Celebrate

Since I haven't been playing with my washi tape enough, I thought I would pull it out to enter at Little Red Wagon this week where the challenge is "wishy washi." Right then, I suppose I should really make some more of these in Christmas colours since I do not yet have enough cards to mail out!

House is clean and no concrete plans until 7 pm tonight, hooray! Time to turn on the Christmas tunes and well...do I craft or decorate??? Either way, I had better get to it. Thanks for visiting!

Shanna :)

What I used:
sentiment - CTMH
washi - Stampin Up
random button
embroidery floss
Starbuck's coffee sleeves
copics for splatter

Merry Christmas - non-traditional colours

A quick post this morning to wish our neighbours to the South a Happy Thanksgiving!

I would also like to share my card at:

Christmas card Challenges - inspiration photo
and
Inkspirational - Christmas with an optional twist (no red or green)
Ok, so I admit, there is a tiny bit of limey green, but not the traditional green we would routinely use on a Christmas card.

Thanks for visiting!
Shanna :)


What I used:
papers; Crate paper - Snow Days
stitching - CTMH
ornament punch - SU

Dr. Who Birthday Party!!!

After making a TARDIS costume for my eldest for Halloween this year, we decided it would be fun to have a Dr. Who themed party for my youngest son's Birthday! So, that's just what we did.

First I made invites:

The pertinent info was in a pocket on the back of the TARDIS. I admit it, doing white print on black stumped me at first. All I could think of was Cricut, but there was no way I was cutting out letters that small and gluing them  all on! Then it came to me - bring out the heat gun and embossing powder and voila!

We turned the door heading down to our basement into a TARDIS, scribbled BAD WOLF on any available windows and mirrors with paint and put up balloons in shades of blue, grey and black. We planned to turn our front door into a Tardis as well, but the boys let me off the hook since it was VERY COLD leading up to the party. My boys wanted to serve fish sticks with custard for dipping. In the end, we decided it was safer to actually serve pizza as the main offering, since lots of kids might just turn their noses up at fish, and offer the fish sticks as a snack or appetizer. I am amazed to say that SIX of them decided it was tasty! Dr. Who, you have some serious influence!!!

Sorry for the terrible photos - I stink at editing and had to use flash because of the location of the Tardis and lack of natural lighting, oh well, you get the idea!

Loot bags were a bit tricky, but then the boys remembered the episodes with the bananas - we added actual bananas and gummy bananas, rings that looked like aliens and Fruit Cream Peak Freans (the kind with the red centres) to serve as "Tardis self-destruct cookies as well as twisty blue lolly pops.Wow, were the kids pumped about this party! 

And here is the Birthday Boy with two of his gifts! I was thrilled when I walked into the mall back in September and found this fabulous bathrobe in the window of HMV! He received the book from a friend a fellow Dr. Who fans whose parents are also fans. The kids were awfully excited about it!

I would like to share at:

Crazy 4 Challenges - ways to say hello
well, I think this qualifies since to a person who is not a Dr. Who fan, it appears to be a Public Telephone box - a great, if old-fashioned, way to say hello!

and

Heart 2 Heart - NO embellishments
well, I suppose I could have tried to embellish the Tardis (a Christmas wreath perhaps), but I tried to keep it as authentic as possible

Thanks for visiting!


What I used:
stamps: CTMH W189 on the invite
font on the life-sized Tardis if from CTMH Cricut Artiste - a pretty close match I would say!

The Great Outdoors Take 2 - Let it Snow

It's time for round TWO of The Great Outdoors challenge at Jingle Belles! I was thrilled when Lauren asked me to guest design and choose a challenge! (There is a new challenge issued every two weeks to encourage us to get our Christmas cards done early!) Since getting out and enjoying the white stuff is BIG in our family, I came up with "The Great Outdoors" for the theme. See here for last week's card.

As for this week's card...
a few weeks ago I got my hands on a fun new release stamp/die set from Simon Says, "Winter Gear" with a winter sports theme and was itching to play. This challenge gave me the perfect excuse to pull out this new set and get crafting!

Ever since I visited Banff in 2013, I have had this picture in my head of all the FUN and colourful gear gathered at the ski racks (lots and lots of boards and skis especially around lunchtime) with the snow and mountains in the background. Papercrafters will understand this - the eye candy when you walk into a well stocked scrap store... Well, that is sort of how it is when you walk into a ski shoppe or past the ski racks at lunch time on a busy day at the slopes. So, once I got this die in my hands, the idea that came to me was to try to recreate that sort of feel. My little scene definitely lacks mountains, but perhaps I'll try that next time!

This was the perfect opportunity to try out my new snowboard dies! The snow is falling here in Northwestern, ON and it won't be long until we can get geared up and hit the slopes! 

Here is the inside. How fun is this snowboard? I would LOVE one like this and I love the punny sentiment that came with this set!

Over the last couple of winters, I have spent a significant amount of time in the great outdoors learning to RIDE! There have been bumps and bruises (thank goodness for helmets), sore muscles (remind me to tell you about the time I couldn't lift my leg high enough to put my sock on!), massage therapy, physiotherapy (for an injury sustained from trying to catch myself from falling yet again!), and LOTS and LOTS of soaks in a tub with epsom salts. Can you say mid-life crisis?!?! I can't explain wanting to learn to snowboard at 30 something any other way! In the end though, I can't explain how very gratifying it was to finally get it! By the end of last season, I was able to say to hubby, "I think I am finally at the point where I not longer look like the "Old lady" trying to ride a snowboard, I might possibly look like I actually know how!"

 Here is my snowboard, not too fancy compared to the ones on my card, BUT I bought myself funky PINK bindings at the end of last season and they are fabulous. Yes, I wear purple ski pants. You can get away with A LOT on the ski hill!!! I LOVE wearing all sorts of wild colours out there. My ski jacket is orange AND pink!

The view from part way up Mount Baldy on a late winter evening. There was a fabulous sunset that night!

Thanks so much for visiting! Sure hope you can join us at Jingle Belles in the Great Outdoors!

A big thanks to Steph and Lauren at Jingle Belles for having me along for the ride. Fun stuff!

Shanna :)

What I used:

papers: from my scrap bin, including an art card that I repurposed and turned into funky snowboards

dies and stamps: hat/goggles stamp: Simon Says "Snow Gear"

sentiment: CTMH C1209 Christmas Scripts

stamps used to decorate snowboards: SU Extreme Elements

snowflakes on envelope: CTMH Holiday Trinkets

SU envelope maker
Tim Holtz Alterations Embossing folder (woodgrain)

Believe

I have a quick and CAS card to share. It is also flat enough to be mailed with only one stamp. I really need to make more like this! I found my stash of card bases and thought this silhouette from "A Child's year" would be just the thing.

The snow is flying here and I have the Christmas music playing, so it is really helping to get the holiday mojo going!

I would like to share my card at:
CASology - festive
and
CAS on Sunday - use ribbon or twine

Have a great day!
Shanna

What I used:
Cricut Cart - A Child's year
scrap paper
card base from MME
scrap of gingham ribbon
Bo Bunny alpha stickers

Welcome to the neighbourhood!

I created this for friends that recently moved into our area. They have been house-hunting for awhile, and the one they found just happened to be in our neighbourhood! So happy for you guys!

I would like to share at:

Little Red Wagon - home is where your heart is

and

Crazy for Challenges - numbers - you might not have noticed, but I included their house number on the front of the card, just for fun

Thanks for visiting!

Shanna :)

What I used:
papers and ribbon: Love, Elise "Jack and Abby"
house stamp: Stamping Bella
number stamps: CTMH Calendar C1191
heart and border punch

Christmas Dreams

The current challenge at City Crafter Blog is to use a deer on your project. As luck would have it, I had a cricut-cut reindeer who had taken up residence in the little bin on my scrap table of things that didn't quite work on projects past! I rumaged around and found a few other bits and bobs and this is what I ended up with. I kinda like it and I think Mr. Reindeer is much happier here than he was on my scrap table.

I would also like to share at Inkspirational, where the word prompt is SHINE. Stars are rather shiny, so I thought this was fitting.

Thanks for stopping in!
Shanna :)

I won't list what I used today since most of it was either from my scrap bin or my basket of bits and bobs and so I can't remember where most of it originated except that I'm rather certain the sentiment is from Kraftin' Kimmie.

EnJOY the great outdoors with Jingle Belles

Happy Friday!

You cannot imagine how thrilled I was when Lauren emailed me and asked not only if I would like to be a guest designer, but if I would like to choose the prompt for an upcoming challenge at Jingle Belles!!!

(If you are unfamiliar with Jingles Belles, this is their mission: to avoid holiday mayhem by making unique and inspiring christmas cards, in the company of friends, january through november. won't YOU join us?!)

Well, that was some time ago, but the time has finally arrived!I have a wide variety of interests, but there is nothing I value more than quality time spent with my family outdoors. So many things keep us indoors these days that it can be hard to tear yourself away to get a breath of fresh air. A few years back, we decided we were "hiding inside" a little too much during our long Northwestern Ontario winters. We were getting sick too often and we were lacking motivation to get outside and play in the snow. Well, we introduced the boys to skiing and the rest is history. These days, most of our friends think we are loco because we LIVE for the WHITE STUFF - yes SNOW! * For some people, it is a bad word, but for us it means playtime** - alpine skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing - bring it on!!! We bought our season passes in September, and my eldest son is carefully watching the forecast, we are ready! 

So without further ado, this week's prompt at Jingle Belles is "the great outdoors", chosen by yours truly, and here is my card!

I had been wanting to try my hand at creating a collage-style card and this seemed like the perfect opportunity since I was hoping to incorporate a number of things on just one card. I have many fond memories of time spent in the great outdoors growing up and tried to portray some of them here. When I was a little girl, we sometimes went hunting for a tree the old-fashioned way, by tromping through the bush until we found a tree that was just right, no need for tree lots in the country - hence the trees and snowflakes. We all ( I am the eldest of four children) learned to skate shortly after learning to walk, whether it was at the local rink or on the tiny pond in the pasture. We spent countless hours on skates, some of us playing hockey, some ringette, I was a figure skater - so I had to add the silhouette of the skaters. The overall vintage feel of the card reminds me of Christmases as a small girl when we would pack up our favourite new toys, get bundled up warm, and drive the country roads to Nana & Papa's house where we would spend most of Christmas day with family in their big old house - warm & cozy memories!

One of the really fun things about this card is that much of it came together rather organically as a result of rootling through the little baskets of odds and ends, bits and bobs on my scrap table. We all have them don't we? Those little containers overflowing with little bits of things that weren't quite right for another project...this card was so much fun to make!

The process also got me to thinking about how when I was a little girl, we got to have our very own REAL tree in our bedrooms for Christmas. When we were small (there were four of us), my Papa would come by the house a couple of days before Christmas and bring us each our VERY OWN tree! My Mom would find big mason jars to put them in. Usually we had to wrap towels around them and put them inside a shoebox or something to make them stand up. Then we got to decorate! Over the years, we each started our own collections. We each had a special box we kept our own ornaments in. By the time I moved away from home to go to University, I had several boxes of Christmas decor and more than enough ornaments to decorate a 7 foot tree!

So, this project is also for the Tree-mendous Tree Challenge in the Moxie Fab World!

And here is the inside:

I must admit, I love how the inside turned out and am thinking about making a card using a similar layout on the front.

And voila, a peek at the matching envelope:

Thank you so much for your visit! I know you still have at least a few holiday cards to make, so I sure hope you can join in the fun this week at Jingle Belles! Thanks Lauren and Steph for asking me to join you this week!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

(there is snow in the forecast after all ;)

Shanna :)

* I will admit that although I do LOVE to play in the white stuff ...I, like so many of you, do NOT enjoy shoveling the stuff!

** READ avoidance of household duties and other nasty chores that generally tend to get accomplished on weekends. The reality is that lots of playtime= messy house and large piles laundry that is mostly clean but not folded or put away, piles of equipment (goggles, helmets, mittens and ski pants in the process of drying) that simply live near the front door for ease of access and a constant stream of containers and thermoses that are either dirty or drying upside down in the sink, so please keep that in mind if you plan to visit me between December and March, lol! It is actually much safer to meet me at the ski hill than at my house - as I've told my friends that don't ski, the ride up the hill is long and boring - an opportune time for catching up - if you learn to ski, we could solve the world"s problems whilst riding the lift over the course of a couple of weekends!

What I used:

CTMH Winter Wonder D1241 (on envelope)

CTMH Holiday Magic S1110 (trees)

papers: various, mostly from scrap bin

wooden snowflakes: Studio Calico

Kraft Journaling Tags: Maya Road

cricut cut - A Child's Year cartridge

Tim Holtz distress ink

Wish Big - Toronto Maple Leafs

Here is the birthday card I made for my brother-in-law, Adam. He is a big hockey fan and the Dad of my precious nephew who is, wait for it...also a big hockey fan. He is two and is already skating!

Here is a little peek at the inside.

For this card, I used my NHL Logo set from gel*a*tins that I have had for many, many moons. Do you remember them? They come in an awesomely cool tin for storage.

When I showed this to my youngest son, I asked him: "Look what I made for Uncle Adam, what do you think?" I must admit I was rather please with his response of: "He will LOVE that!" Presumably because he knows how big a hockey fan his Uncle is!

I do love playing with my SU envelope punch board and this project was no exception. Imagine my delight when I realized that I actually had hockey stamps to match - the right team and everything!!! Since the cost of postage went up at the beginning of the year, I did have to add a butterfly stamp to ruin my theme, but alas, there was no reason to ruin a good photo shoot! lol

I would like to share my project at Shopping Our Stash where the theme is "leaves". I definitely dug into the OLD stash for this stuff. I have had the Toronto Maple Leafs paper and that NHL logo stamp set for what seems like forever! 

Thanks much for visiting!

Shanna :)

What I used:

stamps: NHL Logo set from Gel*a*tins, tickets from SU "That's the ticket"

wish big sentiment from SU "Pennant Parade"

SU ticket punch

Bella Bling

black and outdoor denim CS from CTMH

The Tardis and a Canada Post Box - Halloween 2014

 Not so long ago, I came across this post at Letter Writer's Alliance and thought, AWESOME - how cool would it be to dress up as a post box??? My youngest son agreed. He asked if we could make a costume. Since I was heading out on a three day work trip, we agreed that we would make the costume if time allowed. If not, he would use his fave costume, a red M&M.

A similar thing happened with my eldest son. Both boys are big Dr. Who fans, and so the idea came about to dress up as a TARDIS! Again, I thought, very cool if we can find the time!

Well, since I was travelling most of the week before Halloween, it was lucky for us that Nanny & Papa decided to make a visit just before the big day. They arrived on Wednesday evening (the 29th), just in time to help with decorating, pumpkin carving and costume making! I had gathered most of the materials I thought we needed, so we were pretty much ready to go when Nanny & Pops arrived!

Thankfully, my Mom lives for any kind of decorating and/or creative stuff, so we were in good hands. While I was at work on Thursday, she got the insides of the box costumes constructed and the outside covered in coloured bristol board. Once home, I got to work with the printing, tracing, cutting out and glueing. The fitting took some time, too. The arm holes and straps needed adjusting and treaking, but in the end it worked out.

Et Voila, Monsieur Canada Post Box et Monsieur Tardis!

 Here is a side view in our "graveyard."

Luckily, we had hoodie/jackets to match the costumes, sorta by fluke.

The Tardis even attended the grade 7 dance at school on Friday! Hmm, I guess he didn't get too close to any girls! lol

I had some last minute printer issues, so would have like to reprint some of the logos, but it worked the way it was.

Next year, I think it would be fun to make this a group costume - we could have a post card, a postal carrier and the post box!

 Here is a peek at the inside construction. Reinforced arm holes and upcycled/recyled straps (from the boys lunch bags - they never use the straps) to hold the costume up.

Make no mistake, the boys reported these a bit difficult to walk in, especially when doing stairs. The little guy last one block and returned home for plan B - his M & M costume - it was even red so he just had to switch the outer parts! The big dude managed to wear his Tardis the whole evening!

You may know that my hubby owns and operates a driving school - THIS is how he went to work on Friday! Here he is with his buddy.

A BIG THANKS goes out to Nanny and Pops for helping to make the boys awesome costume requests (and all the fun decor) become a reality!

See you soon!
Shanna :)