Hi, crafty friends! I’ve been MIA for a while, and I don’t really have a good reason. I needed to reorganize my craft room a bit, and my order for the storage I was missing arrived on the day I left for summer vacation. Bad timing, right? The motivation to get it done had taken a holiday by the time I got back, and it just took time with work and life getting in the way. Anyway, I hope I’m back, and I’ve seen lots of holiday cards recently, so you’d think I’d post one now, but nope. As much as I usually love creating holiday cards all year, I’m just not ready yet, in spite of Christmas items having popped up in the grocery stores and other shops weeks ago. The snow that’s currently falling outside my craft room window (yes, it’s snowing *why why WHY*) doesn’t help. In fact, it makes me long for summer, which is why I’m sharing a shaker card today with palm trees in the background and a pig jumping into the ocean!

This little guy (gal, maybe?) is part of the Sunshine and Daydreams collection that released this summer from Purple Onion Designs. (S)he is half of the Swim buddies duo, which also includes a goose. I used the goose on her own for this card, and I had a plan for a shaker card for this pig, and it turned out pretty much I wanted it to. Love it when a plan comes together!!

I stamped the Beachscape background in Memento Rich Cocoa ink and only colored in the part that would be inside the shaker window, leaving the rest uncolored. This is a great trick to draw your eyes in to a focal point, and it gives a cleaner look than coloring the entire background, and the bonus is that it’s also less work, which is always a win!

I used the First Class Frame die from My Favorite Things to create six layers of white cardstock for the shaker walls, using Shortbread cardstock from Concord & 9th for the top layer, with a piece of acetate from Hot off the press for the window. I filled my shaker with a blend of the Sea Glass and Starry Night sequin mixes from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards, as well as a few blue 3 mm diamonds from Kort & Godt.

I used Avocado ink from Concord & 9th to stamp my sentiment, which is from the Sunshine & Rainbows sentiment set. The green color stands out against the white background and ties in nicely with the colored palm trees inside the window.

The Farmhouse color combination from Concord & 9th was my inspiration for the colors I used on this card. It’s a combo I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own, but I quite like the end result. Give me anything blue, and I’m here for it, that Capri color definitely is a show stopper!

I used quite a few Copics for this one, in spite of the coloring being on a somewhat smaller portion of the card front.