August Already?

This month's class cards are a mixed bunch.

With no other classes before Father's Day next month, we begin with a Mario card cased from Pinterest.

Materials used:

• stamps - Teeny Tiny Sentiments
• card - daffodil delight, basic black, real red, blush blossom, whisper white
• punches - bird, 1/4" circle, 3/4" circle, 1" circle, corner rounder
• other - two way glue stick, black button, cherry cobbler bakers twine, glue dots, Dimensionals, real red marker

For a technique we are making a shaker card, again inspired by a card on Pinterest.

Materials used:

• stamps - Party Time (Verve)
• card - white, melon mambo, whisper white, acetate
• other - silver embossing powder, heat tool, silver ribbon, rhinestones, Dimensionals, mounting tape, party bits

Our last card is a watercolour number - I think my ladies would be disappointed if I didn't have at least some watercoloring! 

Materials used:

• stamps - You've Got This
• card - crumb cake, basic black, whisper white, watercolour
• other - clear embossing powder, heat tool, crushed curry marker, aqua painter
• inks - basic black craft ink, garden green, rose red, cherry cobbler, crumb cake

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Who Turned Up The Heat?

Seriously.

It's only the beginning of Spring and temps today and yesterday have been 33 degrees C. Gimme a break! Hottest Spring days in umpteen years apparently.

Anyways, it was good to have an excuse to stay out of the hot air because I have been busy crafting on behalf of DD22, who finishes up her year-long school placement next week and wanted a little something to give to all her Year 3/4 kiddies. She forgot, however, to give me sufficient warning of the deadline coming up, so I've only had 36 hours to get them all made and in the post down to Melbourne!

So, over the last day and a half and with the very invaluable assistance of DD16, I made up 54 bookmarks with some punch art characters.

Here they is:

The TMNT ones are for the boys (yeah, you probably figured that out already, right?) and the yellow M and M ones are for the girls.

As she was helping me with the M and Ms, DD16 gave firm instructions that there is to be NO punch art next time! I think she was gaining a meaningful appreciation of how many fiddly little steps are involved!!! LOL. Apparently if it hadn't been so cute, she would have told me to make them all on my own!

With that important job out of the way and all my stamp camp projects finished, I now have a few days in hand to do some card making just for fun - and with new stamps that arrived yesterday just begging to be inked up, I think I may just do that!

Punches used:
TMNT - 38mm circle (non SU), large oval, itty bitty circle, 1/4" circle
Yellow - 1 3/4" circle, 1/2" circle, itty bitty circle, small oval, boho blossom, horizontal slot and Timeless Type alphabet die

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Holiday Kids

Last school holidays I did a kids craft class and they loved it so much they asked for another these holidays. Over the last few days I have had soooo much fun designing projects for them to make! These are the three items we'll be doing.

A pop up birthday card:

Materials used:

• stamps - Party This Way (retired)
• card - real red, whisper white, marina mist, retired dsp, Polka Dot dsp
• other - real red narrow ribbon, dotted scallop ribbon border punch, dimensionals, owl punch, bakers twine, 1 3/4" circle punch

A Spongebob box:

Materials used:

• card - crushed curry, basic black, whisper white, Pacific point, cherry cobbler
• punches - word window (cut in half for teeth), horizontal slot (eyelashes), 1 3/8" circle (black for outer circles of eyes and yellow for cheeks), 1 1/4" circle (white part of eyes), 3/4" circle (blue part of eyes), 1/2" circle (black inner circle of eyes), small oval (cut slightly at one end for nose), 1" square (cut in half for shirt collar), wide oval (upper lip, behind cheeks and nose), 1 3/4" circle (black mouth), heart (tongue)
• other - polka dot embossing folder, Big Shot, sponge daubers, dimensionals, soft suede marker

And for our last project some minions on a bookmark - how cute are these? (Inspired by Amber Meulenbelt)

Materials used:

• card - real red, daffodil delight, basic black, not quite navy
• punches - owl, jewellery tag, 1/4" circle, small oval (the old retired one)
• other - white gel pen, googlie eyes, black marker, two tags die, Big Shot

Hopefully the kids will have just as much fun making these as I did! Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kez

Where's The Fire?

Another commissioned card for you today, this time for a young lad who has spent much of his short life in hospital. I was told that he loves firemen and doctors, so I was keen to try out some punch art - always a hit with youngsters.

I found a great punch art fireman on Tina Gillespie's blog that she had cased from Ellen Kemper (click HERE for her list of punches used) so copied that. I didn't have the butterfly punch for the moustache, so used a heart shape instead, I used the owl punch for the eyes and substituted ribbon for the hose rather than card. To relieve the bland white background I added some clip art and printed it in greyscale, reducing the opacity to make it like a watermark. The fire engine image was printed again on the inside page.

Materials used:

• card - Pacific point, daffodil delight, whisper white, basic grey, real red, chocolate chip, blush blossom
• punches - see the link above
• other - computer and printer, clip art, dimensionals, real red grosgrain ribbon

It was great fun to make and I hope will be a big hit with wee Nathaniel.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Bye Bye Preppies

This week is DD21's last at the school she has been on placement at all semester and I know she is going to miss the cute little preppies she's been teaching. We were doing our usual browsing-Pinterest-together-while-on-Skype the other night and saw some adorable petite purses with Sesame St characters on. Knowing that her preppies would love them, I sat down last night/this morning and made a batch - without the purse though, as I had to send them safely to her in Melbourne!

Here are the faces all lined up:

Details as follows:

Big Bird:
head - 1 3/4" scallop circle in daffodil delight
beak - large oval in daffodil delight, small oval (the old retired one) in pumpkin pie
feathers - bird punch leaf in daffodil delight
eyes - 1/2" circle in white, 1/4" circle in black, 1/2" circle in pumpkin pie cut in half for lids

Cookie Monster:
head - 1 3/4" scallop circle in Pacific point and a second scallop circle punched twice slightly less than half way
mouth - 1 1/4" circle in black
eyes - 1/2" circle in white, 1/4" circle in black
cookie - 3/4" circle in early espresso, punched slightly with a scallop to make the "bites" and then the choc chips were drawn on with a black marker

Elmo:
head - 1 3/4" scallop circle in real red and a second scallop circle punched twice slightly less than half way
mouth - 1 1/4" circle in black
eyes - 1/2" circle in white, 1/4" circle in black
nose - 1/2" circle in pumpkin pie

Oscar the Grouch:
head - 1 3/4" scallop circle in old olive, then I punched a second scallop circle after first punching the edge with the scallop border punch (to make a straight across mouth, rather than smiling)
eyes - 1/2" circle in white, 1/4" circle in black
eyebrows - horizontal slot (retired) in early espresso

All of the white twinkles on the eyes are made with a white gel pen.

I bought some lollipops and attached the characters to those before bundling them in a box off to DD. Would be much easier if I lived in Melbourne!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez   

Kid's Punch Art

I've been making kids cards again and for these ones focusing on bright, primary colours - not my usual cup of tea at all! You'll need your sunnies on for looking at them, be warned!

Firstly I cased Marelle's wonderful Lego card:

Then I had a go at a punch art clown and added in some bright pennants as well:

A couple of Sesame Street characters make an appearance next:

And lastly I just had to have a go at Angry Birds! I'm sure you've seen plenty of these around.

What do you think, bright enough? Hope your eyeballs are OK! I won't list all the punches but if you want the "recipe" for a particular card, just send me an email (the link is over on the right under Contact Me).

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Edited to add: I have had a lot of people ask for the "recipe" for the angry birds card, so here are the SU punches I used:
Body – 1 3/8” circle
Eyes – owl and 1/2” circle
Eyebrows – horizontal slot
Beak – star (cut down to suit)
Tail feathers – boho blossoms
Head feathers – five petal flower
Slingshot – word window

The grass is a Martha Stewart punch.

For Jasmine

The little girl that DD13 babysits for is having a birthday and DD requested this card, which I have cased from Monica Gale. Monica embossed the skirt panels with the vintage wallpaper folder but DD requested NOT that one, so I've used a Cuttlebug one with tiny roses instead and am very pleased with how it turned out.

Such a pretty card - it's so fun to do a "little girl" project again! LOL. Unfortunately it's a cold, wet and miserable day here today so the light's not the best for the photo but you get the idea!

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers
Kez

Punch Buggy Yellow

Do your kids/grandkids love to play the Yellow Car and Punch Buggie games? My girls do and we often have a hilarious journey trying to beat each other to find both and call "punch buggy yellow"! Being in the driver's seat has its advantages and disadvantages, mind you! But we can't play Yellow car when we are in Melbourne with DD19 as she lives very close to the CBD and all the taxis are yellow! LOL

So having seen a gorgeous punch art VW beetle some time ago, I finally got around to making a punch buggy yellow card - literally! Here tis:

I love it! Takes me back aeons ago to my own childhood when we had a white VW beetle - named Herbie of course! (For those of you ancient enough to remember the original Love Bug movies!)

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers
Kez

Edited to add Punches used:

• Wide oval - hood & car top

• Large oval - windshield, hood & side fenders

• Word Window - bumper

• Modern Label - tires

• 1/2" circle - black headlights

• new punch pack 3/8" circle - gray headlights

• Horizontal slot punch - rear view mirror, bumper add-ons & hood handle

Punch Art Class

Next week my ladies will be having fun with SU's great punches. The cards they'll be making will be my sheep and baby dino and then they'll make this basic card with a choice of punch art figures to put on it - either a Babushka doll or the ever-adorable Pooh. I love them both and couldn't decide which card to use for class, so we'll make both figures and my ladies can choose which one to put on their card!

The Babushka was designed by Deb Fearns and the Pooh was designed by Evonne Yamazaki and they are both made using the owl punch plus a few friends! Aren't they great? Such talented ladies.

Hope you're having some fun in your day and enjoying the school holidays if you're in Aus. Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kez

So Happy For Ewe

I was in a somewhat whimsical frame of mind last night when I sat down to make some cards. I made one with Aviary first, but it wasn't quite whimsical enough ... so I was browsing through my files to see what fitted my fanciful mood when I came across something just perfect ... something I have been meaning to make for ages ... something especially for kiwis ... something sooooooo cute it made me chuckle out loud ...

Sheep.

Oh yeaaaaaaaaa, I hear ewe say, those kiwis have got something like 46 million sheep! (Used to be 72 million ... the rest left to live in Australia! ROFLOL!!!!!) About 13 sheep per person, apparently - I kid ewe not!!!! So I HAD to make a sheep. And having made one, I HAD to make another - ewe know what it's like. Well then, of course, it was decision time on how to get them on a card. My grass punch came in very handy (thank ewe Martha Stewart) and so my card was born. Check it out:

The SAB set 'So Happy For You' (I think there's a spelling mistake in there!) was perfect and I added a touch of contrabaaaaa-nd organza ribbon. The bow and button gave me a lot of grief, I have to say! It was by now around 11.30 pm and I was very tired and needing some sleep, but it just would NOT sit right. Normally I would decide to leave it until I was rested and fresh in the morning, but it was the last touch on my card and I just knew it would drive me crazy and stop me sleeping, so I HAD to get it sorted! So I undid the button (sewn on) and the bow (small, fiddly knot) and started again and thaaaaaank goodness, second time it worked like a chaaaaaaarm.

So, I hope ewe like my touch of whimsy ... and may ewe have some whimsy in your day today!

Cheers
Kez

PS: Here's looking at ewe kid!

Edited to add Punches used:

• scallop circle (regular size, not the XL one) - body 
• five petal flower - ears and feet
• large oval - face
• owl - eyes
• boho blossoms - wool on head

Before You Find Your Prince ...

... you all know how that sentence ends ... say it with me ladies ... "you have to kiss a lot of frogs"!!!

Well, while surfing around some blogs tonight I came across the most adorable froggy Valentine card made by Monica Gale and I just HAD to case it. I don't have the paper or stamps that Monica used, so I've changed those, but it is essentially the same. She also has a video tutorial on how to make the card, so if you like it, pop on over and have a look.

I know one of my regulars in particular who will love this, as she is into frogs in a big way! Here's His Froggy Highness ...

Ain't that the cutest? A great card to give to a bloke who isn't in to lovey-dovey (and that's most of them, isn't it?? LOL!!!).

Materials used:

• stamps - Family Phrases, Tiny Tags
• card - basic grey, old olive, pear pizzazz, riding hood red, Love Letters DSP, whisper white
• ink - riding hood red, old olive
• punches - large oval, wide oval, boho blossoms, 1/2 " circle, heart to heart
• other - dimensionals, googly eyes (non SU), always artichoke marker, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet dies, circle scissors, crystal effects, whisper white taffeta ribbon, sponge daubers

Thanks for hopping over today!

Cheers
Kez

Cuteness On A Small Scale

As my class tonight are making a Halloween card, I suddenly had an idea yesterday to make a Frankenstein mini milk carton monster. DD12 and I had sooooooo much fun making Frankie that we kept going and made a Mummy and a Dracula too! Here are my versions:

Cute or what? I tell ya, I was glad I have so many SU punches! LOL! Dracula's hair, nose, eyes and fangs are all made from punches - wonder if you can guess which ones?

Here are DD12's little cuties:

I love the bandage uncurling on her Mummy!

Hope you like 'em! Thanks for calling in today.

Cheers
Kez