither does the bit of glitter on the swirls.  The chocolate pearls are by AMuse and I made use of my Martha border punch.

Here’s the fun sketch I got to work with:

JAI12 Sketch Challenge

G’night!

Shauna
Posted in Any Occasion, challenge | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Spring flower

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Shauna

Hi there,

It’s soooooo sunny and beautiful today, and I didn’t have to work!  Who could ask for more?  So of course I’m inside crafting :p  (yes yes, I should go out and play in the sun).  This is the first card picture I’ve taken OUTSIDE, in the SUN! (yes, I’m super excited about this whole sunshine thing).

Today’s card is brought to you by a fabulous sketch (see below) that I’m absolutely in love with.  It’s from Paper Craft’s Go to Sketches, which I cannot wait to get my hands on!

I used one of those fantastic eyelet punched paper flowers and some beautiful ribbon that I picked up yesterday at Michaels.   I love this vintage book background.  I’m trying to find ways to use book text in all my cards.  I’m just that obsessed with it.

The sketch for this card I found over at Kim Kesti’s blog.  Don’t you love it?  I could play with this simple sketch all day long.

6a00d83451bd9b69e201347fb306ee970c-800wi

Oh and hey, for someone who never EVER used ribbon or buttons, I’ve sure done a 180!  I can’t get enough of either.

Shauna
Posted in birthday, sketch | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Project 52: S’mores!

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Shauna

Date night rolled around again on Thursday.  Nathan’s turn!  He tossed around the idea of going to see Alice, but he ended up deciding that we would watch the Canucks’ worst game ever (how could we have known?) while eating s’mores!

Mmmmmm, the aptly named s’mores… the crunch, the squishy oozy marshmallow layer and the just-starting-to-melt chocolate layer.. They’re pretty much the best thing ever!  Although we didn’t have a campfire in our living room, we made due using the toaster oven.  After a few experiments with over-melted chocolate, we decided that the best method was to broil a marshmallow on top of one graham cracker until beautifully golden.  Top with chocolate followed by the second graham cracker.  Devour.

And of course, with hockey goes beer.  But I wasn’t in much of a beer mood, so I indulged in some apple and berry cider from a local farm – Merridale Estate Cidery.  Pretty, isn’t it?  It’s absolutely delicious, but maybe a tad too sweet when paired with 3 or 4 s’mores! ugh.  I’m always over-indulging.  One day I’ll learn that a little bit can go a long way!

Check out others’ date nights over at Simply Modern Mom.  Tiffany is the creative woman who we have to thank for getting this fabulous date night project started.

Shauna

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Flutter by

Posted on April 4, 2010 by Shauna

Hi there, happy Easter to you!  I’ve been enjoying this long weekend immensely.  We made the trip out to visit my grandparents.  It ended up being the entire extended family all over at their place, except for my dad who wanted to get some work done around the farm.  19 of us in all!

I got to relax this afternoon and create a new card.  This butterfly creation is for the Unscripted Sketches challenge – sketch #49.  It also fits into the string challenge over at Everything but the Kitchen Sink Challenge since I have 3 different bits of hemp cord!

I had fun using some Basic Grey papers I just picked up, and a Basic Grey button!  These are definitely Shauna colours, so this card hits that happy spot with me.. and I *finally*  got to use this butterfly stamp that I’ve had for at least a year.  Is it bad stamping etiquette to horde a stamp for that long without use?

Some other materials I used:

  • thin hemp cord
  • Inkadinkado Patterened bugs set and white embossing powder
  • Hero alphabet and sentiment set?

The sketch:

item

Have a good rest-of-the-weekend!

Shauna
Posted in challenge | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

An easterly challenge

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Shauna

Hey there,  it’s taken me a while to make a card.. I’ve been staring at a whoooole bunch of challenges that I would have liked to have participated in this week, but just didn’t get to.  Woah, my French teacher brain is looking at the tenses there and going crazy!

So I chose one challenge that called my name the loudest.  It was from this week’s Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World.

I was happy to be able to use my eyelet flowers that I had made.. When I saw the trigger photo, I immediately thought of these little guys.  Also, I love using white embossing powder because of the way it just pops off the page.  It works perfectly for that bright white egg background look!

Note that the inspiration below was sent in by Alicia Thelin.

EasterEggsInspiration

Posted in Any Occasion, birthday, congratulations, love | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Interlude

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Shauna

Hiya!  I have been super busy with non-stamping type things this week. I’ve been working – finally teaching what I went to school for (French as a second language in high school), and I’ve also been having some kitchen fun.

I made 4 new recipes this week.  That’s  very explor-ey for me!  I find I love love love trying new recipes, but I tend to stick to the same-old for most meals.

Since I got a new cookbook (Jamie’s Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver), I decided to test out some of his stuff.  We had Moroccan stewed fish (pretty OK), fajitas (Nathan says they’re great, I say I’ve made much better), and potato leek soup (deeeelicious!).

Strawberries were on sale at Costco – 2lbs for $2.79, so I got myself a few with hopes of making strawberry freezer jam.  Well, I jumped right in this afternoon and whipped up a batch.  It’s SOOOOO easy!  I found a pectin to use where you don’t even have to do any cooking, and you only use 1 1/2 cups of sugar for 4c mashed up fruit.  It’s so strawberry-good.. especially on the freshly baked croissants that a friend of mine just made.

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Eyelet flower fail (then rocked?)

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Shauna

I found some darned cool eyelet flowers on a bunch of cards over at Snappy Stampin’ w/ Arielle.  Aren’t hers adorable?  Looks like she’s practiced a bit, and has some fabulous eyelet edge punches that I definitely covet!

My first flower was pretty much the equivalent of eyelet flower FAIL.

Actually, it almost looks OK in picture format.. Maybe I’m too hard on myself ;-)  But I tell ya, that flower that’s sitting on my craft desk, it’s definitely very lop-sided, with a couple pieces that got torn in the folding/gluing process.

Ready for take 2?  I like it much better because escaped the whole lopsided challenge thing.

Did I mention that I heart flowers with buttons in the centre?  Or buttons in general?  Flowers in general too!  These are pretty squee-worthy!  Now I just have to find a million more great punches.  Looks like I may have to visit the local Stampin’ Up! lady.

Oh and hey, this all stemmed from a really great tutorial over at Julie’s Stamping Spot.  Check it out!  You’ll be popping out eyelet punch flowers in no time!

Posted in Embellishment | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Project 52: cupcakes

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Shauna

Hi friends, it’s date night again!  This was my week, so I planned a date that I was really excited to do and hoped that Nathan would enjoy as well.  So dum da da daaaa… we made cupcakes!

I found a recipe for what is apparently the best chocolate cake ever from The Pioneer Woman (we just made the cake, not the topping, because an icing was to come).  Well, it wasn’t the best ever, but it was pretty good.

Nathan helped me out with measuring and stirring and all that good stuff.. And while the delicious chocolate treats were cooling, we set out to make ourselves some icing because hey, we had a recipe for the “best frosting ever”

aaaaand frosting fail! It turned out ok, but it just didn’t taste good!  It was bland and boring.  If I’m going to stick a pound of butter and sugar into my body, it had better taste delectably sweet and delicious.  Not like toned down whipping cream.

The cupcakes looked cute though!

And how was the date, you ask?  Ummmm wellllll…. I was cranky and feeling under the weather.. and Nathan hates to cook.. so apparently for him, it was pretty much the worst date ever.  *le sigh*  Oh well, I can do cooking dates with friends who like to cook.

Check out where Project 52: Date Night began, over at Simply Modern mom, and take a look at her date as well as what other participants got up to this week!

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What’s this about buttons?

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Shauna

Exciting news!  Well, I think it’s exciting…  Over at Prudent Baby, they spotted my Recipe Binder (that I’d made based on their ideas).  It’s really great, you should make one too!

Anyways, so I get a button.. what does one do with a button?

I’m not sure you fully understand my lack of programming skills.  They’re pretty much at zero, which is funny since that’s what my mister does all day.  The only reason I passed computer science is because it all made sense to me.. it’s like being able to read but never having learned to write!  Well no, it’s more complicated than that, but you get the drift.

So what would YOU do with a button?  I think it’d look pretty cute in my sidebar, but I don’t think I can even edit that without getting rid of this very pretty template I have.

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