The Sponges Have It

I was in Sponging Heaven yesterday making some Christmas cards for my ladies to do in class. Rather than our usual stamp-a-stack making ten cards, these are one-off cards for those special folks  who deserve that extra time and attention - you know who I mean.

For the first two cards I borrowed from the creative genius of others but did give the cards a little tweak of my own. The third card is my own design.

Here's the first, CASEd from the genius that is Michelle Zindorf - surprisingly, not a brayered card!

I began with a piece of very vanilla and stamped the world stamp using early espresso ink. Then I stamped the swirl from Everything Eleanor using Versamark ink and embossed with a non SU embossing powder called Aged Ivory (it has little flecks of gold in it, just gorgeous). Next I sponged using crumb cake and then early espresso inks, rubbing the excess ink off the embossing with a tissue; that was then mounted on to a mat of crumb cake. Santa was stamped using Timber Brown StazOn ink onto watercolour paper and coloured, cut and adhered using snail, then everything attached to the cherry cobbler base using Dimensionals. Simple but effective! For the inside I stamped the world map with crumb cake ink and placed my card over it, pressing only in a few spots to get the partial image effect, then stamped the sentiment with cherry cobbler ink.

Materials used:

• stamps - Santa's List, Everything Eleanor, World Map, 
• card - cherry cobbler, crumb cake, very vanilla, watercolour
• inks - early espresso, crumb cake, cherry cobbler
• other - heat tool, aged ivory (non SU) embossing powder, sponges, aqua painter, Dimensionals, markers

Next is a gorgeous sparkly card CASEd from Cynthia Millan (she has a video tutorial HERE) that is incredibly easy to make; the pine is stamped on very vanilla, sponged and covered entirely with iridescent ice embossing powder. I mounted mine on another piece of vanilla, then on to the mossy meadow card base. The pine and sponging are followed through to the inside.

Materials used:

• stamps - Ornamental Pine
• card - mossy meadow, very vanilla
• inks - mossy meadow, early espresso, Versamark
• other - irridescent ice embossing powder, heat tool, sponges, Dimensionals

And lastly my new favourite trees (I don't know about you, but I am sooooooo over Lovely as a Tree after all these years!). I stamped them with Versamark on to a piece of whisper white and embossed again using irdescent ice, then sponged using marina mist and night of navy inks. The die cut sentiment was cut from silver glitter card and a few rhinestones added to look like stars. The sentiment on the inside echoes that on the front.

Materials used:

• stamps - Wonderland
• card - night of navy, whisper white, silver glimmer
• inks - marina mist, night of navy
• other - Christmas Sayings dies, Big Shot, iridescent ice embossing powder, heat tool, sponges, rhinestones, Dimensionals

We're also making some Christmas tags, so I'll come back with those another time.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Sisters

The colour combination for the Fab Friday challenge really appealed this week:

But before you see my project, you'd better strap in, buckle up or just hang on tight because I've only gone and made a scrapbook page! Shock!!! Yes, there may well be thunderbolts, lol.

I've tried for an antique/shabby chic kind of look. I stamped on my background card and sponged around the edges, then also stamped and sponged on the pink pirouette striped paper. The lace, doily, heart embellishment and pool party embossing powder are all from the Seasonal catty.

The flowers are fabric, the leaves die cut or punched card.

The "sisters" is a chipboard die cut which I embossed with aged ivory embossing enamel - doesn't it look amazing? You'd swear it was worn metal or something.

I adore this shot of my two gorgeous girls and I hope this layout has done it justice.

Materials used:

• stamps - En Francais, Everything Eleanor, Delicate Doilies, Tiny Tags
• card - crumb cake, very vanilla, pink pirouette patterned paper, cherry cobbler
• other - paper doily, pool party embossing powder, heat tool, sponges, artisan embellishment kit
• non SU - fabric flowers, wooden word, leaf die, leaf punch, aged ivory embossing enamel, rhinestone embellishments, hot glue gun, mounting tape

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Last Class

Well, it had to happen some time - the last class of the year. Here are the cards we made, firstly a simple masculine card:

Materials used:

• stamps - Best Dad Ever
• card - gumball green, midnight muse, whisper white, gumball green patterned paper
• other - rhinestone, buttons die, white gel pen, dimensionals, white bakers twine

Then I had to give my new Hello Doily stamp an airing - this has been on my wish list for a LONG time! I paired it with the beautiful Field Flowers and a sentiment from Blooming with Kindness:

Materials used:

• stamps - Hello Doily, Field Flowers, Blooming with Kindness
• card - crumb cake, rich razzleberry, very vanilla
• other - crumb cake seam binding, dimensionals, stamp-a-ma-jig

And of course I could not complete the year without some kerry cobbler, now could I? This one was inspired by a Melissa Davies card and I've used another new set, Everything Eleanor. Bit of fussy cutting with this one, but my ladies cheerfully fiddled with it!

Materials used:

• stamps - Everything Eleanor, Blooming with Kindness
• card - cherry cobbler, very vanilla
• other - apothecary accents die, pearls, cherry cobbler seam binding, large scallop edgelit, delicate designs embossing folder, stripes embossing folder, sponge dauber, dimensionals

It has been another wonderful year of classes with my lovely ladies and while I am looking forward to a break, I know I'll be raring to get back to it come January!

On Monday night we had our Christmas get together dinner and here is the Christmas card I made for everyone (cased from Steffi):

Plus there was a small gift in a lovely Fancy Favour gift box, which were made in different colour combinations:

Hope you're having fun at your Xmas "doos" too! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

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