Thank You

I am in total awe at all the beautiful responses I received from all of you. Shannon has touched lives all over this country and in Canada too and you all have touched her life and for that I am very grateful. I am happy to know she was loved and respected for who she was and the beautiful work she did.
Some one told me that the Lord only loans us our children and we never know when he is going to ask for them back. Please give your children an extra special hug for me.
Thank you all so much.
I will hold these Cherished Keepsakes Close to My Heart Forever.
Mom *:*

June 18, 2009

Hi,
I am Shannon's Mom, her greatest fan, her best customer. It is with great saddness that I have to tell you that Shannon passed away on June 18th, 2009.
About 2 weeks before she died she had a seizure, and ended up in the hospital for 4 days. She had never had a seizure before. She was taking meds for it and seeing the doctors and doing everything that she was suppose to do. I was with her the last evening, she had a Dr. apt and we went out for dinner and then came back to her place to wait for our "goodies" to come. We were waiting for our Close to My Heart order to come in. When it came she had bought me the stamp set Thank You and said thank you for all you have been doing for me. I gave her a big hug and kiss helped her straighten things up and had to get home because we both had to work in the morning. We got a call from her boss telling us that Shannon didn't make it into work the next morning. We went and checked on her and found her.
I would like to thank everyone who ever looked at her blog, especially those of you who wrote a comment about her work. She looked so forward to your comments, you can't immagine how you affect someones life with your kind words.
The world has lost a great stamper and scrapbooker. I truely miss her we were always together or on the phone tossing ideas around or working on a page or card, or lately her sisters pages for her wedding album.
I do not have answers, just lots of questions, I can only put my faith and trust in the Lord and know she is in his arms now.
I love you Shannon and I miss you very much.
Mom *:*

Emporium

This is another layout my Mom and I worked on for my sister's wedding dress. Like the layout below, we do have pictures on it, but I had to cover the pictures up per the bride. No one can see the dress before the wedding, she said! =)



This uses the Emporium paper packet. Colors are Buttercup, Cocoa, Crystal Blue, Sweet Leaf, White Daisy and Tulip.

On the left page is a row of chipboard hearts from our Dimensional Elements Framed Fun set that I colored in with Tulip ink. Attached to the row of hearts is a White Daisy Tag from the Mini Medley Collection. I then used our Love Letters Rub Ons to add the word "Joy" to the tag.

On the right page, there is a bracket { from our Dimensional Elements Fresh Shapes that is also colored in with Tulip ink. Then the circles on the right side of that page near the top are just cut out from the paper packet.

Floral Tapestry

I made these pages for my sister for pictures of her wedding dress. She is getting married next year in fall and already has picked out her dress. She lives a couple hours away, so the last time we were down there visiting her, she made an appointment with the place where she is getting her dress from so we could see the dress. Wow, it is such a beautiful dress! And I do have the pictures on these pages, but, as the bride said, no one can see the dress before the wedding, so I had to cover the pictures up. So sorry if my "covers" are crooked or look strange. =) My Mom and I worked pretty hard and we came up with a whole album for her full of pictures we had taken that day when we were down visiting her. She just loved it! And we had a lot of fun putting it together! So I'll be sharing the pages we made here, just no pictures on the pages though =)

This page I made with the Floral Tapestry papers. Colors are Garden Green, Orchid Bouquet, Twilight and White Daisy.

On the left page, I used our Tender Tags stamp set and stamped the tag and I also used the flourish stamps in that set to random stamp the background piece of Twilight cardstock.

The big flower on the bottom was simply cut out of the patterned paper and adhered there.

On the top, on the strip of Twilight cardstock, I have Twilight ribbon and in the middle of that is one of our Clear Inspirations Ribbon Slides that says "Precious". It is hard to read in the pictures. Then, tied to that with our Colonial White Ribbon is the Tender Tags I stamped. I also tied some of our Waxy Flax on that along with two of our Clear Inspirations Friendship Dangles. One of the Dangles says "{Love}" and the other one has a heart.

On the right page, I have another Tender Tags tag stamped in Twilight with the word "Congratulations" stamped on it in Orchid Bouquet. That had the same Colonial White Ribbon running underneath it and is held on both ends by our Edge Anchors Heritage Collection.

The strip running down the page was also stamped with more flourishes from the Tender Tags set.

On the bottom there is a small tag from the Stickease collection held on with a Twilight brad. Then, on the right side on the bottom, is another one of the Stickease that I matted, then ran our Colonial White Ribbon around.

The phrase I stamped on the right side is from The Giving Hand set and reads "I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, there is no hurt, but only more love. -- Mother Teresa".

Mother's Day Card

This is the card I made for Mom for Mother's Day this year.

The card base is actually a pocket and the part with the flowers on it pulls out.

The flowers are from our Just Blooms Big Pinks and I added our Craft Buttons to them and tied the Buttons with Colonial White Waxy Flax.

The card base is made out of Chocolate Textured Cardstock and I have a little strip of patterned paper from our Bella Paper Packet near the top.

The little tag I have on the bottom is stamped with a stamp set that is a consultant only set (so far anyway) called Dream Big. Then on top of the tag is a Crochet Flower from our White Daisy Mini Medley Accent collection. I also have a flower shaped brad in the center of the Crochet Flower also from the same Mini Medley Collection, but it is hard to see in the picture.

The ribbon tied about the card base is from the Creme Brulee Ribbon Round.

Then the phrase I stamped on the part with the flowers is from our My One & Only stamp set and it is stamped in Blush.

Thank you!

First, I wanted to say thank you soooo much to everyone who leaves comments. I can't tell you how much I just love seeing that, it just makes my day. There is nothing like coming home from work from a long day and seeing that wonderful comment. =) Thank you!

Plus I wanted to apologize for being absent for so long. Got busy working on an album for my sister for her birthday with her wedding dress pictures. Will be posting those pages soon. Plus the stupid computer's battery died and it was thinking it was 2003 for a good while and I could not post while it was 2003. lol But got the battery replaced and it is going well. So I hope to be posting a lot now that it is back to 2009!!

With Love Valentine's Card

Just wanted to share another one of Mom's wonderful cards again today!

For this card, my Mom used the Coluzzle Square for the square in the Chocolate Cardstock to create a window. The Hollyhock cardstock is actually the inside of the card. Then she did the Dry Embossing to create the four lines that are connected with the Hollyhock Brads. Then finally she lightly sanded the Chocolate cardstock to show off the white core of our cardstock.

The ribbon is White Daisy Organdy Ribbon and she stamped a couple of phrases on it. It may be hard to read , but it says "with love" and "be mine" and "valentine" from the All My Love set and another set, but I am not sure which. Then the Organdy ribbon is tied with Hollyhock Ric Rac and our Natural Hemp.

Then on the heart, there is a flourish from our More To Adore Paper Packet along with a V for Valentine's Day. The V is from our Homestead Alphabet and is stamped in Chocolate ink and layered with Hollyhock Cardstock.

Then the heart is tied to the card with a Chocolate Eyelet on the top of the card and with a Hollyhock Eyelet on the heart.

And Mom said that the idea for this card came from our Originals book as well.

Great card Mom =)

Laughter Is An Instant Vacation

"Laughter is an instant vacation", I just love that! =)

This layout uses papers from a couple different paper packets again. We have both papers from the Perfect Day Level 2 Packet and from the That's Amore Packet. Colors are Tulip, Desert Sand, Sweet Leaf and White Daisy.

Both of these layouts are from our Reflections book. The left side is the Quartet -- Offset layout and the right side is the Bottom Border -- Title layout.

The Desert Sand cardstock on both pages was dry embossed and sanded to show off the white core of our cardstock.

There are also accents from our Spring Blossom Mini Medley Accents Collection and from the Winter Cozy Collection. All of the brads have our Sparkles on top of them to add a nice little extra touch.

The large flowers are from our Just Blooms Big Pinks collection. And the ribbon is White Daisy Grosgrain Ribbon.



The small circle here is from our Connections set and was stamped in Creme Brulee with the accent in the middle stamped in Sweet Leaf. Then it was sponged on the edge with Tulip ink. Added was a Paper Clip from our Spring Blossom Mini Medley Collection and a square brad from our Winter Cozy Collection. Again, a Sparkle on top of the brad to finish it off.



The chipboard letters are from our Dimensional Elements Simple Alphabet (lowercase) and they are colored in Tulip ink.






These two accents below are from our Mini Medley Spring Blossom Collection and they are the Photo Hangers with the rectangular loop removed. Then I added square brads from our Winter Cozy Mini Medley Collection then topped them with Sparkles.






The only other stamping done on this layout was the "is an instant vacation" stamped here. The letters are from our Sans Small Lowercase alphabet set.

Share Layout

This layout uses a combination of Level 2 Paper Packs. There is paper from both the Perfect Day Paper Pack and from the That's Amore Paper Pack. Colors are Juniper, Sorbet, Chocolate, Creme Brulee and White Daisy. All the edges of the paper were also edged with Chocolate ink too.

I also used a lot of our new Love Story Rub-Ons on this layout as well. As an example, all the branches coming down from the top of the left side are from the Rub-Ons.

All the brads are Chocolate Brads and the ribbon across the pages is White Daisy Ricrac. Then the ribbon tied in knots on the hearts is our White Daisy Grosgrain Ribbon.

The word "Share" is from our Dimensional Elements Simple Alphabet in Lowercase. Those were all colored with Creme Brulee ink and sponged a bit with Chocolate ink as well.

The Photo Corners on the left page are from our Spring Blossom Collection of Mini Medely Accents and they are Juniper in color. The Paper Clip on the hearts on the bottom of that page is also from the same Mini Medely Accents Collection and is in Creme Brulee.

The phrase that I have on the bottom of the left page was printed from the computer and I used our Evening News font to create it.

The hearts are from a few different stamp sets. The large heart on both the left and right pages is from the Love of My Life set. That heart is just a solid heart, so I used the large flower background stamp in the Intrinsic Backgrounds set and kissed the two stamps together before stamping it on the page. That allows me to have the heart stamp with the flower pattern on it!

The smaller hearts on the branches on the left side and on the Ricrac on the right side are also from the Love of My Life set. The larger heart with the "Love" Rub-On on it on the right side, is also from that set. Then on the left page, the smaller heart with the phrase on the bottom is from the Free Spirit set.

Oh and this is the Add An Element layout from Cherish.

White Christmas

This card uses that cute snowman from the All Decked Out set (I really had a lot of fun with that set!). It is a 6" x 6" card and the fold is actually on the top. The papers are from the Aspen paper packet and the colors are Bamboo, Twilight and White Daisy.

The "Dreaming of a White Christmas" tag is from the Christmas Melodies set. It is stamped on Bamboo cardstock and I used a White Daisy Marker to color in the "white" saying on the tag. There is also some of our Sparkles and Glitter on there as well and near the bottom of the snowman too.

For the background papers, the outer most White Daisy cardstock is sponged with Twilight ink. Then the rest of the layers of cardstock are scissor distressed.

Then the tag is tied on with our White Daisy Organdy Ribbon and two different fibers from our White Daisy Collection of Sassy Strands. Oh and the snowman has his earmuffs finished off with Twilight Corduroy Brads from the Winter Cozy Mini Medley Accents Collection.

This card was originally made by Bren Yule, thanks Bren for the great idea! Her website can be found here.

As far as a white Christmas, here in Wisconsin, we had a very very white Christmas this year! =)

All Decked Out

Just wanted to share another All Decked Out card. I had a lot of fun with this snowman!

The snowman and flourishes are from the All Decked Out set. The S, N and W letters are from our Boutique Alphabet and they were stamped in Desert Sand ink then cut out individually and adhered to the background. It's hard to see that from the picture.

Then the "brr" letters are from our Doodle Alphabet and they are on the Paper Circle Metal Rimmed Tag. That is held on to the White Daisy Grosgrain Ribbon with a safety pin from our Autumn Garden Mini Medely Accents Collection.

The background paper is from our Notebook paper packet and that is layered on Bamboo cardstock that I sponged the edges of that with Desert Sand ink. The hat and scarf of the snowman is from our Aspen cardstock. I stamped those two pieces in the Aspen cardstock and cut them out and added them to the snowman. The scarf has our little Sparkles on the bottom for that extra bling!

The inspiration for this card came from Laurel Seabrook. Thanks Laurel! =) Her blog is listed on the side and can be found here.

Angel Sent

This is the card my Mom made for the baptism, I thought it turned out so cute!

The Angel is from the Angel Sent stamp set and the frame is from the Annotations set. The paper is from our Sweet Pea paper packet. The angel was stamped in Black then colored in with our Coloring Pencils. The Annotations frame was stamped in Twilight ink then cut out for the angel. The angel and frame were then decorated with some glitter and Sparkles.

The phrase on the bottom was printed off the computer and has one of our buttons in Colonial White from our Holiday Craft Buttons set. And then some White Daisy Organdy Ribbon tied on the side to finish it off.

Baptism Card

This is the card I made for my Godson for his baptism today.

The stamp sets used are Key to My Heart and God Bless You. The paper is from the Apsen paper packet and the colors are Twilight, Outdoor Denim and Colonial White.

For the key, I first stamped it in Twilight ink and rolled it around a bit in the Outdoor Denim ink to give it the different colors look it has.

Then on the inside, I wrote about how God will always be the key for your whole life. =)

Purr.Fect

Just sharing a fun and Purr.Fect layout I worked on tonite! Purr.Fect is the name of the stamp set used! The papers are from the Silhouette Creative Basics collection and the colors are Black, Colonial White, Autumn Terracotta and Bamboo.

The "Cat Tales" title was stamped with the Friendship Alphabet set and they were each cut out and placed on the layout. In retrospect, I think it would have been much easier to just stamp the title phrase on the cardstock instead of doing all that cutting!! =)

Oh and the little "fishies" on the right page were made from Autumn Terracotta Photo Anchors and ribbon. They seem to work just purr.fect together to make those "fishies"!

The inspiration for this layout came, for the most part, from someone else, but unfortunately, I do not have that person's name. If this was your great layout, please let me know so I can give you proper credit. Thanks!

Aspen & All Decked Out

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year! Welcome to 2009!

First, I have to say the inspiration for this layout came from Nancy Brown and Diane Fischer. Great layout, I just love it!!

This layout uses the Aspen Paper Packet with the Feathery Flakes stamp set, the All Decked Out stamp set and the Friendship Alphabet stamps. Colors are Twilight, Bamboo and Colonial White.

All the snowflakes are from the Feathery Flakes set and were heat embossed in our White Daisy Embossing Powder. The ribbon is from the Creme Brulee Designer Ribbon Rounds Collection. And the scallop edges were simply cut with a Fiskers scissor.

Oh and Stickles were used on the snowman's scarf and along the bottom of the snowman on the right page. There is also our Sparkles on there too and on some of the snowflakes. Always need a little bling!



The word "snow" has Liquid Applique across the tops of the letters to (hopefully!) look like snow. The Liquid Applique was heated with a craft heater and it puffs up like that. Works great for winter pages!






There are our Twilight Corduroy Brads from our Winter Cozy Mini Medely Accents on the snowman's earmuffs to keep him warm!



I also wanted to mention there was some paper piecing on this layout with the snowman's hat and scarf. On his hat on the left page, it was cut from our Aspen papers, but the band that goes across the hat, above the rim, was stamped on one of our different Aspen papers. That piece alone was just cut out and adhered on top of his hat. The same was done with the snowman's scarf on the right page. It was first stamped in the Twilight Aspen paper. Then the scarf was stamped again on Bamboo and all of those pieces were cut out separately and adhered to his scarf. That creates a very unique look!