Happy (Belated) Birthday, Beth!!

Well, the movers came and took away quite a bit - I can actually see my rooms now, lol!  And consequently, I finally finished the birthday card for Beth (my sister-in-law)..... only two weeks late, lol!!  It is my first shaker card, and you can see I need to work on the technique.  But I love the general colors and concept, so will definitely be trying this again!  Here you can see the front of the card.  I die cut the sentiments using cardstock to which I had applied StickIt.  The sentiments are from Hero Arts and Mama Elephant.  Once cut, I heat embossed them using Starry Night embossing powder from Stampendous.  

It is hard to capture the glorious sparkling nature of this powder in its black background.... but here are a few shots that try to do so.   And I absolutely love StickIt for these types of cuts!

The inside of the card was created using the wonderful Abstract Triangles background stamp designed by Kristina Werner for Simon Says Stamp.  I stamped this with Versamark ink, and heat embossed with a fine detail white embossing powder.  Then I smooshed some small Tim Holtz Distress Inks on my craft sheet, spritzed with water, and laid the heat embossed card into this mix of colors, without moving around.  The palette is drawn from this image of Puget Sound, which I know is a favorite view for Beth.

Here is a glimpse of the inside of the card.

The shaker bits inside the window are from Little Things From Lucy (Pineapple Ice and Peach Schnapps)

 And here is a shot of the card standing up....

As Beth generally follows my Facebook links, the card will no longer be a surprise, but I hope the rest of the package will be :-)
Thanks so much for stopping by - and if you've time please do comment (especially if you've tips for shaker cards!)  I always appreciate hearing from you!!  xxx Lynn

Life update!

My gosh, it has been ages since I've been here with you!  Not that I am not thinking about it, but life has gotten somewhat more complex, though all in a good way!

It is a complicated telling, but essentially I am moving 90% of my belongings to my new home in Idaho on the other coast.  You can see me in the midst of this in this picture.  The movers come on October 26, and believe it or not, I've a lot more to do, like the kitchen and closets....

Why not move it all?  Because I will not move there permanently until June of 2018.  Nonetheless I am moving so many things because I will be in my new home for six months starting in January.  I've sold this home to dear friends (or will have in early December).  They want to renovate some areas of this lovely but very old house.  So while I am away, I want to leave them as much space as possible to do whatever they need or want to do!


I am leaving behind the bare minimum of dishes, clothes, furniture, etc. (and ok, slightly more than that for art stuff, lol!) because when I return I will rent my former home from my friends whilst they ready their home for sale.  Whew!


So, not a lot of time or space to do artful things, but am trying to follow everyone's wonderful makes in the meantime.  And I am trying to learn how to sketch/paint in watercolor as I figured that is something I can travel with readily since I will be in Nicaragua for 4 weeks in early 2017 for my sabbatical.  Here are a few images.... I am taking Gina Rossi Armfield's "No Excuses Watercoloring" class online - it is wonderful!!  And do not judge the class by my work - I am just learning :-)



Hope to join back in the creation part of blogland come the new year, if not before.... and in the meantime, thank you all for such incredible inspiration and beautiful projects!!  

Miss you all!  xxx Lynn