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With Derek’s recent visit and his wife Katie’s growing belly, I just had to pass on some baby goodness. However, Derek was passing through at the beginning of a 6 week trip through the States. Needless to say he didn’t have a lot of room to haul around baby stuff. So what better than to make a Shannon classic…mini-baby album tin…
I was really happy with my paper choices on this one…especially since it had to be gender neutral since Derek & Katie are waiting to be surprised come mid March. Hopefully they can use this for some little pictures of their Little One. I know I can’t wait to see the pictures that this tin will hold. :)
-Shannon
Ever since finding out that Nacho is on the way I’ve felt like I should be making something for my little one. I finally decided to settle on a baby blanket after realizing I just couldn’t bring myself to making a gender neutral scrapbook or something like that. So I picked out some colors of yarn and have been knitting a bunch of squares that I will then sew together to make a baby blanket. So far I have a stack accumulating and especially after this long holiday weekend it is now much bigger.
-Shannon
Recently I received a lovely flower arrangement from work. I enjoyed for as long as I could but then it started to fade away. But as it faded I plucked out the still living pieces and made my own flower arrangement.
I was pretty happy with how it turned out and I might have to start trying my hand at some flower arranging. :)
-Shannon
Recently I have been lacking on the creative end of things. I think this is most evident in the fact that I haven’t posted anything in over 2 weeks! Even though I haven’t been sharing much on here I have been taking small steps in some creative projects. So here are some recent layouts I was able to do.
This first one is from December of 2005 and shows our journey from Missouri to Vancouver. Neither one of us had ever been to Vancouver before, we rented our apartment without seeing it in person, we wouldn’t know a single person in the entire city, we had sold our house, a car and given our dog away. But we were excited for where God would lead us and a short 2 1/2 years later we were surrounded by people who loved us as we moved on. But for now we’ll remember how we got there in the first place…
And another layout that I simply titled “finished”. This summer while Lucas was at Duke he finished his thesis once and for all. We now have a beautifully bound copy (that I am in the process of reading) gracing our bookshelves and it is a constant reminder of the hard work and perseverance Lucas showed. I couldn’t help but snap a few shots the day he printed his copies to send to Regent for binding…
Those are my small steps to share for now but I promise I won’t go another 2 weeks before posting again.
-Shannon
I do!…thanks to a wonderful stash of buttons my mom sent me. These buttons are a collection from both of my grandmas and my mom. She has been keeping them forever and adding to them here and there. This Christmas my sister got a sewing machine and this past year I got one for my birthday so my mom thought it was time to get rid of the buttons. I arranged them by the colors of the rainbow so I could see what I was working with…
Here are a few of my favorites…
I’m pretty sure these were some of my grandma’s…
Along with sorting through my buttons, I also took some time to make some new cards…
A little collection I did with some new paper…
And while I’m on crafty things I thought I’d share some new and some not so new fabric I’ve been using…my pile of neutrals…
The white actually has really small even whiter dots all over it…
And my new favorite black and white…
Some polka dot fun…
And some prints…
Not sure what I’ll use this for but I love it!
Most of these fabrics are from SewMamaSew but I picked up some steals while we were visiting my parents over Christmas. Now if only I could fix my slightly messed up machine and get sewing…
-Shannon
Lately I haven’t been doing too many crafty things, but this week that changed. First, I started my free on-line class called Stories in Hand. The class is meant to help you remember stories from life and learn to write them down with all the great details. Even though it isn’t a scrapbooking class we spent the first few days making our Stories in Hand binders and a smaller notebook to keep with you for story ideas…
It’s pretty neat because the woman who is teaching it normally does digital scrapbooking stuff so she prepares all these pages that then you can just print out. That is how I made the covers and filled my book. Now we’re in the process of collecting stories and writing down a few of them as well. It helps me to take time each day to spend some time writing and collecting my thoughts…
I actually meant to mention the class on here earlier so that some of you crafty friends of mine could do this as well. But I kind of forgot and then I realized they had closed the class! However, the class is through Jessica Sprague so keep your eyes peeled for other classes if you want.
In other news…Christmas Cards! That’s right I’m already thinking about Christmas Cards. :) Actually a blog that I read got me thinking about Christmas cards because she designed a Christmas Card set that I quickly fell in love with. I debated weither using the set would be considered “hand-made” enough for me, but with a few of my own touches I think I’ll be able to make these cards into one-of-a-kind-Shannon-cards. Yesterday I received my fantastic Chrismas Card Kit…
As you can see it comes with lots of fun extra stuff like small thank you cards, CD/DVD mailers, gift tags, Christmas letter paper and envelopes…
And in case you want this for yourself, you can find it here. I’ve already started working to assemble my cards and to add a few special touches. Sometimes I need some new inspiration to kick start my craftiness and this week I’ve had just what I needed.
-Shannon
After taking a few days to figure out what in the heck I’m doing with a sewing machine I finally decided on a project. Going into it I knew this project probably wouldn’t turn into anything since I was sure to mess it up, but I was pleasantly surprised. I decided to make a bag for my huge folder of worship music. This was both in honor of my new job and also because I like to have this folder out and about but it isn’t very pretty. So now I not only have a way to carry the folder but it also has a nice, pretty home…
Before I started my project I thought I should mess around with the machine a bit so I made some little pocket things. Paca seemed to like them and Lucas thought I should make two of them so Paca could have some saddlebags and help around the house…
In other news…today in the mail I found this…
Before we left Missouri I went in to register for my absentee ballot. I was surprised to receive it so early and was even more surprised to see the very specific pencil attached to the instruction sheet. :) So not only did it come with a pre-stamped envelope for me to send my ballot in with, I also got a free pencil…
-Shannon
Attention world…yesterday was my birthday! It has finally started to hit me that we live close to NYC. I really came to grips with this fact on Saturday when we headed into the Big Apple to celebrate my birthday. We woke up bright and early and caught a train to NYC…
We were in the city by 9:00 am and one of our first sights was of the light coming over the Empire State Building…
We didn’t have any big plans for the day…just walking around, enjoying the city…
We enjoyed Central Park…
After grabbing some lunch in SoHo we wandered our way back uptown..
After a nice, long day in the city we headed back home. Then on Sunday we truly celebrated my birthday with presents and cake and nice meals. After we got home from church I decided it was time for presents…
I started with some cards from my parents…from my mom, a nice mother/daughter card…
…and from my dad…
I even had a special card come to me all the way from my friend Katie in Scotland…
Next I moved onto presents from Bonnie & Larry…
Then it was onto the big boy…
It’s a Sewing Machine!!! I was pretty darn excited (even though I picked it out with my mom earlier this summer). :)
And Lucas topped off the entire birthday by surprising me with a gift card to JoAnn’s Fabrics!
So after opening presents I headed off to enjoy the fabric store. That evening we enjoyed an excellent dinner of shrimp, twice baked potatoes and asparagus…
And of course I had to have my favorite cake…FUNFETTI!
After dinner I spent some time setting up my sewing machine and trying to get the knack of it…I think I need to get some tips from my sewing friend Shelley…
It was a great birthday…
-Shannon
PS-Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday via Facebook…it really made my day. :)
While Lucas has been away I have had the chance to have some quality girl time. On Thursday night Shelley came over for a final craft night. Now I know about 3 weeks ago we said that would be our final craft night but we were wrong. :) So on Thursday she came over, we enjoyed some dinner together and then we got to crafting…and watching The Office season finale. It was great to spend some last one on one time with her as I can now safely say we won’t have time for another night together. Here are the fruits of my labor…
Shelley pumped out the cards as well but I didn’t grab a picture of them. But I did grab one shot of the crafters…
On Friday I enjoyed a lovely lunch at The Secret Garden Tea Room in Kerrisdale. My friend Vanya took me there and she brought along Ciara so we just had the perfect girl time…
Vanya looking oh so proper…
After lunch we even enjoyed some sweets…
And then we enjoyed the sweetness of Ciara…
Yay for girl time…especially because I’m going to miss these girls so much…
-Shannon
*p.s. we leave Vancouver in one week… :(
I have to admit that since school has been out my days kind of run together. So even though we just enjoyed a weekend we weren’t much on the warrior side of things. I’ve actually been sick the past few days but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a little fun. On Friday night we had our friends Micah and Fiona over for dinner. We met them through our church home group and have loved getting to know them. They are both from New Zealand and they came to Vancouver for Fiona to do her Master’s degree in violin performance at UBC. She is now finished with her schooling but a few weeks ago she had her final recital. It was absolutely wonderful!
We have been trying to get together with them for quite some time but it finally came together on Friday night. We enjoyed some steak, twice baked potatoes, salad, rolls and a nice bottle of wine. It was a wonderful evening and I made sure to take a picture with our friends…
On Saturday I woke up feeling worse than before so we enjoyed a quiet day at home. I had been itching to make a few more cards before we headed back to Missouri so I hauled out some stuff and got to work. Three movies (on tv) later I had completed 20 cards!!! I don’t think I’ve ever had such a crazy card making day. Now I have to admit that the reason I was able to pump out so many is because I basically did the same few designs all day and I just mixed up the papers and embellishments. Either way here is my new stack of cards…
And a new favorite…
After a good morning at church, where Gordon Fee preached on my favorite verse (Zephaniah 3:17), we enjoyed another lazy day at home followed by an evening walk which included picking up some chocolate milk for Lucas and a Coke slurpee for me. :)
-Shannon
