A Taste of Summer

My Lana ladies loved some sample cards I showed them using the Summer Silhouettes stamp set, so we are making one in class this week: 

Materials used:

• stamps - Summer Silhouettes, Curly Cute (retired)
• card - basic black, wild wasabi
• other - Versamark ink, embossing powders in tempting turquoise, melon mambo and wild wasabi

We will also be making this soft card inspired by a Miriam creation:

Materials used:

• stamps - Label Love, gingham wheel
• card - pistachio pudding, smoky slate, whisper white, vellum
• other - delicate designs E/F, Big Shot, bitty butterfly punch, fancy fan E/F, artisan label punch, dimensionals, little leaves die, pearls
• non SU - white linen card, doily die

And we are playing with washi tape for the last card, which uses the same stamps as the card above but has a totally different look:

Materials used:

• stamps - Label Love, Gingham wheel
• card - elegant eggplant, strawberry slush, whisper white
• inks - strawberry slush
• other - artisan label punch, bitty butterfly punch, dimensionals, gingham garden washi tape

It's nice to get a touch of summer as we huddle around the heater! 

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

Mad For Mosaics

In preparation for this month's classes I've been having a play with the Mosaic suite of products available TOMORROW in the 2013-2014 Annual Catalogue. I want to show my ladies a variety of styles, colours and uses to illustrate the versatility of this on-trend shape.

Firstly some 2012-14 in colours

Materials used:

• stamps - Mosaic Madness, Happiest Birthday Wishes (retired)
• card - whisper white, midnight muse
• inks - midnight muse, raspberry ripple, summer starfruit, gumball green
• other - stamp-a-ma-jig, mosaic punch, itty bitty punch, rhinestones, dimensionals

Much more subdued for this second one, with simple colours used for a simple design.

Materials used:

• stamps - Mosaic Madness, Fabulous Phrases
• card - crumb cake, cherry cobbler, very vanilla
• inks - crumb cake, cherry cobbler
• other - mosaic embossing folder, stamp-a-ma-jig, dimensionals, mosaic punch, Big Shot

Next what I call a "full-blown" mosaic tile pattern; a bit time-consuming to construct, but I love how it turned out.

Materials used:

• stamps - Mosaic Madness, Layered Labels
• card - whisper white, pool party
• inks - pool party, so saffron, calypso coral
• other - stamp-a-ma-jig, mosaic punch, mosaic E/F, Big Shot, dimensionals, apothecary accents die, large oval die

Then I got real adventurous and added some blingaliciousness to the mix! Unfortunately it didn't photograph half as gorgeous as it looks IRL.

Materials used:

• stamps - Mosaic Madness, Fabulous Phrases
• card - basic black, silver glitter
• inks - Versamark
• other - embossing powders in silver, melon mambo, tempting turquoise and wild wasabi, mosaic punch, itty bitty punch, rhinestones, dimensionals, heat tool, embossing buddy

And lastly a flexible design that can be used for many different occasions with a change of colour and sentiment.

Materials used:

• stamps - Mosaic Madness, Curly Cute (retired)
• card - smoky slate, whisper white, Bermuda bay, coastal cabana
• inks - Bermuda bay, coastal cabana
• other - mosaic E/F, mosaic punch, pearls, dimensionals

Hope you've enjoyed this taste of mosaic! Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

Procraftinating

I found this little gem on Pinterest and just HAD to share it with you - it is sooooooo me! How about you?

ROFLOL!!!!

Cheers
Kez

More MDS Playing

I've been doing some more exploring of the My Digital Studio software and this time created a 12"x12" scrapbook page of DD15. The photos were taken at her Year 6 Farewell four years ago.

She looked soooooo beautiful in her black and white outfit, it was awfully difficult for a mama to hold back tears!

I love the soft shabbiness of this page - which, BTW, DD helped design.

Materials used (all on MDS):

• stamps - Fantabulous You, First Edition, Vintage Overlays
• card - Baja breeze (with reduced opacity)

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers
Kez

NSU - Tilda With Love

It's another wet and gloomy day here today but my mood is much sunnier because I have finally finished the last of my assignments for the courses I've been doing! Yay! It's also a non-teaching week at work and apart from having to call in briefly today for a meeting, I'm on holiday!

I haven't had the chance to sit and craft yet but I do have a card to show you that I made a couple of weeks ago.

Materials used:

• stamps - Tilda by Magnolia, Label Love and Sent With Love by SU
• card - brocade blue, watercolour, very vanilla, More Amore dsp (heart), floral papers by The Girls Paperie
• other - artisan label punch, paper flowers, pearls, hot glue gun, dimensionals, oval dies, Big Shot, lace trim, markers and ink pads, aquapainter, sponge daubers, 3/4" circle punch

What a cutie! I think this one might have to be saved for DD21 as blue is her favourite colour.

Hopefully I'll be back with plenty of crafting real soon, but meanwhile thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

New Meets Old

Here I am back from chilly Melbourne! I had a wonderful few days with DD21; we did a river cruise to Williamstown, browsed the Prahran markets, heard some live swing music and had lots of fun in each other's company. It was hard to come back home again but nice to be back with DD15 and in my own bed! Here's a snap taken on my iphone of DD at Southbank, waiting for our boat ride.

Anyway, on to cards! For this week's class I am introducing my ladies to the new in colours, combining them with existing stamp sets.

First up some Crisp Cantaloupe:

Materials used:

• stamps - Fabulous Florets, Field Flowers
• card - crisp cantaloupe, whisper white, basic grey
• inks - basic grey, crisp cantaloupe, pistachio pudding
• other - basic grey satin ribbon, dimensionals, sponge daubers

Next comes Pistachio Pudding:

Materials used:

• stamps - Doily, Elements of Style
• card - pistachio pudding, whisper white, crumb cake
• inks - crumb cake, pistachio pudding, crisp cantaloupe
• other - white embossing powder, heat tool, dimensionals, blender pen, sponge daubers, 1 1/4" square punch

And last but not least a touch of Strawberry Slush and Coastal Cabana (this one is the favourite of both my girls). I'm not too good at photographing white cards, so just trust me that it looks better in real life!

Materials used:

• stamps - Field Flowers, Gingham wheel
• card - white linen (non SU), whisper white, non SU polka dot dsp
• inks - strawberry slush, coastal cabana
• other - honeycomb E/F, Big Shot, window framelits, 1" square punch, dimensionals, designer frames E/F, sponge dauber

I didn't use the fifth in colour, Baked Brown Sugar, but I'm sure my ladies won't mind. 

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kez

Escape!

It's cold, wet and miserable outside today and when my computer screensaver flicked up images of sandy beaches, blue waters and lots of sunshine - well, let's just say I was really keen to go there! Then I was browsing through MDS and found a stamp that sums up perfectly how I feel. Naturally, a card was born.

Here tis:

ROFLOL!

Materials used:

• stamps - Fantabulous You (MDS), Mosaic Madness
• card - whisper white, strawberry slush, coastal cabana
• other - dimensionals, rhinestones, mosaic punch

Do you notice some sneaky peeks in there? I've used a few new colours (strawberry slush, crisp cantaloupe, Bermuda bay, pear pizzazz, coastal cabana) as well as a new stamp set called Mosaic Madness and the matching mosaic punch.

I'm heading off to Melbourne tomorrow and I'm pretty sure the weather there is definitely not going to be in any way tropical, but they say a change is as good as a rest - and I get to spend a few days with my gorgeous DD21, so I know we will have a ball together even if it rains every day.

See you when I get back! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Cheers!

A bright and breezy celebration card for you today as I've been having a play with some new colours. Take a lookie:

Materials used:

• stamps - Happy Hour, Fabulous Phrases
• card - whisper white, Bermuda bay, strawberry slush
• inks - baked brown sugar, Bermuda bay, strawberry slush, crushed curry, rich razzleberry
• other - apothecary accents die, jewellery tag punch, rhinestone, dimensionals, fancy fan embossing folder, Big Shot

The cards are strawberry slush (new in colour) and Bermuda bay (new colour) and the inks include crushed curry (new colour) and baked brown sugar (new in colour) as well as Bermuda and strawberry and "old" colour razzleberry. 

A bit of fussy cutting but don't they look good enough to drink for real? Yum! Which reminds me, I'm heading down to Melbourne at the end of next week to visit DD21 - so I'm pretty sure there'll be a similar drink of some kind on the horizon! LOL!

Hope the weather is being kind to you wherever you are and if you are in Aus, enjoy the long weekend.

Cheers

Kez

Edited to add: the larger die shape in Bermuda bay card is made by tracing around the outside of the apothecary accents die and cutting by hand. Thanks to Emillie for asking! 

15 Already? How Can That Be? (NSU)

It's my younger daughter's birthday today and as you can tell from my header, she is now 15. OMG just doesn't sum up how amazed I am at how many years have gone by so quickly. I can still recall quite clearly the day I went off to the doctor's to get a pregnancy test.

She has certainly turned out to be a wonderful young person. I just love her zany sense of humour, her compassion for others - well, pretty much everything about her really! I am a completely lucky mum in that my two daughters are my best friends and we love to spend time together, so I know I have to make the most of the next two years before DD15 finishes high school and is leaving home to go to uni .... anyone worked out how to make time stand still yet? Call me!

Well, naturally, I had to make a special card and the colour green was a given. The choice of stamps was a toss up - she loves tea but I've done that before, she loves Dr Who but I've done that too. Finally I settled on other "nerdy" past-times she enjoys - reading and her Apple laptop. Here is her card:

The front

the middle section

the last section

Materials used:

• card - lucky limeade, afternoon tea dsp, whisper white, so saffron
• other - chevron E/F, Big Shot, dimensionals, markers
• non SU - TSG Smarty Pants stamps, doily dies, circle dies

Later on today she'll be stomping around in her green Doc Martens! Sigh! Maybe Doctor Who can help me go back in time?

Thanks for stopping 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

Shy and Retiring

The Retiring Lists are out for all the stamps and accessories we will be losing at the end of June - but they are going for a worthwhile cause - all the lovely new goodies we will get to play with!

If you wish to order anything from the Retiring Lists I advise getting in quick 'cos many of them disappear faster than hotcakes! You can call or email me or if you prefer, place an order online by clicking on my Shop Now button (over on the right there).

The links for the retiring lists are over on the right, just click on each one to get a pdf file to download.

Happy retirement shopping!

Cheers
Kez

Less Is More Humour

Making a clean and simple card can be a hard task for me - few layers, few embellishments and lots of white space - so occasionally I like to do a CAS challenge. Over at Simply Less is More this week their challenge theme is humour and as I have rather a well-rounded ... umm ... zany .... oh ok, it's a warped sense of humour, this rather appealed to me!

I chose this gorgeous Mo Manning image and teamed it with a SU sentiment that I thought went rather well. I had lots of fun with one of my favourite things - watercolouring - and kept my card very simple so this amazing lady would take centre stage!

Materials used:

• stamps - Jill is Two by Mo Manning, Smarty Pants by SU
• card - watercolour, so saffron, wisteria wonder
• other - aquapainter, inks, markers, stamp-a-ma-jig

Isn't she precious? Oh, that look takes me back a few years to when my girls were little! LOL!

Why not pop over to the challenge blog and have a look at some of the other entries - it will give you a good laugh!

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers
Kez

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

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