Joyful Noel

Another couple of Christmas cards to show you today. For the first card I cased an idea from CWeeks over at Splitcoaststampers. Her card used the music notes wheel but I don't have that, so I've used musical paper from the Newsprint set instead and I added in my favourite punch.

Here's my take:

A simple card but I love it, it's so evocative! The girls and I love singing carols in the lead up to the big day and this puts me in mind of our fun around the piano. What's your favourite Christmas carol? Mine is The Little Drummer Boy, I just feel so proud for that wee man every time I hear it.

The second card will be a bit of a shock to you guys - there's no Cherry Cobbler!!!! I've used Real Red, Old Olive and Very Vanilla with the Petals Aplenty embossing folder, paper from a year or two back and the Joy stamp from Welcome Christmas. The main panel has been covered with micro translucent glass beads which are attached with clear double-sided adhesive paper - both products I got at a craft show in NZ a few years back.

I could have used Dazzling Diamonds, but I just felt like a bit of a change! Thanks for dropping in today.

Cheers
Kez

A Wee Bit Arty Farty

Hey ho stampers! I hope you are enjoying a warm, sunny day where you are - we are here in the beautiful Blue Mountains! Mind you, I believe thunder storms are predicted for later on, so I'd best enjoy it while I can! A long and rambling entry today, so if you're in the mood for an epic, read on!

Today's card is what I call "a wee bit arty farty"! It turned out that way through a series of mishaps - or rather, things not turning out quite like I thought they would ... here's the skinny:

While browsing through the IB&C I noted that the Xmas scrapbooking kit uses Cherry Cobbler (heart!), Always Artichoke, Very Vanilla and Marina Mist. Hmmm, I thunk, I'd quite like to try that combo. Picture thinking cap on, trying to decide what stamps to use with these colours ... decided on Just Believe with a brayered background. Next dilemma: how to brayer blue without obliterating the green and red? Solution: clear emboss the flower first, then brayer over the top. So that's what I did, I inked my stamp with Versamark and then coloured with markers over it. First mishap! Markers do NOT like going over Versamark ink. Result? A bit of a blurry, blotchy effect. One to Murphy! Ah well, soldier on!

So I made my mask and brayered the sky with Baja Breeze and Marina Mist. It worked OK over the flowers, no problems with colours running or anything. One to Kez!

Then I got adventurous and decided to try my newly-made-up shimmer mist for a glittery effect. I have practised a couple of times but STILL got the large blobs, so again Murphy scored one and I got a bit of a patchy sparkle over my focal image!

Alright, next I stamped En Francais in Marina Mist over my vanilla background piece. Waaaaayy too prominent, so I embossed it to see if that toned it down a bit. Nah, Murphy scores again! OK, flipped it over and tried to get a vintagey/patchy look on the other side from whatever ink still remained on the stamp. Hmm, not much, but you'll see the merest hint on there! Half to Murphy, begrudgingly!

Then, the final touch and my piece-de-resistance! Some Cherry Cobbler (heart!) ribbon! No, I have not been shopping over in the good old US of A, but found some ribbon at a nearby habby shop that is a perfect match - and thus, am now in Cherry Cobbler heaven! LOL!

Another one to me - and the final score? Well, I think Murphy won that round. So, my card turned out not at all as perfect as I planned. Still, when I look at it, I quite like the soft, blurry, arty-farty kind of effect I have ended up with! Maybe Murphy should call in again some time .....!

Hey, if you've stuck with me for this long, now you deserve to see the card, yeah? Feast ....

Thanks for stopping by - and for valiantly struggling through my ramblings! Have a great day and watch out for Murphy!

Cheers
Kez

Love You

I was inspired the other night to have a go at the Just Add Ink colour challenge, then had to get my catalogue out to decide what stamp set suited! I think I might be obsessed or something ... ! Ya think?! LOL

Anywhooooo, here are the colours the ladies set this week:

Gorgeous colours, I am just loving Blushing Bride - soooo purty! Here is the card I came up with:

Materials used:

• stamps - Dreams du Jour
• punch - scallop trim border
• embossing - Elegant Lines, Square Lattice

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Older and Wiser

I have seen a few cards around with the owl punch being used for a "Three Wise Monkeys" kind of card and love the idea, so I wanted to do one myself but needed a theme. Once I decided to use the Celebrations designer papers on my owls, that gave me the idea to make a birthday card that makes fun of getting older. This is a type of card I love to give! LOL! Especially to my DH, who is 10 years my senior!

I had to print the sentiment and inside page on the computer as I don't have stamps that say what I wanted. But I had such fun making up my no-evil owls!!! Here they are:

The balloons on the inside are from the set Party This Way, which matches the Celebrations papers. Don't you just LOVE how SU co-ordinates things this way? Gotta love it!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Clean and Simple Christmas

Today's card took a little while to "grow on me". It's one of those ones where I really wasn't sure that it worked, so I left it overnight and looked at it with fresh - untired! - eyes this morning. And I've decided that I like it. It's different, but I like the simplicity and the muted colours.

So, whaddya think? Creative genius or back to the drawing board? Can I per-suede (groan!) you to leave a comment? Ta!

Materials used:

• stamps - Welcome Christmas
• card & paper - Whisper White, Soft Suede, Christmas Cocoa speciality paper
• ink - Soft Suede
• other - Soft Suede ribbon (retired), pearl brad (non SU), Big Shot, nestabilities die (non SU), Elegant Lines embossing folder, Soft Suede marker, dimensionals

Cheers
Kez

Borrowed Genius

For this month's Christmas Stamp-a-Stack cards I have borrowed from the creative genius of others. In other words, CASEd shamelessly! LOL

The first one is cased from Kim Gavarra with some changes in colour. The ribbon is contraband as SU haven't given us any Cherry Cobbler ribbon - WHAT WERE THEY THINKING????!!! Here's the card:

Materials used:

• stamps - Welcome Christmas
• card - Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Cherry Cobbler
• inks - Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler
• other - Cherry Cobbler marker, scissors, dimensionals, non SU organza ribbon, sponge dauber, non SU bow tying machine

My second card is cased from Sarah-Jane Kale and again I have changed the colours. I just love the vintagey look of this one:

Materials used:

• stamps - Delightful Decorations, Christmas Greetings
• card - Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Cherry Cobbler
• inks - Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
• other - ornament punch, adhesive pearl, very vanilla satin ribbon, dimensionals, Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, Big Shot, sponge dauber

Of course, you know it's only about 7 weeks until Christmas, don't you? YIKES!

Thanks for calling in. Have a great day.

Cheers
Kez

Cherries and Plums

I have had such a fun afternoon, taking part in my very first online tutorial! I was a bit nervous at first that I would press the wrong buttons and not be able to see the instructions - wouldn't be the first time, LOL! - but I managed to work everything OK and keep up with the lesson.

We were making a most adorable cupcake box and I decided to jumbo size mine and turn it into a Christmas gift box, complete with mini Plum Pudding!

I used Cherry Cobbler (of course!) with Jolly Holiday designer papers, added some Old Olive satin ribbon and a tag made from Delightful Decorations and the Ornament Punch. I also made a little matching "hat" for the plum pudding! Take a lookie:

Yum yum! You can't go wrong with cherries and plums, LOL! (hey, that rhymes!)

Hope you like it, thanks for stopping by today.

Cheers
Kez

Classic Combo

Red, white and blue are such classic colours and always look so great together. Today's card features Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White and Night of Navy. I mentioned at a recent class that when you don't know what colour to put with another, you can't go wrong by choosing something from the same colour collection - and I was amazed at how many of my ladies hadn't thought of that, so I have obviously been a bit remiss in making that point!

My friend and team mate Sue let me stamp some images from Friends Never Fade at our last play day, so I had this one to make up into a card. The papers are from the Regals Collection and to add a bit of interest and fill in that visual space, I have embossed the corner using the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder. It's very subtle and a perfect fit!

I think the result is simple and elegant, but you know how much I adore Cherry Cobbler, so I might be just a little biased! LOL! Hope you like it too.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Sunnies On!

Yup, you'll need your sunnies on for today's card, it's a bright one! I've used three colours from the Bolds Collection for this summery, cheerful card using stamps from the Every Moment set. Got your eye protection on? OK, here goes:

Don't say I didn't warn you! LOL!

It's been a while since I did some masking so it wasn't an entirely successful exercise, but thank goodness for butterflies, LOL! For the flowers I used Daffodil Delight, Peach Parfait and Poppy Parade, and don't they all have such gorgeous names?! And of course I had to add two of my favourite new products - the satin ribbon (here in Rich Razzleberry - sooooo sumptuous!) and the scallop trim border punch.

I also have a number of blog awards that have been bestowed on me by some very kind and talented people, so I've got to catch up on them:

This one is from Nikki.

This one is from Liam and also from Andrea.

Having recently given awards, I'll have to take a little time to think who to pass these on to, but many thanks to all you ladies for your kindness.

Glad you stopped by and hope you have a great day.

Cheers

Kez

More Photos from Sunday

Here are a few more photos of my lovely helpers at the Cards for our Troops day on Sunday. (excuse the names being in odd places, I can't get this silly program to do what I want!)

 Robyn

 Lynda

 Jenny and Maureen

 Filomena

Rae

You can see I kept them all working hard! LOL! Actually, they worked soooooo hard that I gave them all an "early mark"! Yes, that's right, we had everything finished ahead of schedule! How's that for dedication?

In all of these photos you'll see a little white bag with handles. Each lady received a Thank You bag of goodies from me - I do have photos but am having real computer issues at the moment and can't upload them from my camera. I'll get them up asap.

It was a great day and I'm already looking forward to next year's event!

Cheers

Kez

Edited to add: Here's a photo of the goodies in the thank you bags - an owl giant paper clip bookmark, mini milk carton with ribbon samples, calendar fridge magnet and Smarties tube (kindly made for me by Robyn). This one seems to be empty - don't know how that happened!!!

What A Day!

OMGosh, what a day! Today was our Cards for our Aussie Troops event and between the work the amazing bunch of ladies did today, plus a few other kind donations of cards, we have 350 Christmas cards to send! How fantastic is that? I am so grateful to those who gave so willingly of their time and efforts to make cards, so THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your generosity.

I also must thank a few special people who helped me with preparation and organisation - my dear SIL who is always there for me; my darling DD12 who is a treasure beyond words; and my mate Rob who doesn't wait to be asked for help, she just does it. Thanks guys, you are wonderful. And thanks also to another Rob, principal of our old primary school who let us use the hall and facilities without hesitation.

Here are a few photos of the day:

Debbie and Kay

Anne and Tracie

 Jean and Liam

 Ruth and Jane

Lynda, Kathryn, Tracey and Kay all hard at work, Jean in foreground.

Filomena, Jenny, Maureen, Tracie and Anne.
Mollie

It was loads of fun and I am totally pooped, so it will be early to bed for me tonight once I come down from this high!

Cheers

Kez

Cards For Our Troops

It's only 4 sleeps now until my very special event making Christmas cards for Aussie troops serving overseas in combat zones to send home to their families and loved ones. All stations are GO! (as Thunderbirds would say!) and I've a few things still to organise, so will be MIA for a few days here on the blog.

These are the card designs for everyone to make; I kept them as simple and straightforward as I could without being too plain (IYKWIM):

We have some fantastic raffle prizes and lucky door prizes to give away, thanks to the generosity of Stampin' Up!, my upline Marelle Taylor and fellow demos Juliette Chapman, Nikki Stalker and Robyn Irving. So I am looking forward to a fun day for a wonderful cause and I'll be back next week.

Have a good one!

Cheers
Kez

Mr and Mrs Owl

The bride wore pearl-encrusted vintage ivory satin ... the groom resplendent in waistcoat and top hat.

I don't know why, but yesterday morning when I awoke almost the first thing that came into my mind was a design for a bride and groom owl. I hadn't been thinking of weddings or owls and neither of those appeared in my dreams, so why that particular thought should just pop into my brain I am not sure! But "ours is not to question why" as they say, so later on after dinner I sat down to create the card I had imagined.

I had soooo much fun! Let me introduce you to the newlyweds:

Seriously, how adorable are these two?

The top hat and veil were both made using the "vest" part of the owl punch and I also used the scallop oval punch for the top part of the veil. The sentiment comes from the Word Play set. Wish I knew someone who was getting married - I'd love to see their faces when they received this!

Thanks for dropping by. Have a great day.

Cheers

Kez

Batch of Firsts

One of the projects we are making in class today is a post it note holder. Nothing earth-shattering about that, but I wanted to make them a bit more chic than usual, so I went with classic colour combo black, cream and red and used a bunch of products for the first time.

First time using Love Letter DSP - so in vogue right now!

First time using the scallop trim corner punch - thanks to a lesson from a friend. Thanks Rob!

First time making little roses with the scallop circle punch - thanks to the lovely Andrea Buckland's tutorial (see here).

My ladies can decorate theirs differently if they want to, but I am very happy with the overall look of mine. Inside are the post it note pad and a little gel pen.

Thanks for calling in today. Enjoy the last day of the school holidays!

Cheers

Kez

Playing With Colours

When we were at Stamp Camp - seems like aeons ago! - team mate Nikki demonstrated the Black Magic technique. I made one card at camp but haven't done any since, until the other night when I decided it was a nice simple technique to try with my beginners class.

I have used three shades of violet and teamed them up with the gorgeous in colour, Concord Crush, and I love it! (Mind you, I've always been partial to a bit of purple) The photo makes the darkest colour look a bit manic though - it's not that bad IRL!!!

The next night I was inspired by a card by Barbara Howell on SCS and played with sponging. After a number of aborted attempts (which, admittedly, after the first accident were mostly my own fault as I didn't wait patiently for the ink to dry before I began sponging!) I finally got a card I am happy with.

I stamped the image in StazOn on gloss card, then sponged using Crumb Cake and Soft Suede for the base and Baja Breeze and Marina Mist for the top. I've used my Square Lattice embossing folder again - it honestly didn't look as good before embossing - the texture of the embossing seems to blend the sponging together quite nicely, luckily for me! I love the texture this Square Lattice embossing folder gives and sincerely hope it appears in one of our minis soon. You all NEED this one as much as I did, LOL!

Because I used gloss card, the main panel has a gorgeous glossy sheen to it that doesn't show in the photo - it's luv-er-ly!

Hope you get a chance to play with colours today. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Felt So Good

I have a terrible pun for my header today! It's because I have used felt on my card and this line just popped into my head and I went with it! Sorry about that, LOL!

Anyways, this card was inspired by (a) seeing that Bec's Creatalicious challenge this month is pink, green and brown, (b) wanting to use Blushing Bride and (c) having bought this dark dusky pink felt. Here's my creation:

I used Bella Toile on the background, my Square Lattice embossing folder for the foreground piece and Perfect Punches set for the sentiment. The felt flower is made on my Big Shot with the Floral Fusion die and put together with this ginormous pearl brad I found at my local arts and crafts store, and the greenery is Pear Pizzazz made with the Little Leaves die. The brown is Early Espresso, which I didn't think I would like but am loving in spite of it's name!!! A very simple card with plenty of texture. Hope you like it.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Cuteness On A Small Scale

As my class tonight are making a Halloween card, I suddenly had an idea yesterday to make a Frankenstein mini milk carton monster. DD12 and I had sooooooo much fun making Frankie that we kept going and made a Mummy and a Dracula too! Here are my versions:

Cute or what? I tell ya, I was glad I have so many SU punches! LOL! Dracula's hair, nose, eyes and fangs are all made from punches - wonder if you can guess which ones?

Here are DD12's little cuties:

I love the bandage uncurling on her Mummy!

Hope you like 'em! Thanks for calling in today.

Cheers
Kez

The Ones That John West Rejects

Everyone knows the advert for John West salmon, right? Today's card began with the main image panel, which I had rejected from another project I was working on. It wasn't right for what I wanted, but I couldn't just bin it, so eventually it became a card.

I tried the colour combo of old olive, cherry cobbler (heart!) and peach parfait and I quite like it. The sentiment is from Word Play and the flowers are of course that GORJUS set Just Believe. As I wanted the main panel to be the focus, I used simple patterned paper behind it (peach parfait) and added some PP ribbon and cherry cobbler (heart!) buttons! Ooooooo, purty! Couldn't decide if the card base needed something and if so, what, so just left it plain with sponged edges and overall I'm reasonably happy with the finished product. Poor little John West reject! LOL!

Hope you're having a great long weekend and have remembered to put your clocks forward!

Cheers
Kez