Monday, May 31, 2010

Bloomin' Challenge


Well, I've been very adventurous over the weekend: I decided to have an attempt at the Just Add Ink colour challenge and combine it with the Mojo Monday sketch challenge! At least it meant half the work was done for me, LOL!


I combed through my stamp sets to find one where I could use all those very strong colours and not end up with something overpowering. Finally I settled on an old favourite, Bloomin' with Beauty. Haven't used it in a while, but the flower is soooooo pretty and I was sure it would look stunning in Melon Mambo.

I flipped the mojo sketch sideways and have used two of my favourite techniques - watercolouring (the flowers) and brayering (the teal and eggplant background) and I muted the melon background so it isn't too "in your face"! I am very happy with the result.


Thanks for dropping by today. Have a great week!

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Rosebud Forever

I've been having another play with my wonderful 2 step bird punch - is this or is this not an amazing little punch?

Today I've been experimenting with rosebuds and followed a tutorial posted by Lynette here on her blog. I'm happy with the rosebuds but am not completely sure about my card - to me the top white portion needs something, maybe embossing? It just looks a little stark I think, so I'd love to hear what you think. Does it need something or would that be overkill? Please help! Leave me a comment to tell me your opinion.


Cheers
Kez

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Cantilever Box

Here's another of the fab projects we made at our stamp day on Saturday. This gorgeous cantilever box was presented by the talented Robyn (Hi Rob!) and although it was time consuming and a bit fiddly towards the end (sorry for the whingeing Rob!), it is so worth it! I used the lovely Bella Rose papers for mine, which I will miss after August.

Here it is all closed up:


And then with the top boxes lowered so you can get to the lower boxes:


Pop on over to Robyn's blog here and look at her other examples.

Thanks for calling in; I'll be back later in the week to show you another project, but I've got to finish it first!

Cheers
Kez

Monday, May 24, 2010

Dungarees

Saturday was a fun day, with 7 of our team getting together to stamp and papercraft in our own version of SU convention. We made four projects so it was a busy day! but lots of laughter and talking along the way.

Here is one of the projects we made, demonstrated by the lovely Sue, who was our hostess (thanks Sue!). These dungarees are so cute and you can check out Sue's other variations on her blog here.

For mine I used bashful blue, close to cocoa and not quite navy. The buttons are made using the new buttons die from the mini and the turtle comes from Fox and Friends set, also from the mini. I put faux stitching along the straps, pocket and accent pieces, but it is hard to see in the photo.

I'll be back later in the week to show you more projects from our fun day.

Cheers
Kez

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Welcome Abigail

Yesterday I had a lot of fun with punches and baby cards. One of the girls coming to our fun stamp day on Saturday has just had a baby girl, so I wanted to make a card to welcome little Abigail. I've been dying to try a gorgeous rocking horse made from punches that I saw over on Regina's blog at The Stamping Bean. Most of the punches I have, but we don't have the modern label punch here in Aus, so I've used the scallop oval and cut it down.



The colours I've used are lavendar lace, barely banana and certainly celery. I've used the nursery letters wheel on the background, my alphabet dies from the new mini for the capital A and tiny tags set with jewelry tag punch, also both from the mini. (Isn't the mini fantabulouso?!) The purple organza ribbon is from my stash and my huge bundle of embroidery cottons came in very handy for tail, mane and bridle!

I also wanted to have a go at a baby carriage card that I've seen on a few blogs. They are made using the scallop circle die (another thing from the mini!) and are sooooooooooo cute! There are a few different versions but I followed Sandi McIver's tutorial for mine.


Cute as!

Well, I gotta go and mark some assessments for my class so I'll catch you later! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

A Feast of Brayering and Birds

A bunch of us are getting together for a stamp day this weekend as we can't make it to the Stampin' Up! Convention. We are doing some projects and making swaps and generally going to have just as much fun - if not more! - than those who are going to the real thing.

I am doing brayering with the ladies and I picked two cards from Michelle Zindorf, the Master of Brayering (Mistress of Brayering just doesn't sound right somehow!) to CASE. They both use the wonderful 2 step bird punch (which you might have seen once or twice before on my blog, he he!!) at opposite ends of the seasonal spectrum. As luck would have it, the challenge over at Just Add Ink this week is to use one of the techniques they have shown on their blog hop, so these two brayered cards fit perfectly for that challenge.

Firstly here is my CASE of Michelle's 'Warm day in the field':


Colours in this one are Apricot Appeal, Really Rust and Bravo Burgundy. A very simple card but very striking.

Then I attempted 'Out in the frosty field' and I have to admit it took two tries till I was happy with it, and even then I made a couple of mistakes! Never mind, live and learn eh?! Here is my version of Michelle's beautiful card:


So for my swaps I decided to stick with the theme of brayering and birds and picked this card:


Well, thanks for stopping by. I hope you get the chance to sit and create something today; it's a damn sight cheaper than a shrink and much more fun! LOL!

Cheers
Kez

Saturday, May 15, 2010

You Gotta Have Friends

"Oh, you gotta have frie----iends!" Oops! was I singing out loud?! My bad!

My sweet friend Lynda very kindly sent me a link last night to a US blog. While browsing she came across a gorgeous flower made using the Ornament punch, and knowing I have the punch she thought I might be interested (thanks so much darl!). When I took a look I just about fell off my chair! The flower was AMAZING and I just had to try to make one straight away! It is not too bad for a first attempt (especially late Friday night!) and I'm sure I'll get better with practice!

It is rather a large flower so I created a good size box (measures 13.5 x 13.5 cm) to display it on and used the lovely Haiku papers which haven't had an airing in a while. I added a sentiment and now it is perfect to fill with goodies and give away!

Here tis, hope you like it:




The flower was originally designed by Rhea Anderson and was adapted by Kay Sha and it's her tutorial I followed here.

Thanks for dropping in today. Hope your Saturday is a great one!

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

So Grateful

I feel so honoured to have received awards from two more people during the week. One is my good cyberfriend Lynda Shrimpton, who is a kind and generous lady with a wicked sense of humour and a talent for punch art. You can check out her blog here. The other is from an SU demo that I've never met but she very kindly said she finds my blog inspiring; her name is Andrea Karadimos who has a blog here. Many thanks to both ladies for the honour of this award.

I'll see if I can rustle up another 10 things about myself that might be vaguely interesting!
  1. I don't have a middle name.
  2. I started school in Fiji at Laucala Bay Primary School.
  3. My husband proposed to me while we were playing a game of cards!
  4. I am a sucker for teddy bears but didn't have one as a child.
  5. My favourite colour is red.
  6. I don't drink tea or coffee.
  7. My favourite takeaway is Indian or Thai.
  8. My favourite place in the world after Christchurch, NZ is Salzburg, Austria.
  9. I cannot skate or ski to save myself.
  10. I am trying to cut back on caffeine and chocolate ... but it doesn't always work!
As I've posted awards recently to my favourite blogs, I'll take a bit of time to think about who to pass these on to.

Card-wise, you'll never guess what I've been working on this week. Christmas cards! I know, WHAT THE? But my ladies are already clamouring to begin Christmas Stamp-a-Stack classes, so I've been making samples in preparation. It is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too early to be showing you Xmas cards, so I'll save them till closer to the time that classes start. So that means no card today, I'm sorry! I do also have to make a project and swaps for our SU Unconvention (that's a get together by some of us who aren't going to the "real" convention!) so I'll post those asap.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers
Kez

Thursday, May 6, 2010

More Birds and Bees

I forgot last week to show you another bee card we made in class using Just Buzzin' By. I wanted a simple one for my beginner stampers to cope with, so this is what we made:


Materials used:
  • stamps - Just Buzzin' By
  • card & paper - whisper white, basic black, summer sun, Pink Flamingo DSP
  • other - dimensionals
  • non SU - daisy punch, small circle punch
Next week my Lana Ladies are making cards using the 2 step bird punch. A couple of them I have posted earlier (see here) but I came up with another one today. This is another card with tulips using Cottage Wall papers (my ladies love these!). Layout inspired by Susan Joyce.

Materials used:
  • stamps - Tiny Tags
  • card & paper - old olive, rich razzleberry, orchid opulence, whisper white, Cottage Garden DSP
  • other - tiny tag punch, scallop edge punch, 2 step bird punch, dimensionals, old olive grosgrain ribbon, sponge daubers, Big Shot
  • non SU - nestabilities dies
Hope you like them! Thanks for dropping by and have a great day.

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Wow, it's been an amazing week; I've received two more blog awards! Team mate Sally Williams kindly gave me this award

 and the talented Tui Nathan forwarded this one to me


It is an incredible feeling when someone takes the time to tell you they enjoy what you do, so many thanks to both ladies.

I already passed the first award on earlier this week, so I'll just pass on the second award. In order to receive this award and pay it forward - the rules are as follows:


  • Put the Sunshine Award on your blog and/or within your post.
  • Pass the award onto other bloggers.
  • Link the nominees within your post.
  • Let them know they received the award by leaving a comment on their blog.
  • Share the love and link the person from whom you received the award.

 So many people inspire me and have wonderful blogs, it is hard to choose just a few! Let's see:
Thanks again ladies! Enjoy the rest of your day.

Cheers
Kez

Mojo Autumn


With Autumn well under way here in Oz, I decided to use that as my theme for a Mojo Monday challenge entry. Here's the sketch we have to play with this week:

I love the colours in the new Autumn Traditions designer papers and added in a couple of extras to suit the words in the poem ('russets, reds and golds'). I've used the Leaves No. 2 die, which I just HAD to get after seeing some gorgeous work by fellow team mates - you know who you are!

Here's my card:


I scored some veins on the leaves then crumpled them up and sponged them to make them look a bit more as if they've just fallen off a tree. The poem is one I wrote many, many years ago. My card ended up being rather a large one, but as it probably won't get mailed to anyone it won't matter too much!

Hope you like it; thanks for calling in today.

Cheers
Kez

Monday, May 3, 2010

Sharing Inspiration

I received the following Blog Award from team mate Liam - thanks Liam! Go check out her blog if you haven't seen it; Liam has a real talent for 3D items and is constantly inspiring me with her beautiful work. She is in my Stampers Anonymous list on the side bar.


Anyways, I am supposed to tell you 10 things about myself. Hmmm, let's see:
  1. I teach accounting at a local TAFE college. (I know, you wouldn't think accounting and creativity would mix! What can I say? I'm a contradiction!)
  2. I'm a Kiwi and have only lived in Australia since 1997 (OK, some of you already knew that one. Does my accent give it away?!)
  3. My husband's business is named after me (awwwww!)
  4. My two daughters are my greatest achievements (and I'm not just saying that because it's nearly Mother's Day!)
  5. I once worked as a matron at a boys boarding school outside of London (boy! what an eye opener!)
  6. I am afraid of heights. (Well, not so much of being high, but of falling from a height!)
  7. Diana Gabaldon is my favourite author (Cross Stitch series - love them!)
  8. My Lana Ladies craft group are my closest friends and they keep me sane (no comment from DD18 thanks!!!)
  9. I loathe housework (again, no comment from DD18!)
  10. A few years back I was right into family history research, but have rather lost interest since both my parents passed away and I have nobody who is interested in the information.
So there you go! That's a couple of minutes reading you'll never get back again! LOL!

OK, to pass this award on is my next task. As well as Liam, these are just a few of the ladies I find very inspiring:
Unfortunately I've no card to share yet; I'm busy preparing for tonight's Mother's Day Class. Hopefully back real soon though. Meanwhile, thanks for dropping by and have a good one!

Cheers
Kez

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Blue Moon

A very simple card today for that occasion we all wish didn't happen: a sympathy card.


I've used the wheat sheaf stamp from Autumn Days, stamped in black StazOn before I brayered and I used the "stamping off" method to add depth. My first layer of ink was Baja Breeze (I adore this colour and am so glad we are keeping it!) and after that I put on my mask for the moon, then added Blue Bayou (which goes so perfectly with Baja) and a touch of Night of Navy at the top. When it was dry I added some more wheat for a dark foreground look. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Sentiments; it's the only sympathy one I have and I hope it's not too small.

You could use this - with a different sentiment, obviously! LOL! - for a masculine card too.

Thanks for dropping by. Have a good Sunday.

Cheers
Kez