Holiday Tints

My three month term on the Color Me Beautiful design team has come to an end with this lovely soft colour combination

I managed to use all the colours on my card along with my neutral of very vanilla. Here's my offering:

Materials used:

• stamps - More Merry Messages
• card - crumb cake, rose red, primrose petals, Baja breeze, very vanilla
• inks - very vanilla, rose red
• other - Sahara sand marker, chevron embossing folder, Big Shot, crumb cake seam binding, dimensionals, merry minis punch, irridescent ice embossing powder, crystal effects, pearls

Before embossing my background piece with the chevron design, I ran my vanilla inkpad over the folder to give a slightly tinted look to the pattern and also sponged the edges of the card with vanilla. My tiny baubles were embossed with irridescent ice and then coated in crystal effects for sparkle and dimension.

It has been such fun working with the other designers and the gorgeous colour combos that Carole and AnnMarie have come up with each week. Sadly, they have decided to discontinue running the challenge blog, so this is your last chance to play along and join in the fun. Why not pop on over to the blog here and see what the others have to inspire you?

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

Ornamental Greens

Just in case you're not feeling Christmassy enough, this week's colours for the Color Me Beautiful challenge are sure to get you in the mood!

I decided to use the emboss resist method again (as on this card) and the medallion stamp for my background pattern and then I added rhinestones for some blingaliciousness (is that a word? lol). Here tis:

If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll see the bling better!

Materials used:

• stamps - Lovely as a Tree, Many Merry Messages (retired), Medallion
• card - gloss white, lucky limeade, soft suede, Sahara sand 
• other - Versamark, clear embossing powder, heat tool, sponges, rhinestones, holiday ornaments dies, Big Shot, dimensionals, white embossing powder, lacy brocade embossing folder, non SU silver cord

I am sure loving me those ornament dies! And you may have noticed that on my background piece of soft suede I have shown the debossed side rather than the embossed side - I felt the raised side took a bit of attention away from the ornaments, so I turned it over to "tone it down a bit".

Thanks for calling in. Don't forget to pop over to the CMB challenge blog and see what the other DT members have made to inspire you.

Cheers

Kez

Caffeine Tones

It's a coffee-lover's dream over at Color Me Beautiful, with these caffeine tones as our inspiration for this week's challenge! 

I decided to go with a sepia-toned Christmas card and managed to use four of the five colours.

Here's my card - if you click on the photo you can see the sparkle better:

I masked off my ground area for the snowdrifts before I stamped the trees in soft suede and Sahara sand. The sky was sponged with river rock and soft suede and I used suede again for the ground. When everything was dry I inked the whole area with Versamark and added iridescent ice embossing powder to give a winter sparkle! It looks totally GOR-JUSS in real life! And did you notice? I used a button again! LOL

Materials used:

• stamps - Lovely as a Tree, Many Merry Messages (retired)
• card - confetti cream, very vanilla, early espresso
• other - iridescent ice embossing powder, heat tool, satin ribbon, vintage faceted button, embroidery thread, sticky strip, mounting tape, markers

Click on the link to the challenge blog to see what the other design team members have come up with to inspire you (from 5 am Sth Carolina time or 7 pm AEDST), and while you're there we'd love you to join in the challenge and create a project using this week's colours.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

Edited to add: I have had a few requests both here and on other sites on how to do the snow on this card.  I will video the technique for you and add it here asap. Thanks so much for your interest!

Further edit: The video tutorial is now uploaded to Dropbox and you can get the link here.

Fallen Hues

Are you ready for another Color Me Beautiful challenge? This week is my week off having to design a project and as I have a busy week I wasn't going to push myself. However, we can't always control when the muse will strike us and when an idea for a card came into my head I just had to roll with it! (even though I should have been marking assignments!)

Here's the inspiration photo and colour picks:

Perfect colours for Autumn (Fall) which of course those in the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing. However, I had an idea to go a little rustic and here's where that lead me:

(click on the photo for a closer look)

Materials used:

• stamps - Layered Labels, Everything Eleanor
• card - crumb cake, chocolate chip, raspberry ripple, perfect plum, whisper white, summer starfruit patterns paper
• other - apothecary accents die, raspberry ripple ribbon, crumb cake tulle, champagne shimmer mist, dimensionals, sponge dauber, large oval punch, non SU rose leaf punch and embossing folder, glue gun, distressing tool, 2 1/2" circle punch

For my flowers I punched 2 1/2" circles then sprayed them with shimmer mist and crumpled them up. Once uncrumpled I separated the two layers of card and dried them off before cutting them into a spiral and rolling up. The little twist of tulle was an inspired thought at the last minute - what do you think? SU's tulle is so soft and easy to work with, I love it!

Now pop on over to the challenge blog and see what the others have done with these colours!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

In Which I Use A Button

I love buttons.

I love them in all different colours, shapes and sizes.

I have quite a few buttons (I am assuming that, as similarly compulsive, obsessive crafters, you will know the real meaning of the phrase "quite a few".)

They are kept in cute little jars on my shelf, arranged in colours.

How often do I actually USE a button on my cards and/or projects?

Yeah, something about blue moons I think! :P

So today is a red-letter day 'cos I did actually use a button! Huzzah! 

The lucky recipient of said fastener is my DT card for this week's Color Me Beautiful challenge. Here are the inspiration photo and colour combo:

Aren't they gorgeous? For my card I was inspired by aspects of a number of cards I've seen around cyberspace blogdom and finally meshed them all into this:

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies, French Foliage
• card - perfect plum, river rock, soft suede, very vanilla, First Edition DSP
• other - Baja breeze seam binding, perfect plum button, string, blender pen, sponge dauber, finishing touches edgelits die, glue dot, Big Shot

We would love you to visit the challenge blog to see what the rest of the design team came up with this week - and of course to be inspired to take part in the challenge!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez