Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Resuming Transmission

Hi all! Things are settling down here now and "normal transmission is being resumed" so to speak. I have been busy crafting, but it has been either for Stamp Camp or Creative Crew design team work - neither of which I can show you just yet!

There will be November Creative Crew challenge projects coming up beginning Friday (yikes! November already!) and next week I'll have class cards to show you. Meanwhile, it may be a little quiet here.

To keep you going, you can feast your eyes on some exciting new products recently released here in Australia:


Circle Card Thinlits


Label Card Thinlits


Envelope Punch Board

I'll be showing my lovely ladies some fun things to do with these great new toys in class next week, so stay tuned for card samples for those.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers
Kez

Friday, October 18, 2013

Safe So Far

Just a quick post to say we are safe so far from the devastating bush fire that has claimed so many homes around our local community. Sadly some of our friends and my customers have lost houses and animals and my heart goes out to them. Please give clothing, blankets, food and whatever you can spare to help people affected by this disaster.

Cheers
Kez

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Cuteness Factor 10!

Quite a few of my lovely ladies are doggie people so when I saw the die I have used on the first of this month's Christmas stamp-a-stack cards, I knew I HAD to have it! My thoughts immediately went to one of the sentiments from the Christmas Messages set and voila! our card was born.

Warning though: just make sure there are no little people around who have been asking for a puppy, cos if they see this you are NEVER going to get any peace!



Materials used:
  • stamps - Christmas Messages
  • card - cherry cobbler, creamy caramel, garden green, basic black, whisper white
  • other - dimensionals, sponge daubers
  • non SU - Cottage Cutz Santa Puppy die set

OH MY GOODNESS! don't those eyes just make you want to melt? Cuteness factor 10!!!!!

Our second card is a vintage-y sepia toned card with a dash of red (cherry cobbler of course!) using a couple of new goodies from the holiday catalogue. The tag was made in MDS and cut by hand. Take a lookie:


Materials used:
  • stamps - music wheel, Santa's List, Free for you from us (MDS)
  • card - very vanilla, cherry cobbler, soft suede, confetti cream
  • other - cherry cobbler stitched edge grosgrain ribbon, cherry cobbler bakers twine, dimensionals, distressing tool, sponge dauber, 1/16" circle punch

This is the last of our Christmas card stamp-a-stacks and I will miss them - they do put me in the Christmas mood! 

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Friday, October 11, 2013

Masculine Thinlits for SUO

Over at SUO Challenges it's a masculine card challenge this week and as they are the focus for my classes this month, I was right in the zone! It also gave me the perfect opportunity to flex my creative muscles with the new Circle Card Thinlits die that arrived on my doorstep this morning! I have been waiting for these to arrive on our shores for aaaaaaaages and we demos are lucky enough to be able to pre-order this week - calm down, customers, they will be available to you on the 22nd of this month!

Having used the stamp combo of The Open Sea and Word Play for one of my class cards, I had an idea to give that another whirl and I also used one of my favourite masculine colour combos - midnight muse and gumball green. I will really miss these two when we lose the 2012-2014 in colours.


And here is the inside. I thought the "hugs and kisses" die went perfectly with my sentiment, don't you?



Materials used:

  • stamps - The Open Sea, Word Play
  • card - gumball green, midnight muse, Sahara sand, whisper white
  • other - circle card thinlits, Big Shot, chevron border punch, circle dies, cute clips, patterned papers, sponge daubers

 Here are all the things you get in the die pack:
I think I might just have to go and play with my new toys some more! Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez






Sunday, October 6, 2013

Anniversary Candy

This month marks my 5 year anniversary as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator so I thought I'd celebrate by giving away some blog candy.

Leave a comment on this post telling me which ONE of my cards and projects from the last 5 years is your all time favourite - and why - and you will be in the running to win! Make sure you leave a name and your email address too so I can contact you if you should be the lucky winner.

Here are my top picks from each of the past 5 years:

2009 - gel card using Fishy Friends that I made for my daughter's birthday


2010 - my doctor and nurse owls with clipboard still tickle my funny bone


2011 - you know how much I love black and vanilla, so this one will be no surprise


2012 - gorgeous sponged card still takes my breath away


2013 - a scrapbook layout of my two gorgeous daughters wins this year's prize easily


So remember, you have to pick JUST ONE project from the past 5 years (not just one of the five I've shown you!) and tell me WHY you picked it. You have until midnight ADST on Sunday 13th October to enter. Good luck!

And, as always,

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Saturday, October 5, 2013

'For All The Men We've Loved Before'

Masculine cards are our focus in class this month and I've shamelessly cased cards from other talented crafters - no point in trying to improve on perfection, now is there?

Firstly a fun suit card made from Jackie Topa's great tutorial (click HERE for the link):


Materials used:
  • stamps - none
  • card - marina mist, basic black, marina mist patterned paper
  • other - marina mist satin ribbon, sticky dots
  • non SU - 25mm black satin ribbon, black buttons

The gorgeous set Wetlands is used for our second card, this one cased from LeeAnn Greff.


Materials used:
  • stamps - Wetlands
  • card - gumball green, midnight muse, whisper white, watercolour, basic black
  • other - dimensionals, sponge daubers

And last but by no means least a case of a Teneale Williams card that I have long admired.


Materials used:
  • stamps - The Open Sea, Word Play, MDS
  • card - crumb cake, very vanilla, cherry cobbler, midnight muse, early espresso
  • other - sponge daubers, dimensionals, square dies, Big Shot

Hopefully that will keep my lovely ladies stocked up on masculine cards for a while!

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers
Kez

Friday, October 4, 2013

Creative Crew October Challenge - Scrapbook and More


CCREW1013SF -- Scrapbook focus: October is Self-Promotion Month. Show us how awesome you are on a scrapbook page, mixed media project or with This and That!


This one had me waaaaaay out of my comfort zone - promoting myself is certainly not something I feel comfortable doing. I thought it would take me a long time to come up with an idea for this, but my SIL gave me a hint and it all fell into place very quickly after that. Here it is, created in MDS:



Well, that's it for our challenges this month. I do hope you will visit the challenge gallery to see what the other design team members have come up with - such a range of inspiring ideas - and maybe even be inspired enough to make a project or two of your own. The link is HERE.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers
Kez



Thursday, October 3, 2013

Creative Crew October Challenges - Holiday Focus



CCREW1013HF - Holiday focus: Wear Something Gaudy Day is on 17th Oct. Use your gaudiest colours to create a gift card holder. 

I thought it would be fun to make a clothing shaped gift card holder to coordinate with the "wear something gaudy" theme and a vest shaped card was ideal. Why? Well, you'd have to know my DH and the story of the Magnum shirt and wild gecko shorts to completely understand!!! Suffice to say he (a) loves vests and (b) is not great at putting colours and patterns together, lol!

Here's my "homage" to DH:



Materials used:
  • stamps - none
  • card - retired SU papers, lucky limeade
  • other - pennant die (to get the V neck), adorning accents edgelits (to shape the armholes), dimensionals, corner rounder punch

When I showed this to DD15 she instantly agreed it reminds her of her father - so I have definitely hit the mark there, roflol!

Come back again tomorrow for the last of this month's four challenges - a Self Promotion scrapbook layout! Meanwhile, visit the CC challenge gallery for tons of other great ideas - the link is HERE.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Creative Crew October Challenges - Creative Focus


Welcome back! Today's project is CCREW1013CF - Creative focus: Celebrate Sweetest Day (19th Oct) by creating a card for your Sweetest using products from the Etcetera Suite found on p96-109 of the Annual Catalogue.

For this challenge I began with picking two stamp sets from the Etcetera Suite and deciding what technique to use to combine them. I stamped En Francais and the swirl from Creative Elements on to a piece of daffodil delight cardstock using Versamark ink and clear embossed. Then I swiped my whisper white ink pad over the whole piece and wiped off the excess ink using a tissue - this has the effect of muting the brightness of the daffodil and making the embossed stamps stand out.

Choosing an oval to compliment the rectangular shape of the card, I stamped the swirl again with my sentiment and added some butterflies. These were first stamped using the butterfly stamp from Creative Elements so I got the lovely delicate pattern, then punched smaller with the itty bitty butterfly punch and beautiful wings embossing die. Add a touch of bling, some ribbon and a button and there you have it!


Materials used:
  • stamps - En Francais, Creative Elements
  • card - marina mist, whisper white, daffodil delight
  • other - ovals framelits, Big Shot, dimensionals, marina mist satin ribbon, subtles button, white bakers twine, itty bitty butterfly punch, Beautiful Wings embossing die, rhinestones

Tomorrow I'll show you the Holiday Focus project. Meanwhile, pop over to the CC gallery and look at all the other fabulous inspiration. The link is HERE.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Creative Crew October Challenge - DSP Focus

Another month has rolled by already and it's time for the October challenges from the Creative Crew over at Splitcoaststampers. I must admit that I was so excited when we were given this month's brief that I started on my first project on the second of September!!! LOL! It has been terrible having to wait this long to share it with you!

CCREW1013DF - DSP/Colour focus: Celebrate Halloween by making a project using Witches' Brew dsp from p21 of the Holiday catalogue, or use the colour combo Basic Black, Basic Grey, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Starfruit and Very Vanilla.

I may have gotten a little carried away with this challenge! I love the playful aspects of Halloween and had so many ideas teeming in my brain that limiting myself to just one project was simply impossible!

I began with a candy box made from the fancy favour die and filled it with a bag of snakes - I even stamped on the cellophane bag!

 

Then I was really looking for an excuse to use this wonderful stamp from Halloween Bash, so I made a card to go with the box:


And then I made this BOO plaque using wooden letters covered in dsp. I found a cheap wooden plaque at the Reject Shop and painted over the picture, then went to town stamping and sponging to give it the look I was after. If you click on the photos to enlarge them you'll get a better view of the background stamping. I had so much fun making this it was scary!






Materials used:
  • stamps - Halloween Bash (MDS), Wicked Cool, Out on a Limb, Spooky Bingo Bits, Toil & Trouble
  • card - pumpkin pie, Witches' Brew dsp, very vanilla, basic black
  • other - fancy favour box die, decorative label punch, large oval punch, scallop oval punch, summer starfruit ribbon, dimensionals, sticky strip, sponge dauber, rhinestones, heat tool, dazzling diamonds
  • non SU - wooden letters, Tim Holtz medium rosette die, hot glue gun, Cuttlebug spider/bat die and matching embossing folder, black rhinestones, Versamark marker, wooden plaque, black paint

I'll be back tomorrow with the Creative Focus challenge. Meanwhile, why not pop over to the challenge gallery and take a look?

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez