Saturday, December 31, 2011

Birthday Browns

Today my wonderful SIL is celebrating her birthday and naturally I had to make her a special card. I've used the new Spice Cake DSP from the Summer mini as I know the earthy tones and touch of blue will really appeal to her.



Materials used:
  • stamps - Field Flowers, Tagtastic
  • card - crumb cake, very vanilla, pool party, spice cake dsp
  • inks - more mustard, early espresso, soft suede, cajun craze
  • other - early espresso bakers twine, designer frames embossing folder, dimensionals

Hope you have a lovely NYE day and a wonderful celebration to welcome in 2012.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Friday, December 30, 2011

Second Poppy

Can you believe this is only the second time I have used 2010-2011 in colour Poppy Parade? I wanted to try out the gorgeous new Everyday Enchantment papers from the upcoming Sale-a-bration catalogue and I must say, this colour is now growing on me.

I love that the papers have a bit of a shabby look to them, so I've torn, distressed and sponged my papers to accentuate that and threaded some of the matching 1/8" organdy ribbon (also in SAB catty) around my border. I love the long tails on the ribbon and can't bear to cut them shorter, so I'm sticking with that length cos I think it adds to the charm!

Here's my card:


The colours in these papers are lucky limeade, pool party, peach parfait, calypso coral, poppy parade, very vanilla and soft suede - so a veritable feast of in colours to play with! I'm sure you're going to love it.

Materials used:
  • stamps - Field Flowers
  • card - poppy parade, pool party, very vanilla, Everyday Enchantment DSP
  • ink - calypso coral, poppy parade, lucky limeade, crumb cake
  • other - calypso coral organdy ribbon, dimensionals, distressing tool, sponge dauber
  • non SU - spellbinders lacey ovals die

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dramatic Just For You

A dear friend is celebrating her birthday on Saturday and I wanted to make her a special card. I saw a gorgeous creation by Andrea Ewen that inspired me; the dramatic colours, flower and bling are all just perfect for my friend.

Here tis:



The flocked paper just makes you want to touch it! Here's a close up of the bling:



And something simple to decorate the inside too:


Materials used:
  • stamps - Tagtastic
  • card - basic black, whisper white, pumpkin pie, mocha morning DSP
  • other - little leaves die, black satin ribbon, decorative label punch, dimensionals
  • non SU - Spellbinders roses dies, Martha Stewart punch, Kaiser rhinestones

I'll have another card for you on Saturday as it's my SIL's birthday too!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Full Table

(Not to be confused with The Full Monty! LOL!)

I hope you all had a wonderful Xmas Day; I know we did. The girls slept in, so we didn't get disturbed until 8 am - a record! After the loot opening it was time to prepare our portions of the menu and then of course the mad rush to gather up everything and out the door to my SIL's house, where the table was all set and ready for us.

Here's a photo of our Christmas table complete with all the decos I made and showed you in an earlier post:


Doesn't it look pretty? Makes it worth all the frantic rush to get everything made on time! I am determined every year to be better organised earlier the next year ... but it never happens. They are right when they say the time passes more quickly the older you get - so next year I'd better start my table decorations in April!!!

Some card making soon, I hope, to show you, as I have a couple of birthdays this week to prepare for. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Season's Greetings

Well, it's only a matter of hours now until the big day is here, so I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all the happiest of Christmases. I hope your day is filled with the love and laughter of friends and family and that you enjoy a safe and peaceful festive season.

Merry Christmas!


Kez

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Christmas Table Bits

I've been busy making a few things to decorate our Christmas Dinner table this year using SU's Holly Berry Bouquet papers and fabric (thanks to those rellies overseas).

I made placecards:


Candy wrappers filled with chocs:


Boxes made from the fancy favour die for the table gifts:


The centrepiece, a wooden sleigh filled with baubles:


Cute stocking cutlery holders made from fabric and felt:


And our menu, decorated with a felt rolled rose and poinsettias to match the dsp:


And here they are all placed on the table:


Materials used:
  • stamps - Creative Elements, Tags Til Christmas, Welcome Christmas
  • punches - 5 point flower, scallop square, pennant, decorative label, blossom petals builder
  • dies - stocking, fancy favour, candy wrapper
  • card - real red, wild wasabi, garden green, whisper white, chocolate chip, red glitter
  • papers - Holly Berry Bouquet, Cocoa Speciality (retired)
  • non SU - Kaiser wooden sleigh kit, gold paint, craft glue, red and green felt, calligraphy pen, chipboard poinsettia, computer and printer, sewing machine, star stickers
  • other - dimensionals, rhinestones, brads

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez


        

Sunday, December 18, 2011

NSU Family Christmas

(This is my second post today - scroll down for Christmas tags)

Some more Christmas cards for you today and these ones are predominantly non SU stamps, though some of the papers are SU.

First up a very simple card featuring a delightful Lili of the Valley stamp that I could not resist as it is just perfect for my husband. I'm sure many of you have partners like mine who always need that little snooze after their Christmas Dinner!


Next up is my card for DD19. The angels stamp is from LOTV and the dsp from my stash - I loved how it incorporated blue (DD19's fav colour) and cherry cobbler (my fav colour and our theme for Xmas this year). The stars are glitter card which add a lovely touch of sparkle.


For DD13 plenty of green (her fav colour) and some delightful gingerbread whimsy! This is gingerbread Tilda and as you can see, I found plenty of gingerbread accents to match!


Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Tag, You're It

You ever have one of those days when you're really slow at figuring things out and deciding what goes with what? I had a day making Xmas tags on Friday and I think it took me about 2 hours to make my first one! DD19 - who up until now has not been even the slightest, teeniest-weeniest bit crafty - actually make a bunch of tags too! Whoot!

Anyways, here's what I have to show for my marathon. Some of them I'm happy with and some not-so-much, but I'll show them to you warts and all. I made good use of my two tags die and stocking punch with this first batch. I especially love the elf stockings but they were so fiddly I only made one pair!


Then more two tags die with a variety of other shapes for decoration:



This last one tickled me. It's the first time I've made one of those trees (DD19 loved it so much she made one of her own) and I loved adding it to the peekaboo frame with a message underneath:



But I've only made 11 tags - mmmm, around the same number still to go I think! Guess what I'll be working on today?

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers
Kez

Friday, December 16, 2011

Robins for Robyn

Today's card is for my good mate Rob, who is coming for a Xmas play day today - we'll be making tags, I think, as I desperately need some for pressies!

The stamp is from LOTV but everything else is SU.



Aren't those little robins soooooo cute!? The inside is decorated too, but I foolishly wrote my message before I took photos!

Coming soon - cards for my "spesh peeps".

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Proud Mum moment

Last night we attended the Presentation Night at DD13's school as she made us proud by being awarded Top of Year 8 in English. Here's a couple of pics I managed to snap while she was up on stage (she's the one in the yellow shirt):



Earlier in the day she had also received a certificate for an external English competition she took part in and I am proud to say she came in the top 2% of the state in that one!

Just had to share my proud mum moment!

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Ornamental

Blue sky! We actually had some blue sky today! I quickly took some photos before I once again forgot what it looks like ....

I've been having a play with some Christmas decorations after being inspired by fellow demo Deb Speijers. Here are my humble offerings:


This ones uses Holly Berry Bouquet DSP and I've used the 5-Petal Flower punch and some gorgeous red glitter card to make a poinsettia for the centre. Sorry the photos don't look all that great.

Then I tried some retired Xmas DSP and a snowflake nesties shape:


These are very simple to make. Here's a link to a great tutorial - just make sure you use the glue and don't try tape ... I don't really think you need to ask me how I know that, do you? LOL!

I also made a very simple wreath for our front door. I found some GOR-JUSS deep burgundy velvet ribbon at my local $2 shop so couldn't resist a big velvet bow and some sparkle for the decorations:



So the house is slowly getting Christmassed - still a few things to go, though! Eek! Running out of time ...

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers
Kez

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Riley Guards the Bauble

On Saturday we did our yearly Christmas Tree ritual - we drive out to a tree farm at Luddenham, wander around discussing the merits of various trees until we find one that we three girls are happy with (DH is just along for muscle power!), DH cuts it down and then we lug it home and decorate.

This year we had just finished decorating when my cat Riley wandered in and coolly and calmly plonked himself down right under the tree, capturing a stray bauble that had fallen off. You can see that I haven't even had time to clear up the pine needles that fell off as it was carried in! He did, however, provide me with a wonderful photographic opportunity.

Here's my handsome wee man guarding the errant bauble and managing to look soooooooo cool and nonchalant while he did so:




Who do I speak to, to come back as a house cat in my next life?

Meanwhile, I have done some Xmas craft and if only it would STOP RAINING and being so GLOOMY, I could take some photos to show you! Gotta speak to someone about that too!

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Vote Elmo for President

OK, so I know that we don't actually have a President in Australia, but there is talk of becoming a republic and if we do, then by golly we better get Elmo to immigrate and vote him in!

What's with all the Elmo Enthusiasm, you ask? Well, the other day DD19 and I were shopping in Big W and as I was cruising the Xmas decorations aisles, looking for some inspiration, I spied this:


Now I just can't resist a button that says


naturally, I mean who can? - and so I did (press there, that is) and Elmo starts to sing Jingle Bells! His mouth moves and everything! And he gives a gorgeous little Elmo giggle at the end and oh-my-goodness-who-could-possibly-resist-him? So I showed this to DD19, who just stared open-mouthed while the King of Cute did his thing. I honestly couldn't read her facial expression and was thinking that maybe she didn't like it and was thinking I was being silly - but after Elmo finished his song, she just grabbed it and proclaimed "We are buying this!" She loves it as much as me and of course DD13 does too (she used to have a Tickle Me Elmo), so now every now and then we play it and we all sit there with huge smiles on our dials!


So that's why I'll be voting for Elmo for President. DD19 will too. Yup.

And as I thought perhaps you might want to see something craft-related, I'll reshow this adorable card I made a whiles back:


Hope you get some Elmo-cute giggles in your day. Thanks for stopping by.


Cheers
Kez

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Santa Candy

Last night I had the pleasure of a Christmas dinner celebration with many of the lovely ladies who have come to my classes all year. We dined in a beautiful heritage listed building with tons of atmosphere and scrumptious food - it doesn't get much better than that!

I had made a small gift for each of them using the new candy wrapper die and plenty of bling:


The square buckle was for one lady who doesn't eat chocolate or sweets, so I could tell which one was hers. These were so fast and easy to make, I think there may be some on our Christmas table this year.

We also do a Secret Santa gift and I bought some gorgeous bath confetti that looks like rosebuds - you break the rose petals apart and sprinkle them in your bath, where they melt to  make you smell like roses. How lovely would it be to take a bath in rose petals? Mmmmmmmmmm! But the packaging they came in was pretty basic, so I fancied it up a notch.

Here's the rose petal confetti:


I punched out a lacy border using the lace ribbon border punch, threaded some fine ribbon through and added some pearls for a special touch.


Then on the front I put a gorgeous big satin bow held with a pearl brad.


It was, as always, a fun and enjoyable night and I once again reflected on how lucky I am to have such lovely ladies come to my classes and make it such a pleasure to teach something I love to do. I already can't wait until next year's classes begin!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Monday, December 5, 2011

Gifts of Christmas

For this year's Christmas cards for all my wonderful customers I used a lovely SU set called Gifts of Christmas. It hasn't made it into our catalogue yet, but I hope it will next year as it is gorgeous and goes perfectly with the petals aplenty embossing folder (as you'll soon see, "wink"!)

Now of course, knowing me so well, my ladies would be most surprised if I didn't use my favourite colour - and a perfect red for Christmas - kerry cobbler, er, cherry cobbler. I teamed it with very vanilla and always artichoke and here is the result:


As luck would have it, this card fits perfectly into two challenges: the SU Only challenge to use your favourite holiday colours and the PPA challenge which is co-incidentally

Kismet!

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Friday, December 2, 2011

Free At Last!

Yay! Although I've got a couple of staff meetings next week, all my TAFE classes have finished for the year and assessment results are in the computer and locked! Card classes are taking a break too so that leaves me free to get stuck into my Christmas cards and decorations. It feels good! Mind you, I've got sooooooo much to do .... might have to find some sweet teenage elves to do the usual pre-Christmas clean up while I craft! What do you think my chances are? Yeah, I'm not holding my breath, LOL!

Anyways, here are some pics of the project I got made today. My friend Rob came over to (a) help me celebrate my freedom and (b) do some crafting with new goodies, so we had a ball playing and laughing and bouncing ideas off each other.


We made Advent Calendars! Rob had pre-made the base boxes with the dividing sections in and had punched out the little boxes using the petal card double punch. We stamped the images (from an SU set called 25 and Counting - not released here) and after a little colouring here and there, punched them out with the 1" square punch, then stuck them on to the petal square bases. Fine gold cord was attached to use for opening them (or you could use a brad) and then they were stuck on.

Here's a closer view of my one:


And here's Rob's:


The best part was shopping for the goodies to put inside the little boxes! Here's a shot of mine with a box open to see the chocolatey yummy inside:


It was a lot of work but so fun and so worth it - and of course, all the more fun to share it with a friend :)

Hope you've had some jolly crafting in your day too. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez