Fixating

Today's card took me literally hours to make because it is so completely different to my usual style and I was struggling to get something I was happy with. The thing is, I seem to be fixated on Marelle's card-with-no-stamping challenge! So here (incredibly!) is my third card using no stamps whatsoever!

Created by Kez. Images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

The flowers are die cut blooms and the leaves are chipboard from On Board Essentials which I coloured with a marker. Filigree brad plus brads from Hodgepodge Hardware are the centres and I've used rub ons from last year on a flower and for the sentiment - I think it was called A Perfect Day. The so saffron ribbon is from the promotion a couple of months ago and the papers are Washington Apple.

Thanks for calling in today. See ya!

Cheers

Kez

Window Window Card

It appeals greatly to my very warped sense of humour (had it all my life; don't need a 12-step programme, I rather enjoy it!) that today's card, which is a window card, should also feature a picture of a window. OK, I never said it wasn't lame, did I, just that it appealed to me! :)

Created by Kez. Stamped images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

I have long meant to make another card using the window from the aptly named Window Dressing set and today was the day when I finally did. It took a great deal of fiddly cutting out, so luckily I was in a patient frame of mind! (I've just noticed I made a pun there. Unintentional. But a good one, huh?!!) Take a lookie - here's the front:

And on the inside:

I tried to think of how I could get some decorations and tinsel etc on the tree, but it was far too much of a brain drain after all that cutting! So the tree is bare. Still, there are plenty of pressies underneath and that's the important thing!!! LOL!

Well, I think I've inflicted enough of my humour on you for one post! I hope the very brave ones among you will be back for more another day!

Cheers

Kez

Bloomin'

I mentioned on Sunday's post that Bloomin' with Beauty is one of my fav sets, so while I had it out I just had to make another card. Tried a new colour combo for this one, which I am quite happy with (and it has DD17's approval too!).

Created by Kez. Stamped images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

I stamped the Sanded background stamp on the crushed curry first, then overstamped with the blossom definition stamp in old olive. I couldn't be bothered using my Stamp-a-ma-jig, so I am pretty pleased with how almost straight I got the writing! (Mind you, you can't see the boo boo I've hidden behind the bee! LOL!) Sponged the edge with old olive too, then mounted it on very vanilla and old olive base. The flower is stamped on watercolour paper and coloured with melon mambo, crushed curry and old olive; the bee is crushed curry with a touch of soft suede on his legs and bermuda bay on the wings. Bloom is stamped in melon mambo. Shapes cut with nestabilities and circle punches.

That's it! Thanks for dropping in; hope you have a great day.

Cheers
Kez

Bella Rose Birthday Easel

I have seen a few easel cards around on blogs and they look great, so I had a go at one. Sooooo easy and soooooooooooo much fun! I wanted to do a birthday theme using my new 'Yummy in your Tummy' Magnolia stamps and gingham is kitchen-y, so I picked the lovely Bella Rose papers. Haven't used these in a while, but they are so pretty and feminine and I think they suit Tilda perfectly.

I found instructions for a 4" square card, but increased it to 5" as I needed a little extra space for the size of my stamps. Tilda and the cake are coloured on watercolour paper; the flowers are Kaiser, organdy ribbon from my stash, and I finally got a chance to use some of those gorgeous corduroy buttons!

Here's the front:

And the inside looks like this:

And this is where the easel name comes from; it sits propped up like an easel:

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©Magnolia and © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

Now doesn't that look like fun? Try an easel card for yourself, they are easy to make and have a real wow factor!

Cheers

Kez

Purple Feast

My good friend and fellow papercraft addictee, Anne, just loves purple (in fact, I think of her every time I make a purple card! Hi Anne!), so I know she will adore this card as it is a veritable feast of purple.

I've used the Stained Glass technique as a sample for my Marker Club ladies. It's the first time I've done one and I am quite happy with the results, so will be giving it another go soon! The stamp set is Bloomin' with Beauty, one of my all time favs from SU and one I've used plenty of times.

Here tis:

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

Materials used:

• stamps - Bloomin' with Beauty
• card & paper - pale plum, perfect plum and whisper white cardstock; perfect plum patterns DSP; vellum
• markers - pale plum, perfect plum, elegant eggplant, summer sun, sage shadow, creamy caramel, always artichoke, going grey and close to cocoa
• other - basic black ink, clear embossing powder, Veramark ink, dimensionals, ribbon from stash, Cuttlebug embossing folder Swiss Dots, sponge dauber, scallop edge punch, nestabilities and Big Shot, heat tool

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

There's a Sucker Born Every Minute!

OK, now before you look at today's card, I have to say in my own defence that you KNOW what a complete sucker I am for cute little critters! When I saw this image earlier today I tried to resist it - you would be proud of me, I hung out for a whole 10 minutes! I really did! I went and looked at other images too, but I just kept coming back to this one (and others like it!) and it seemed to beckon to me, "buy me! buy me! you know you want to!" And, well, I can resist anything but temptation, so I caved and bought it! It wasn't my fault!!!

So then of course I had to immediately make a card.

And this is a first for me, because this delightfully adorable image (alright, hold your horses, you'll see it in a minute!) is a digi stamp. Talk about instant gratification! Wowser! No having to trundle down to the shops, no having to wait for things to be sent in the mail; you just pays your money and you receive the images. Hoop-la!

I knew instantly that I wanted to use the gorjus snowflake paper from the Ski Slope DSP set and I kept the card simple because I want the stamp to take centre stage. (Which it does. Oh yeah.) I printed it on whisper white and coloured it with watercolour crayons and markers (just in case you're interested in the details!). The rest is self explanatory.

So, here is the card in question. If you don't think it is one of the cutest, most adorable things you've ever seen ... well, check that faulty cute-o-meter!

Created by Kez. Stamps copyright Stampin' Up! and Judi Maddigan

Please ignore the fact that I need photography lessons! BTW, Stampin' Up! have just introduced digital stamping and scrapbooking in the US, so we will see it here eventually; I'm looking forward to that!

Cheers

Kez

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

With two Xmas classes this week, I feel like I should start singing carols, LOL! On Sunday we made tags and here are what my clever class came up with. Anne made these ones:

Filomena had some lovely ideas and was really keen on Winter Post stamp set (can you tell? LOL!)

Ruth made some cute flower scallop ones and set up a production line, making a whole heap of each design:

Aren't they great? I am so impressed with their creativity. And here are the two cards we made at this month's Stamp-a-Stack:

This one was cased from Laurie F at splitcoast, which my ladies just ADORED. We put some dazzling diamonds on the dove and it looks fantastic IRL. They also loved the cutest stamp on the planet, so I made up a simple adaptation of my earlier card.

Not a great photo; the colours I have used are always artichoke, so saffron and bashful blue.

Those Xmas carols are a-beckoning! Till next time!

Cheers

Kez

I Don't Believe It

I don't believe it! I have the evidence right here in front of my eyes but I still don't believe it! I actually made another card WITH NO STAMPS! OK, pick yourself up off the floor and take a gander at this gourmet feast for the eyes:

Isn't it GORJUS?! I may enter it into Marelle's challenge, although it doesn't use any current Australian SU stuff! The cardstock and papers, as well as the die cut sentiment, are from last year (we all remember purely pomegranate and river rock!). The baubles were made using a punch that is in the current US/Canadian mini, but hasn't yet reached our shores.

I have it because I am a lucky, lucky girl. Yesterday I received a gift from a friend in Canada and what do you think it was? A totally GORJUS stamp set called Delightful Decorations and a matching punch! You may have seen them on many overseas blogs, as they are so BEEE-UU-TEE-FULL that everyone is playing with them!

Here's another card - this time with some stamping on it - using my wonderful new goodies! I've added some bling for an extra bit of Christmas sparkle!

Aren't they cute? Hope they come our way soon so you can all love them as much as I do. Well, I'd better get back to work! Hope you are having a lovely day; thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kez

Seasonal Change of Look

Hey ho all! Well, with Christmas just around the corner (I know, you didn't really want to hear that, did you?) I have a change in the look of my blog. I'm doing so many Christmas related classes at the moment that I'm worried I'll be over it before it even arrives! LOL! Here's some Xmas bags and boxes:

This treat box is so easy to make and can hold baubles to decorate your table, or filled with chocolates or other yummy goodies as a gift.

The bag in a box (or is it a box in a bag?) is fun to make and again can be used to hold an assortment of treats for someone special. I love using DSP for them so you get double sided decoration.

Gift card holders are particularly useful in a house with teens! And I love how easy they are to make and the thousands of ways you can decorate them.

Well, we are off to see WICKED tonight (again! lucky us, we saw it in Melbourne last year) so I'll be 'Dancing through life' and 'Defying gravity' today, which will make me 'Popular'!!!! OK, I'll stop the silly puns now ... see ya!

Cheers

Kez

Creatalicious Challenge

The challenge this month at Creatalicious is to use pink or plum with burgundy and green, and also to incorporate some lace, ribbon or fibre. To me, these colours are very pretty and feminine, so I've tried to create a card that reflects that. I've used a real mixture of stamps, papers etc on this one:

Created by Kez. Some stamped images ©1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

Materials used:

• stamps - Oval All, Fifth Avenue Floral (SU); Sweetheart Tilda (Magnolia); Nature (Grant)
• card and paper - bravo burgundy, sage shadow, very vanilla cardstock, watercolour paper (SU); paper by daisyd's
• inks (all SU) - pink pirouette, pretty in pink, regal rose, sage shadow, blush blossom, creamy caramel, purely pomegranate, bravo burgundy
• other - lace from stash, dimensionals, large oval and scallop oval punches (SU), white gel pen, vintage architecture (Melissa Francis)

Hope you like it. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

One Spot Left

Hi all! I am running a Marker Club and have one spot left if anyone is interested. How does it work? It runs over 5 months (you pay a certain amount each month and receive markers each month) and by the end of that time you will have all 52 markers (that's the 4 colour families plus the neutrals) plus the case to keep them in and have one month as hostess, receiving the usual hostess benefits. It works out cheaper than buying them singly or in families, plus you get the case (which you can usually only get by buying the whole set).

As I said, I have one spot left, so if you would like to get the markers and the storage case without having to buy it in one go, send me an email and I'll give you more details. Offer ends on the 20th of this month.

Cheers
Kez

Idiosyncracies

It is one of the great idiosyncracies of Life As We Know It that someone who hates (I'm talking absolutely abhors) the taste and smell of both tea and coffee - that is to say, yours truly - should actually love making cards with tea and coffee images. And, in fact, collects miniature tea-sets. Has coffee pot and tea pot designs decorating her kitchen walls. Buys teatowels with teapot designs. Et cetera.

OK, putting aside any thoughts of insanity that have probably popped into your head right now (I love men in white coats!), today I made a card with a tea set image. I've had these two stamps for some time - picked them up cheap at the Stitches Craft Show, in fact - so it's amazing that they haven't seen ink before, but as they're not SU they kinda got chucked in with a bunch of other "miscellaneous" stamps. I had fun with some paper piecing and using a couple of little snippets of Bermuda Bay, one of the current in colours in the U S of A and Canada that we are missing out on!

Here tis:

Created by Kez. Some stamped images ©1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

Now, before you go getting worried that you're going pie-eyed, I know it is crooked! Although not as crooked as it looks - that's my lack of photography skills! I just had one of those days when nothing seemed to want to go straight, no matter which pair of glasses I put on! When I was bemoaning its crookedness, DD17 actually quoted me to myself, saying something I always tell people in my classes, "It's not meant to be perfect, that's how you tell it's hand made." It was quite hilarious and I was rather stunned that my DD who takes no interest in craft AT ALL has actually assimilated this gem! Priceless.

Materials used:

• stamps - Best Yet (SU), teapot and cups by Hampton Art
• card & paper - very vanilla, bermuda bay, tangerine tango and close to cocoa cardstock; tangerine tango patterns paper; haiku DSP
• other - bermuda bay ribbon, adhesive rhinestones (Kaiser), dimensionals, black StazOn ink

That's it for today! You have a good one now!

Cheers

Kez

Boo!

One of the sad things about growing up is that everything gets so darn serious - bills and mortgages and responsibilities - so we lose alot of our childhood capacity for silly fun. That's one good thing about Halloween; wearing a silly costume, dunking for apples and making cupcakes to look like spiders - these are fun! And let's face it, we could all do with a bit more silly fun in our lives.

Almost as much fun is making Halloween cards and recently I was lucky enough to get hold of a retired Stampin' Up! set that has the cutest images - it was simply irresistable! It's from 2003 and is called Sweeter Treaters. Here are the cards I made:

Are they not the most adorable little kids? I know my family will enjoy these! The insides all have the same sentiment with a different picture (cat or moon):

The card and inks are SU (except purple Core'dinations on the pumpkin card), papers are Prima and Daisyd's, spider web (with dazzling diamonds added) and bat are from Cuttlebug, spider is Jolee's Boutique and the rub on is from Kaiser. (Please take note I've used TWO bold brights, LOL!)

Hope you get the chance for some silly fun in your life!

Cheers

Kez

Double Magnolia Challenge

My second card today is a bright and cheerful one for two Magnolia challenges: Magnolia Down Under, which has using buttons as its requirement, and the special monthly challenge at Just Magnolia which is to use hand made flowers.

SU materials used:

• stamps - Three Little Words
• card & paper - real red, old olive and whisper white cardstock; Summer Picnic DSP (retired); watercolour paper
• punches - scallop circle punch, word window punch
• other - going grey marker, dimensionals

Other materials:

• nestabilities and Big Shot; red organza ribbon, buttons, Magnolia stamps, Martha Stewart punch

Hope it brightens up your day.

Cheers

Kez

Shocked Bejeezers

Marelle's challenge this month is to make a card with no stamping. Yup, you read right, NO stamping! OMG! What is an obsessive compulsive stamper to do? Breath, breath!!!!

So, I expected this to be a very difficult challenge for me ... but you know, in the end, it wasn't. Yeah, shocked the bejeezers out of me too! I was browsing through my stash of designer papers (and let me tell you, that is some stash!) and I came across a page with a pink flamingo and a bird sitting on its back. Quite different to my usual style and I'm not a huge lover of cameo coral but ... well ... for some reason it appealed to me. So I looked for a rub on to go with it and ended up with a card! And of course, most amazing of all is that I've used a Bold Bright!!! (he he)

Here's my entry:

Materials used (all SU):

• stamps - not a single jolly one!
• card - cameo coral, tempting turquoise, whisper white
• paper - Pink Flamingo DSP
• rub 0n - a retired one, lovey-dovey, have lost the packet and can't remember the name
• other - wide oval punch, tempting turquoise grosgrain ribbon, soft subtles brad, dimensionals

I had such fun making this card that you never know, I might just be tempted to have a go at another stampless card before the end of the month ...! Yikes! what am I saying????!!!!!

Seez ya!

Kez

Kellie's Candy

The gorgeous Kellie has some exciting news and fantastic candy to give away, so if you like Magnolia stamps - plus other goodies, including some SU stuff - then go visit her and take a look.

World Card Making Day

Good morning stampers!

Today's card - made especially for WCMD - is a bit of a departure from my usual, colourwise at least, but I have to say I rather like it! It's my first time inking up the hostess set Live Like You Mean It and I've taken inspiration for my layout from a card by SCS member hotmamastampin6.

Materials used (all SU):

• stamp - Live Like You Mean It
• card & paper - always artichoke, whisper white and so saffron card; Spring Flowers DSP (retired)
• other - Versamark ink, white embossing powder, black StazOn ink, pretty in pink ink, blender pen, two-way glue, dazzling diamonds, rhinestone brad, dimensionals, 32 mm and 35 mm circle punches, scallop circle punch

In celebration of World Card Making Day today, I invite you to:

• leave a comment today about my card
• send me an email with your name and snail mail address
• I will send you a hand made, one-of-a-kind, original greeting card
• you can send me a card back too if you want!

Hope you get the chance to make some cards today. Enjoy the long weekend and don't forget to put your clocks forward an hour tonight!

Cheers

Kez

Do you really need an excuse?

Now, I know I don't need an excuse to make a card, but just in case there are people out there deprived enough of good excuses (and you have my heartfelt sympathies!), here is a good one for you:

The first Saturday in October (yup, that's tomorrow) is World Card Making Day.

That's right! An official day! Has it's own website and everything! Maybe I'm not so obsessive compulsive after all ... well, OK, you're right, I am! ;) So anyway, the reasoning behind WDMD is:

World Card Making Day is a holiday especially for card makers around the world to:

• Celebrate the creativity of handmade cards and the personal connection that they create between friends and family
• Kick off (and get a head start on) the holiday card-making season

Of course, if you've been attending my Christmas SAS classes - or anyone else's, I guess (I'll forgive you if you are out of state! LOL!) - then you will have already made your kick off on holiday cards. But the celebration of creativity and personal connection that card making brings is something I am 100% in favour of! So hooray for WCMD!!!

Now, I didn't have anything special planned but have just had a fun idea. How does this sound:

• leave a comment on my blog on World Card Making Day (guess that means I'll have to make a card tonight - what a hardship!)
• send me an email with your address
• I will send you a home-made, one-of-a-kind, individually designed greeting card!
• if you feel comfortable with it, send me a card back that you have made

I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here and claim that my cards are the be-all and end-all, I'm just trying to encourage the whole card making idea! So, any takers? I'll post a card early in the morning and see what happens.

See you then!

Cheers

Kez

We Have A Winner

Good morning everyone and a pinch and a punch for the first of the month! Can you believe it is October already? Only 84 days until Christmas ... !!!

Being Oct 1 means I have just finished my first year as an SU demo and of course that means Blog Candy winner time! Thank you so much for all your comments in the past month, it is really lovely to read your encouraging words. I think the most common thing you've all said has been that you love my colouring, so rest assured there will be plenty more in the future, LOL!

So, without further ado, I am pleased to announce that the winning comment was:

I hope you find your SD card Kez. they are so small and easy to misplace. I cant wait to see more of your creations. Posted by Karyn I on 17th September.

Congratulations Karyn! Please email me with your details so I can get your candy in the mail to you.

Well, better get started on preparations for our Big Day. Coming soon ... Halloween cards.

Cheers everyone
Kez