Bunnies and Punnies

I have fallen down a rabbit hole.

Kinda not unexpected, given the proximity to Easter. Ha. [Oh, come on! Work with me here! It was at least semi-funny. You had to have anticipated something of the kind, given the title of this blog post. (You totally just re-read the title, didn't you?)]

So, as I was saying, rabbit hole.

Yeah.

See, the thing is...well, you all know how much I love brayering and sponging for making beautiful backgrounds for cards, right? Right. So, for some time now I have been resisting the almost irresistible lure that is distress inks. And then they came along with distress oxide inks, and my self control (of which I have, I freely admit, very little) was pushed almost to breaking point. Almost, but not quite. I managed to resist them for some months, perhaps years. I don't know; I lose track of time.

Any-who...just recently I made the mistake of watching a YouTube video of Jennifer McGuire demonstrating distress oxide inks....and....well, my resolve weakened, shall we say? And maybe four colours got added to an order I was placing online...and then perhaps a few days - and YouTube videos - later, another (heh, heh) twelve more colours were ordered...

...and now...

Man, I love these things!

So yeah - rabbit hole.

I may or may not have been spending a fair amount of time experimenting with different techniques and colour combinations and...well, you get the drift.

The upshot of all of that is, here for your delectation today are a some cards made using distress oxide inks. Have I mentioned how much I love these? Okay, good.

Materials used:

• stamps - none
• card - watermelon wonder, basic black, whisper white
• other - distress oxide inks, blending tool, Inkylicious stencils - Wings of Flight and Skyline/Rooftops/Sun/Moon/Stars, post-it notes, mounting tape

Here's the birds again, this time with a night time sky rather than morning.

Materials used:

• stamps - Best Yet (retired)
• card - Bermuda bay, whisper white, basic black
• other - distress oxide inks, blending tool, Inkylicious stencils - Wings of Flight, embossing buddy, white embossing powder, heat tool

And this next one is my favourite so far. I love the colour combo plus the effect of the stencil, which was simply spritzed with water and left to sit over the sponged background for two minutes, then the piece was dried with a heat tool. Also love the way the oxidation process not only lightens the colours but gives a textured look as well. BTW, this card is an adaptation of one of Jennifer's.

Materials used:

• stamps - Sunshine and Rainbows
• card - whisper white, basic grey
• other - distress oxide inks, blending tool, heat tool, stitched circle die, Big Shot, Up and Away thinlits, water spritzer, paper towels, sunburst thinlits, Dimensionals, MFT Radiating Rays stencil

So, yep, I'm firmly down this hole and have no intention of digging myself out any time soon...okay, maybe for Easter. Cos, you know, chocolate.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Autumn Splendour

It's not long now until March and here in Australia that heralds the arrival of Autumn, my favourite time of year. Here in the Blue Mountains the colours on the deciduous trees will be just stunning over the next few months - it always makes me wish I had some talent as a painter to capture that glory of nature. So I do the next best thing and stamp!

The projects for this month's classes feature Autumn colours and here they are:

Inspired by Patty Bennett, this one was a ton of fun with sponging and emboss resist.

Materials used:

• stamps - Magnificent Maple
• card - Sahara sand, whisper white, pumpkin pie
• inks - crushed curry, pumpkin pie, cajun craze, early espresso, Versamark
• other - sponges, brayer, clear embossing powder, heat tool, honeycomb embossing folder, Big Shot, dimensionals

The next card is more fun with sponges and ink, CASEing a glorious card by Tricia Traxler. I am especially pleased with how my leaf turned out! Take a lookie:

Materials used:

• stamps- Magnificent Maple, French Foliage, Best Yet
• card - cajun craze, very vanilla, naturals ivory
• inks - so saffron, crushed curry, calypso coral, cajun craze, tangerine tango, early espresso
• other - sponges and sponge daubers, embossing stylus and mat, dimensionals, non SU scalloped rectangle die

For our third card I borrowed the beautiful Simply Sketched hostess set from my SIL and went to town with watercolouring. Sanding the core'dinations card (in glorious cherry cobbler) made the perfect background.

Materials used:

• stamps - Simply Sketched
• card - cherry cobbler (plain and core'dinations), watercolour, more mustard
• inks - crushed curry, more mustard, cajun craze, old olive
• other - lace ribbon, aqua painter, dimensionals, mosaic embossing folder, ovals framelits, Big Shot, sanding block, sponge daubers

I love, love, love how this one turned out, the colours are so rich.

Have fun playing in the Autumn leaves and thanks for calling in!

Cheers

Kez

Friends

In a complete change of pace from my cards over the past week or so, today's project is a soft and feminine shabby chic offering using a number of old favourites I just can't bear to part with. Hopefully trends in the papercrafting world will return to these pretty florals and elegant fonts, cos I miss them!

Materials used:

• stamps - En Francais, Best Yet
• card - blushing bride, soft suede, very vanilla, pear pizzazz, Springtime Vintage dsp
• punches - hexagon, bird, itty bitty
• other - designer frames E/F, Big Shot, rolled rose die, pearls, sponges, dimensionals, hot glue gun

To get the patchy look from your background stamp like I have, lay the stamp rubber side up on your table and ink it up then lay the paper on top and just press lightly in random spots (not all over the paper) - add some sponging around the edges and your shabby background is complete.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kez

Brayering 101

My Sunday ladies - feeling proud of their recent upgrade from beginner to intermediate, LOL - are giving brayering a try this week, so I've made some cards with simple brayering to start them off.

Firstly a floral vision in pinks with some watercolouring thrown in for extra fun. I cased a card I made at stamp camp a couple of years back. Looks more gorgeous IRL, the subtle pinks don't show well in my photo.

Materials used:

• stamps - Best Yet, Fabulous Florets
• card - pink pirouette, whisper white, chocolate chip, watercolour paper
• inks - pink pirouette, blushing bride, chocolate chip
• other - stamp-a-ma-jig, dimensionals, blushing bride marker, brayer

Next a masculine card and I've given the sailboat a rest this time in favour of the Motorcycle a la carte stamp. Two of my ladies' husbands are big into bikes, so they will love this one. I have cased a card by Kristine McNickle as I just love her colour combination and simple design.

Materials used:

• stamps - Motorcycle, Best Yet
• card - whisper white, river rock, basic black
• inks - peach parfait, river rock, always artichoke, basic black, black StazOn
• other - dimensionals, 35 mm punch, 38 mm punch (non SU), brayer, Versamark pen, clear embossing powder, heat gun

And lastly a card using my go-to set when I want a stunning card using almost any technique - Inspired by Nature. This one was cased from Laurie F.

Materials used:

• stamps - Inspired by Nature
• card - very vanilla, basic black, more mustard
• inks - so saffron, more mustard, cajun craze
• other - dimensionals, stamp-a-ma-jig, brayer, sponge dauber

If you fancy an intro class in brayering at your place, why not email me here - sorry, won't go outside state borders (unless of course, you pay the airfare!) LOL!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Vintage Sympathy

A challenge card for you today; this week over at Just Add Ink they want us to Just Add a Flower. I bought a whole bunch of paper roses in a sale a few weeks back and hadn't gotten around to using any of them, so that suited me just fine!

I decided to make a card using muted tones and gave my brayer a little workout with some two-toned embossing. Some new rubber arrived in the mail yesterday and I was dying to try them out! Here's the result:

Materials used:

• stamps - Our Daily Bread and Stampin' Up!
• card - crumb cake, very vanilla, soft suede and Baja breeze (all SU)
• other - Beautiful Wings embosslit die, vintage wallpaper embossing folder, brayer, dimensionals, Baja breeze seam binding (all SU); leaf punch (Carl), labels die (Nestabilities), paper flowers (Kaiser),

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers
Kez

Twisted Easel

I've seen a few twisted easel cards around which looked kinda interesting, so I thought I'd have a go. Gotta say I think I prefer the regular ones but it was fun trying it out. This card actually started off as part of another project but it got rejected for being way too big for my focal image and as I didn't want it to go to waste, I recycled it into this!

Here it is closed:

And open:

The image was stamped twice - once on the whisper white circle and once on watercolour paper, which was coloured with inks and markers, then meticulously cut out and stuck over the top. Gives it a nice 3D effect which probably doesn't show in the photo. Anyway, there it is, my first and probably only twisted easel card! Thanks for all those who voted on the SU/non SU question and hope you enjoy an occasional peek at my other cards!

Materials used:

• stamps - Sugar Nellie, Stampin' Up!
• card - peach parfait, so saffron, Baja breeze, whisper white
• paper - so saffron patterned (retired), peach parfait patterned (hostess), watercolour paper
• other - decorative label punch, nestabilities die, dimensionals, Baja breeze seam binding, pumpkin pie grosgrain 6mm ribbon

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Friends By The Sea

Today's card combines two challenges: Just Add Ink's colour challenge and SUO to use a favourite retired set. The colours are

One of the very first SU sets I bought as a customer was Seaside Sketches. I loved the simple lines and opportunity for watercolouring and it is still a set that brings me peace when I look at it, so it was simple to choose this for the challenge.

Here's my entry:

It was such fun to drag out an old favourite set; I think I'll have to do that again soon. Have you used an old fav lately?

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Secret Santa

Our SU team has a Christmas dinner every year and we all get allocated a person to be Secret Santa for. We don't spend a lot on gifts, but most of the fun is in the packaging and wrapping and making the present look totally gorgeous.

I was SS for Rachel and these are the gifts I made for her:

Here are the packets individually:

The decorated glass bauble from yesterday's post

A box containing gift tags

A container of Smooch Spritz (looks like a Toblerone!)

Some Xmas ribbons in a small window box

A mini bag in a box with shimmer paint inside

Three spray bottles to use for water or shimmer paint

Tubes filled with antique brads, brads and label holders from hodgepodge hardware and Christmas coloured jelly beans and I made a box to store them in.

Phew! So many photos - I'll have to come back another day to show you the beautiful things my SS gave me!

Have a great day.

Cheers

Kez

Rosey Flutterbies

It's time again for my lovely Lana ladies class and this week we will be focusing on roses and butterflies.

A few of them bought the beautiful set A Rose is a Rose when it was on special last month, so as my mojo is having a bit of a holiday, we will be caseing my lovely and talented team mate Liam. Click here to see Liam's card, and here is my adaptation:

My Lanas all love purple, so we are giving Pale Plum a last hurrah before it retires at the end of this month. It will be sorely missed; how beautiful does it look teamed with Perfect Plum, Old Olive and So Saffron? Love the use of the Manhattan Flower embossing folder too - thanks for such wonderful inspiration Liam!

Our next card is cased from Ilina Crouse. I've changed only the sentiment and the embossing from Ilina's original. Pumpkin Pie and Tempting Turquoise are not colours I would have thought to put together, but they are so vibrant and summery and I think they each bring out the best in the other.

Simple yet very effective; that's the kind of card I like!

Card number three uses the versatile Baroque Motifs with more lovely flutterbies in Cameo Coral, Ruby Red and Chocolate Chip.

And lastly they'll be making the card I did at stamp camp, which you've seen recently. Medallion and En Francais are my two favourite background stamps, but I think that position may be usurped after 1st Sept ...

Hope you've had a good weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Ornamental Part 2

Thanks for calling in today! I have some more things to show you from our Stamp Camp in the Hunter Valley. Here are a few more items from my presentation highlighting the versatility of the ornament punch that we hope will be in our new catalogue on 1st September.

Today's samples keep to the Christmas theme - firstly a simple card with other punches and the alphabet dies from the mini together with Baroque Motifs:

But you can also make other Christmas projects, such as this super cute elf peeking out from behind some presents (created by Andrea Walford):

The next two items are the ones that my team mates and their guests had the chance to make for themselves, firstly a Christmas cardinal using the bird punch (created by Lyn Pratt) and then a choral angel (created by Sandi MacIver):

More items and photos from Stamp Camp coming soon plus more Christmas items coming as I prepare for my second month of Stamp-a-Stack classes.

Cheers
Kez

JAI colour challenge

I love the colours in the Just Add Ink challenge this week, but after seeing in the "flesh" Liam's gorgeous card (you can see it here on her blog), I was rather intimidated and not inclined to enter! However, I was browsing through splitcoast and a card there gave me the germ of an idea, so I have made an entry after all. Here are the colours:

I've used two (retired) old favourites - Floral background stamp and Rose Red patterned paper - with two new favs - All A Flutter and the Tags die from the mini. Here's my card:

I doesn't look quite as good as I imagined it in my head, but it will do. I like the vintage-y look to it.

Thanks for calling in, have a great day.

Cheers
Kez

Inspired by Endings

I've been having a play with Inspired by Nature today and tried it in a couple of colour-ways.

Firstly I used Bordering Blue and Brocade Blue (both of which are being retired, sadly) with some Always Artichoke. I also felt compelled to add the gorgeous butterfly from All a Flutter - which I had resisted buying until I made some cards with it at Teneale's, and the rest, as they say, was history. Thanks Teneale! I used the plastic bag technique to add texture and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

I love this colour combo, it is so soft. I did, however, have to add an extra layer of Brocade Blue at the top of the flower as there wasn't enough contrast between the two shades.

Then I tried it in Bravo Burgundy (a colour I hardly ever use) with Regal Rose. I didn't do the texture on the leaves and stems, only on the flowers themselves.

The bottom layer of flowers - with just straight marker - didn't look too great, I must admit, and I wasn't very keen. But once the plastic bag texture was added to the top layer, it improved it no end, softening the colours and blending them together more, so I am happy with it in the end!

Sorry about dark photos - there's not much light left here now. Joys of winter.

Hope you have been inspired to create something today. Have a great weekend.

Cheers
Kez

Variations on a Theme

There's nothing quite like getting fixated on a card style...!

This morning I was quietly admiring my quick and simple bird card from the other day (see this post) and I decided to try some different colours. So Saffron sprang to mind first and when I was thinking what colour to put with it, somehow a sneaky purple worked its way in there! So here's quick and simple bird card No. 2 with So Saffron and Perfect Plum and just a little touch of bling!

Then I got really adventurous - I added more colours, flipped the design sideways (woo hoo!) and even went two-tone on the bird! Wowser, living on the dangerous side now!!! Here's quick and simple bird card No. 3 with Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip and a dash of Kiwi Kiss:

Well, as you all know, one of the rules in papercrafting is you always have an odd number, so I just HAD to make another quick and simple bird card, didn't I? For this one I had it in my mind that I wanted to use Sahara Sand and Basic Black. With no paper in SS, I made my own background using the Very Vintage wheel, which I am now LOVING in this colour. I read on a blog or chat group somewhere recently that Blush Blossom is a card colour they almost never use and I realised I am a bit the same; I use the ink pad endlessly as my skin tone when watercolouring, but hardly ever use the cardstock, so I have set myself a challenge to use it more often and here it is as my accent colour. The ribbons of course are "contraband" as SU doesn't have BB ribbon (and now never will, sadly).

I think this one is my favourite of the three. Hope you like them too.

Non SU materials used: peach ribbons, adhesive pearl, adhesive rhinestone, rhinestone buckle.

Thanks for calling in, have a great day.

Cheers

Kez

Simple Medallion

I loved the new Medallion stamp from the moment I saw it in the US catalogue last year and I am so thrilled it finally made it to our shores.

Here's my first offering with this gorgeous stamp, a very simple card but black and white always looks so classy don't you think?

I added a pearl to the centre of the medallion which is a bit hard to see in the photo. The sentiment is punched with the large oval and sponged around the edge in black, as is the scallop oval behind it.

I'll be away for a few days (taking a road trip with DD18! - look out!) so things will be quiet here ... but back with a vengeance next week! See you then.

Cheers

Kez

Hatches, Matches and Dispatches

Hey ho all! We got back from Queensland late Tuesday night - well, actually, in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Do you remember a childhood story about a small train who used to say "I think I can, I think I can" to get up a hill? Well, that was us! Our XPT train had engine trouble and we couldn't make it up the hill! We ended up having to get towed up by extra engines and, long story short, were 3 hours late arriving back in Sydney! Then it was over an hour's drive home, so it was the wee small hours when we got home - after a 5 am start! Yes, we were tired little bunnies yesterday. But we had a lovely time visiting my brother, niece and nephew and also caught up with my aunt and cousin, so it was a great few days.

Now, of course, it's back to work with a vengeance with classes to organise, so today I have some cards to share. These are the cards we are making at my Simply Sweet class this month and I've dubbed it "Hatches, Matches and Dispatches".

Firstly, a card suitable to welcome a new baby, use for a christening or even baby's first birthday. (Excuse the photos, I'm out of practice and the light is poor!)

• stamps used - Nursery Letters jumbo wheel, Wild About You, Best Yet, Nursery Necessities
• colours used - Barely Banana, Whisper White, Certainly Celery

This next one can be used for a wedding or anniversary.

• stamps used - Together Forever
• colours used - Basic Grey, Very Vanilla, Purely Pomegranate

And lastly a sympathy card.

• stamps used - Thoughts & Prayers, Baroque Motifs
• colours used - Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke, Very Vanilla, Sahara Sand

If you are interested in the Simply Sweet class, email or phone me for details. Enjoy your day!

Cheers

Kez

See, I WAS listening!

One of the things that has stuck in my mind since our Regional training day (there are more than one, I promise!) is one of our presenters saying that purple and yellow look great together. So today when I was looking for a colour combo for my faux silk sample (workshop on Saturday) I went with Elegant Eggplant and So Saffron, with a touch of Always Artichoke thrown in. And I LOVE IT!

Created by Kez. Stamped images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

I also had another play with an easel card and guess what? Yup! Bella Rose papers again! Are you sick of these yet? This time I paired them with Dreams du Jour.

Created by Kez. Stamped images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

OK, I'll give Bella Rose a rest for a while now! LOL!

Cheers

Kez

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

One of my dreams in life is to go somewhere in the northern hemisphere and have a white Christmas. Not that I'm big into snow and cold, but I just love the whole "package" that seems to come with a wintery Christmas. This card was inspired by that ideal and the colouring I chose came from the beautiful ribbon I picked up at our local $2 shop.

I've used the pine tree from Lovely as a Tree and embossed it in silver. Then I added some puff paint to make snow sitting on the branches and at the base of the tree. I sponged the edges of the night of navy cardstock with whisper white ink and I love this effect! The white card behind the image was embossed with snowflake shapes and mounted on silver, and my sentiment comes from the wonderful hostess set, Best Yet.

Created by Kez. Stamped images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

Hope you like it! Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers

Kez