Fancy A Spot Of New Colour?

With the arrival of the new 2014-2016 in colours at my house yesterday, I was determined to get into my craft room and have a play. So after a late rising (well, it is a long weekend, after all!) that is exactly what I did. Hubby came past just as I had gone in and asked if I was having fun. "Not yet", I replied, "but I'm about to!"

I had an urge to watercolour, so got out the beautiful Pleasant Poppies stamp and set to.

Here's the result - not quite as awesome as I was hoping, but not bad either. Hubby praised it, which is a big deal!

The card base is blackberry bliss, the poppies are hello honey with mossy meadow for the stems and a diluted lost lagoon for the sky. The other in colour I didn't use is tangelo twist. I coloured the edge of the lace to make it stand out more using the blackberry bliss marker.

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies, Petite Pairs
• card - blackberry bliss, hello honey, watercolour
• other - aqua painter, markers, lace ribbon, dimensionals

Has that whet your appetite for the new in colours? Hope so!

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

50 And Fabulous

Tonight we are off to a Trivia Night to raise funds for the Quest for Life Foundation and also to celebrate the 50th birthday of the organiser of the event, who is a dear friend.

Naturally, a card had to be made. And, in fact, a second card also - for everyone at the event to sign too. That, of course. occasioned a rather large card, so I made one with extra paper inside for lots of signatures and birthday wishes. As the birthday girl just loves flowers and is known everywhere for always wearing a flower in her hair, naturally they needed to feature on the cards.

For my card I played again with sanding some core'dinations cardstock, this time in primrose petals and embossed with mosaic. I carried through the mosaic shape with stamping for one of my flag pieces (and on the inside), and teamed the primrose with summer starfruit and some watercoloured poppies. I love the aged look the sanding gives on the embossing!

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies, Four You, Summer Silhouettes
• card - primrose petals (plain and core'dinations), very vanilla, summer starfruit
• other - mosaic embossing folder, Big Shot, 1" square punch, aquapainter, sanding kit, dimensionals
• non SU - nestabilities circle and scallop circle dies

Black, vanilla and pink have been teamed up for the large card which is A4 folded in half. A bit of bling adds some glamour!

Materials used:

• stamps - none
• card - basic black, pretty in pink, very vanilla, Modern Medley dsp, silver glitter, garden green
• other - Big Shot, Timeless Type number dies, dimensionals
• non SU - nestabilities die, pink rhinestones, purchased paper roses, Martha Stewart rose leaf punch and matching embossing punch, hot glue gun, computer and printer

We are looking forward to a fun night and hopefully will raise heaps of money for Quest. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Edited to add: We had a great night, the birthday girl loved both her cards and we raised over $14,000 for Quest. Yay! Also, our team won the Trivia! double yay! (lol)

Poppy Party

As I was a good girl yesterday and got my assignment work finished by lunchtime, I decided I was allowed to make a card. I was drawn to one of my favourite colour combos; pool party, white and black. Sooo elegant.

I stamped the poppies with Versamark and embossed with white, then painted the poppies with an aquapainter and whisper white ink, watered down slightly, to create a "base coat" that I could add colour to. Once that was dry (which didn't take long as I had the heater going in my craft room against the chill) I coloured using a blender pen.

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies
• card - pool party, basic black
• inks - pool party, whisper white, island indigo
• other - dimensionals, white embossing powder, heat tool, embossing buddy, scallop dotted ribbon, blender pen, aquapainter

Having made that one I was keen to try out another and I have to say that I absolutely LOVE how this one turned out:

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies
• card - crumb cake, whisper white, primrose petals
• inks - whisper white, primrose petals, cherry cobbler, old olive
• other - dimensionals, white embossing powder, heat tool, embossing buddy, blender pen, aquapainter, crumb cake seam binding, vintage faceted button, cherry cobbler bakers twine

Those poppies sure are addictive - as is this technique. Maybe for next month's class ... 

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

Pink Poppies

I had a lot of fun the other day playing around with watercolouring. Here's the result:

I used my crumb cake marker to ink up just a portion of the stamp and then watercoloured with an aquapainter and regal rose ink. Afterwards I added a layer of plain water and soaked it up with a tissue, so that the colour became muted and "washed out" a little. I think it gives a nice soft, watercolour painting kind of effect - don't you? The background has a very light wash of Sahara sand and the seam binding I dyed using water and re-inker.

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies, En Francais, Teeny Tiny Sentiments
• card - regal rose, very vanilla, watercolour, crumb cake
• other - honeycomb E/F, Big Shot, very vanilla seam binding, jewellery tag punch, vintage trinket, dimensionals, sponge dauber, regal rose re-inker, soft suede marker

It will be sad to see Regal Rose go with the colour renovation, I like it much better than Melon Mambo. Ah well, such is life - supermarkets stop selling my favourite things constantly!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Poppies

It's ANZAC Day today in both Australia and New Zealand, and what better day to show a poppy card? Growing up in NZ poppies were always worn for ANZAC Day (whereas here in Aus it tends to be rosemary), so poppies will always be associated with this day for me.

I found some gorgeous poppy paper not long ago and knew instantly it would look terrific teamed with SU's Pleasant Poppies stamp, which I love. So here's my card, which is simple but (I think) gorgeous.

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies
• card - confetti cream, watercolour, soft suede, 
• other - very vanilla satin ribbon, pearls
• non SU -  nestabilities dies, Kaisercraft paper

Wherever you are, I hope you are enjoying your day. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

It's Just Not Fair

It's just not fair when the AusPost man brings a box of SU goodies to your doorstep at 8 am on a morning when you have plenty of chores to get done.

The new rubbah (or dsp or tools) sits there and stares at you, taunting and teasing. "Open me!" it says, "Play with me, you know you want to!"

Of course I want to, who wouldn't? But those chores ... We're heading off to Melbourne on Thursday and then DD20 will be coming back with us - and my craft room is nowhere near ready to be invaded inhabited "for the duration"! LOL.

So the new things will have to wait (sob, sob!) but I did make a card the other day, playing with the technique where you have a gap in your embossing to stamp in (I don't know if it has a shorter name!) - yes, I am already thinking of techniques to teach my ladies in next year's classes! Not a total success, but there's plenty of time to practise that one a bit more!

Materials used:

• stamps - Pleasant Poppies
• card - whisper white, certainly celery
• other - windows labels framelits, Big Shot, pretty in pink ribbon, dimensionals, fancy fan E/F, blender pen

Well, better get back to those chores - time's a'running out! 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