A Rich Tapestry

As is often my habit, I've been browsing Pinterest and YouTube for card inspiration, particularly in the area of mixed media, which is a different direction from my usual style. One project in particular by Shari caught my eye and this morning I went to my craft room to attempt something along similar lines using what materials I have on hand.

What I ended up with is a rich tapestry of colour in turquoise, orange and green with hints of brass, copper and bronze, and I have to say that although it's a departure from my norm, I absolutely love it. It may not be to your taste, if you like my usual style, but that's okay. Even more importantly, I had sooooo much fun making this and can't wait to play again.

Take a lookie:

There's sparkle from shimmer mist on the butterflies and the copper ink which looks stunning when they catch the light, trust me. Here's a close-up to give you a better glimpse of those. The darker filigree pattern is the distress paint while the brighter patterns are the copper ink.

Materials used:

• stamps - Butterfly Gala, Timeless Textures, Short and Sweet (all SU)
• card - very vanilla, watercolour
• distress oxide inks - spiced marmalade, ripe persimmon, pine needles, peacock feathers
• other - stitched rectangle die, Big Shot, butterfly duet punch, Hodgepodge Hardware, blending brushes, water spritzer, heat tool, champagne shimmer mist, Delicata celestial copper ink, antiqued bronze distress paint (Tim Holtz), sponge dauber, Dimensionals

Here's the card that inspired me:

If you're into mixed media, I'd love you to leave a comment on how you think I'm progressing. Don't be shy to offer constructive criticism and suggestions - I'm open to learning and trying. All I ask is that you're nice when pointing out my faults, lol.

Well, I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled programme! Thanks for calling in and stay safe.

Cheers

Kez

Floral Feast

Today is the last class for the year and my ladies chose a veritable feast of pretty, feminine flower cards to make. Here's the group:

You've seen these two before, which both use Parlour Prints in the background:

Fabulous Florets, coming soon in the Summer mini.

Field Flowers, a gorgeous 2-step set.

And this one is a re-working of this card, made to fit a standard size envelope.

With the sun back out at last after more than a week of grey skies and endless rain, the floral cards are just right to get us back into Spring mode!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Field of Pink and Green

For my workshop today the ladies want to learn embossing, so that gave me the perfect excuse to use the beautiful Parlour Prints stamp again. I've added in some very simple masking and sponging and the gorgeous Field Flowers set - such a simple 2 step set to use. For colour I've gone with a pink and green combo - I love how fresh and pretty these look together.

Materials used:

• stamps - Field Flowers, Parlour Prints, Short and Sweet
• card - pretty in pink, certainly celery, whisper white
• inks - certainly celery, wild wasabi, basic black, pretty in pink, regal rose, Versamark
• other - white embossing powder, heat tool, dimensionals, sponge, Big Shot, non SU oval die

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Hatches

The theme for classes next month is Hatches, Matches and Dispatches - ie baby, wedding and sympathy cards.

The Baby Bundle stamp set is perfect for "hatches" and here I've had fun playing with some of the new in colours:

Materials used:

• stamps - Baby Bundle, Short and Sweet
• card - wisteria wonder, very vanilla, so saffron, pool party, whisper white, watercolour, wisteria wonder patterns stack
• other - ornament label punch, pool party brads, dimensionals, blender pen, aquapainter, rhinestones (non SU), oval and scallop oval dies (non SU)

Coming soon - Matches! Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Regionals Swaps

Today I'm in "the big smoke" of Sydney at our Regional Training day and this year I was honoured to be asked to present a Workshop Wow to my fellow SU demonstrators. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be rather nervous so please feel free to send some positive thoughts my way! LOL. I can't show you my samples for my presentation just yet, but I can show you the swaps I made.

As I had very little time to come up with these, I'm afraid I resorted to borrowing from the genius of others - but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. I cased this card from mamamostamps over at Splitcoast with a couple of minor changes and I love how it makes a bold statement in spite of its simplicity. Less is more, as they say. And I got to do some watercolouring!

Materials used:

• stamps - Growing Green, short and sweet
• card - crumb cake, very vanilla, old olive, watercolour paper
• other - square lattice embossing folder, old olive satin ribbon, dimensionals, Big Shot, corner rounder punch

Back soon with my Wow! presentation. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Back To The Grindstone ...

DD18 is off back to Melbourne tomorrow for another year of hard slog at uni ... yeah, right!!! LOL! Anyway, she loves it down there and that is the most important thing, even though we miss her like crazy and I do wish she wasn't quite so far away ...

As I mentioned in my last post, she loved my little Ferrero Rocher suitcase so I offered to make her one for the journey - of course it helps that she's rather fond of chocolate too! Red and white polka dots are her fav at the moment, so I've used cherry cobbler with chocolate chip accents (sounds like a yummy dessert, doesn't it?!).

Naturally, I had to make a matching card and as I don't have an appropriate SU stamp, I thought Magnolia's Farewell Tilda was perfect. Once I had finished the card, I told her she couldn't have it as it's so darn cute that I didn't want to give it away, LOL! I did though, of course.

Hopefully the card and box will survive the journey and maybe sit in her college room to remind her of home ...

Cheers (and tears)
Kez

Ooh, Baby, Baby!

Yup, babies are the focus of today's projects. I snapped up the Baby Bundle set in the December Frenzy (how could I not?!!) and have been having so much fun making cute little baby cards using the set and the matching wheel, Baby Tees.

A boy card firstly and I cut two sets of alphabet die letters to create a shadow effect.

I start singing "Rubber ducky, you're the one" in my head every time I see this next one ...

I love classic navy, red and white at any time, even for babies. I always wanted one of those elegant navy prams but never got one ... maybe as a nana! LOL! (No pressure girls!)

Makes me feel all clucky again ... sshhhh! don't tell DD18 - she wants another sister! LOL!

Cheers
Kez

Beginners Embossing

Today's beginner class is having fun with embossing.

First up some dry embossing using SU's beautiful Manhattan Flower embossing folder, which looks so gorgeous in rich razzleberry. I've teamed it with very vanilla and some adhesive pearls:

Same card but this time using designer series paper for the embossing, then sanding over it to bring out the white core - this makes the embossed image really "pop"! I am looking forward to all the new embossing folders coming in the new catalogue - only 16 sleeps to go!

For our first "wet" embossing we're using one of my favourite sets, Inspired by Nature, and embossing it in white on DSP. A little touch of dry embossing at the bottom of the card adds more texture. I will miss kiwi kiss after this month, sigh!

And last but not least a simple yet beautiful effect which showcases the gorgeous medallion background stamp perfectly. Embossed with white, then sponged in pink pirouette and regal rose, plus a touch of close to cocoa for accent (another colour I will really miss).

Thanks for calling in; you can brighten my day if you leave a comment!

Cheers
Kez

Autumn play

I was having a play the other day with some Autumn colours for thank you cards. Inspired by the colours of the new papers, this was my first card:

I used my crackle background stamp in a paler colour over the top to give an authentic look; plain white just looked too stark. Can you pick where the swirl is from? That's right, Season of Joy! Not just a Christmas set!

The second one started as something completely different and evolved into this:

The shape around the sentiment is die cut from the Lots of Tags set, which I don't have YET but have ordered - hooray for birthday cash!

Hope you like them and thanks for dropping by!

Cheers

Kez

Paper Roses

Boy, that header takes me back!

Do you mind a little digression? Let me take you down Memory Lane a few decades (and we won't count exactly how many decades, cos that's a little scary!) to the time when I was in my early teens. A computer took up a whole room, we used manual typewriters to type on and most families only needed one income and one car. David Cassidy and Donny Osmond were slugging it out for most popular teen singing idol for girls like me to drool over! I really liked Donny the best but I pretended to like David most (sorry Donny!) because my best friends liked him (oh, the power of peer pressure!). We had a kid a year ahead of me in high school who unfortunately looked just like Donny - not that Donny wasn't cute (cos he was, and still is in a way) - but it must have been incredibly frustrating to have girls chase him and point at him all the time! Poor guy.

Well, we watched good wholesome shows on TV like Disney, Little House on the Prairie and - of course - Donny and Marie. Little bit country and a little bit rock 'n roll! And Marie Osmond had a hit called Paper Roses. Yes folks, we finally made it back to what triggered off my mind wander in the first place, LOL!

Anywhooo, today I finally got around to trying out the paper flowers made using the scallop circle punch. I watched a video, just to make sure it really was as easy as everyone said (which it is) then had a go. I used three different shades of pink card - pink pirouette, pretty in pink and regal rose. Take a lookie:

Created by Kez. Stamped images copyright Stampin' Up! 1990-2010

Aaawwwwwwwww, pretty! Thanks for dropping in today; hope you didn't mind my little wander down the deep dark recesses of my memory ....

Cheers

Kez

Bittersweet Day

Today is DD17's last day at home; tomorrow we're off to Melbourne to move her in to her new digs and in a week's time she begins her university life. She's excited, of course, and nervous too.

She asked me to make her a mini album like the I Wish Christmas mini album (see post here) in her favourite colours of blue and brown, as she loved the way it opens up with so many parts, so I have made her an album of family photos to take with her. I stocked up on Parisian Breeze papers before the spring mini expired just for this project, and I've had DD shut out of my craft area while "secret business" was afoot!

I decided to use ALWAYS as my theme and luckily there are a number of SU sets that fitted perfectly. To avoid too much bulk, I've kept things pretty simple. Here it is:

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©1990-2010 Stampin' Up! ®

I'll give it to her tonight at our Farewell Family Dinner and I am betting there are going to be a few tears ... preparation for when we say goodbye on Saturday ... pass me the tissues please.

Kez

Welcome to the Neighbourhood

I've had lots of fun today playing with one of the SAB sets, Good Neighbour. How cute are those little houses?! Seriously! I love the mix and match aspect to the houses and roofs, plus of course the clouds are pretty adorable too!

Anyhoooo, here is my first card which uses the pink, brown and red combo from the Candy Lane designer papers. Can you spot the boo-boo that has been cleverly disguised as a creative opportunity?! I used a portion of the "welcome baby" stamp from Short & Sweet for my sentiment.

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©1990-2010 Stampin' Up! ®

My second card is completely different to the first and uses plenty of white space, with the very capable aid of my stamp-a-ma-jig. The sentiment is a rub on that I got from my Secret Santa for Xmas 2008, so it's well and truly time I used it! I know there is a stamp set with that sentiment though ... might have to add it to my wish list!

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©1990-2010 Stampin' Up! ®

Look forward to hearing what you think about these two! Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kez

A Blonde Moment ... Well, A Blonde Year Really!

So I was sitting in my lounge yesterday with DD11, waiting for a turn on the laptop and admiring today's first card, when a thought suddenly struck me. So Saffron has long been becoming one of my favourite SU colours and I finally realised why - it's the colour on my lounge room walls!!! Talk about taking a while for the penny to drop, LOL! I can only blame the abundance of grey hairs on my head that seem to have affected the brain cells as well :)

Anyways, the card uses the purple/yellow/green combo again, this time with So Saffron, Perfect Plum and a hint of Mellow Moss. I have used the crayon resist technique, which takes me back to the very first time I met my upline, Marelle, at a workshop! Mind you, I'm a bit out of practice so it took me three tries to get one I was happy with! And as I still seem to be in the Keep It Simple, Stamper mode, it is a very straightforward card - cos sometimes, simple is best.

Then the set Bloom Away beckoned me - might be something to do with the Australia Day card I showed you earlier in the week! So I coloured in some gorgeous gum blossoms and as I wanted to keep them the focus, the rest of the card is again very simple.

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©1990-2010 Stampin' Up! ®

Thanks for dropping in. Hope your brain cells are working better than mine!

Cheers

Kez

Lovin' that Combo

Hi all, thanks for calling in today. Hope your week is going well. It's rather a nail-biting one here at the moment - we've been waiting for Uni offers to come out! DD17 has received two, and luckily one of them is from her first choice. Now we have to wait and see if her first choice college accommodation makes an offer too. Nerve-wracking!

Meanwhile, my last post showed one of the cards we're making in class tomorrow; here are the other two. Firstly a card using Friends 24/7, a really gorgeous set, with Really Rust, Bashful Blue and Brocade Blue and I've tried the cracked glass technique.

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©1990-2010 Stampin' Up! ®

The next card uses a colour combo I haven't tried before, but I love, so I'm thinking it will crop up again before too long! It's Certainly Celery, Regal Rose and Whisper White. I don't often add a touch of sparkle but the dazzling diamonds top this card off nicely, IMHO!

Created by Kez. Stamped images ©1990-2010 Stampin' Up! ®

Isn't Upsy Daisy an amazing set? So versatile. Gotta love that about SU! Hey and don't forget something else to love about SU - Sale-a-bration! Starts on Monday and you'll love the sets available this year. Just contact your usual demo ...

Cheers

Kez

Next Year I'll Be Wiser

The Christmas countdown tells me I am fast running out of time and I am still making my own Xmas cards. Next year I will be wiser and when my class are making them at Stamp-a-Stacks, I will be making them too! I have been having fun making more cards using Delightful Decorations and the matching Ornament Punch, both of which I totally ADORE (and they were a big hit at the team meeting on Monday!).

Lots of texture on this first one with ribbon and embossed shapes. I love this snowflake paper from the Ski Slope set.

A touch of bright with some Rich Razzleberry, Bermuda Bay and Melon Mambo. The small stamps that come in the set make a great background.

Love red and white together (not surprisingly, as red is my favourite colour!). Cased this one but don't know where from! Thanks for the inspiration, whoever you are.

Some Baja breeze and chocolate chip, cased from Jan Tink. Nice to shake it up with non traditional colours every once in a while!

And some gift tags too, which this stamp and punch combo are PERFECT for. So quick and easy - punched the base from cardstock that was folded to make a double shape. Stamp the two designs, punch them out then adhere to the card one. Punch a hole, add cord and presto! All finished. I think Santa might use a whole bunch of these this year!

Not to freak you out, but have you finished your Christmas shopping yet? Me neither - barely started, in fact! Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kez

There's a Sucker Born Every Minute!

OK, now before you look at today's card, I have to say in my own defence that you KNOW what a complete sucker I am for cute little critters! When I saw this image earlier today I tried to resist it - you would be proud of me, I hung out for a whole 10 minutes! I really did! I went and looked at other images too, but I just kept coming back to this one (and others like it!) and it seemed to beckon to me, "buy me! buy me! you know you want to!" And, well, I can resist anything but temptation, so I caved and bought it! It wasn't my fault!!!

So then of course I had to immediately make a card.

And this is a first for me, because this delightfully adorable image (alright, hold your horses, you'll see it in a minute!) is a digi stamp. Talk about instant gratification! Wowser! No having to trundle down to the shops, no having to wait for things to be sent in the mail; you just pays your money and you receive the images. Hoop-la!

I knew instantly that I wanted to use the gorjus snowflake paper from the Ski Slope DSP set and I kept the card simple because I want the stamp to take centre stage. (Which it does. Oh yeah.) I printed it on whisper white and coloured it with watercolour crayons and markers (just in case you're interested in the details!). The rest is self explanatory.

So, here is the card in question. If you don't think it is one of the cutest, most adorable things you've ever seen ... well, check that faulty cute-o-meter!

Created by Kez. Stamps copyright Stampin' Up! and Judi Maddigan

Please ignore the fact that I need photography lessons! BTW, Stampin' Up! have just introduced digital stamping and scrapbooking in the US, so we will see it here eventually; I'm looking forward to that!

Cheers

Kez

Elves and Snowmen

I've been so busy lately with Christmas card stamp-a-stacks that I have been neglecting my own need for Christmas cards! So on Wednesday I sat down to make a few and began with five of this design

The bits were leftovers from a SAS, so it was pretty easy to stamp, colour and put them together. Then I tried a card using the set called A Flower For All Seasons and liked it, so made three of those.

I also wanted to use these cute snowmen from the Window Dressing hostess set, which I have been sadly neglecting, so came up with this card. I really like this one and may just have a bit of trouble giving it away .... LOL!

Hope you have all started on your Chrissy cards - December will be here before you know it!

Cheers

Kez