It's Coming On Christmas

'It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, putting up reindeer, singing songs of joy and peace.'

Good golly Miss Molly, it's only 44 days until Christmas! I hope you've started your organising - I've got my menu planned, table decorations sorted and presents underway. Phew! With some of the family overseas for the big day this year, we'll be a smaller group than usual but we'll still try to keep up with a few of our family traditions.

And also coming up soon - very soon in fact - is my last card class for 2019. Over the past few years the theme for this has been special, one-off Christmas cards - those which take a bit more fiddling and effort and are too intricate or time-consuming to make in our usual stamp-a-stack classes. We'll be doing that, but I've also snuck in another theme to add to it - cos I'm tricky that way, lol. No, you see what happened was I had to cancel my previous class in which we were going to make three fancy fold cards so I thought, hey, why not re-make those same fancy folds but in line with the festive season? Once my muse struck with ideas, I got busy crafting!

Here's the first one. I took this double z-fold using petal promenade papers:

Changed the papers, chose some stamps and got busy sponging...and ended up with this:

Materials used:

• stamps - Wonderland, Dashing Deer
• card - coastal cabana, real red, whisper white, Let It Snow DSP
• other - white embossing powder, heat tool, sponge, Stamparatus, hills & borders stencil, costal cabana marker, embossing buddy 

I love it! Hopefully my ladies will too. I'll be back over the next few days with the other fancy fold adaptations.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Rustic Charm Meets Elegant Simplicity

This month's stamp-a-stack Christmas cards both use the gorgeous Brightly Gleaming specialty designer series papers from the new holiday catalogue, but are very different in presentation.

Here's the one I call 'elegant simplicity' -

Materials used:

• stamps - Stylish Christmas
• card - night of navy, very vanilla, Brightly Gleaming DSP
• inks - pretty peacock, old olive, Versamark
• other - copper embossing powder, heat tool, embossing buddy, Stamparatus, metallic sequins, Dimensionals

And here, with just a few added touches to change the tone completely, is the 'rustic charm' - 

Materials used:

• stamps - Timeless Textures
• card - pretty peacock, very vanilla, crumb cake, Brightly Gleaming DSP
• other - Spritzer tool, stars thinlits, Big Shot, detailed deer thinlits, linen thread, sponge dauber, Dimensionals, precision plate, distressing tool, subtle embossing folder

The tiny speckles of colour on this have been made with a marker and spritzer tool - here's a pic in case you haven't encountered these before.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Deer Oh Deer

SU's Dashing Deer and Joyous Noel speciality papers have been getting a real workout in my craft room lately as I've been busy with Christmas cards for various people.

Firstly I adapted the card I made recently for the Less is More challenge, simply adding two more layers. Here's how that turned out:

A little more involved is this double display card:

Here are some double gatefold cards which have a belly band to hold them shut. I had to make 10 of these, so there's a little variety.

And lastly a card a simple card that follows the sketch from the blog hop I took part in not so long ago. The wooden embellishment was stamped with Versamark and embossed with copper embossing powder to match the glints of copper on the papers.

Hopefully that's an end now to Christmas cards for this year. Having been designing and making them since July, I'm always well and truly over them by the time December comes around! I bet a few of you are nodding your heads and agreeing, am I right?

Materials used:

• stamps - Dashing Deer, Stylish Christmas
• card - grey granite, tranquil tide, whisper white, vellum, Joyous Noel DSP, copper foil
• other - Festive Farmhouse elements, copper embossing powder, heat tool, Dimensionals, stitched circle framelits, Big Shot, stitched hills dies, double display card and layers dies (ODBD), extended Big Shot platform (non SU), Detailed Deer thinlits, Seasonal Layers thinlits, tailored tag punch, Stamparatus, Simply Scored, hills stencil (non SU), marker, copper washi tape

Thanks for dropping by.


Cheers
Kez

Serene Snow

How often do you make a one layer card? If your answer is 'practically never', then I say 'join the club' because I am usually all about the layers. So I was kinda surprised when the challenge over at Less is More caught my eye the other night and set my creative mind whirring.

It didn't take long for an idea to come to mind so I thought about it for a while before I went to bed. Then I thought about it some more once I was in bed (yeah, it's real conducive to sleep *she says sarcastically*) and again the next day. Eventually I sat at my craft desk to see if the idea would come together and I think it did. I'm quite happy with my result, anyway, and for me to be happy with only ONE layer is pretty much unprecedented, so yeah...break out the Toblerone (or Cadburys or Lindt...) 

And that's my second winter-themed Christmas card in two posts - looks like the drought is well and truly broken, lol.

Materials used:

• stamps - Dashing Deer, Gorgeous Grunge, Stylish Christmas
• card - very vanilla thick 
• inks - soft suede, pool party, cherry cobbler, Versamark
• other - clear embossing powder, white embossing powder, heat tool, embossing buddy, Stamparatus, Drifts and Hills stencil (MFT), sponge, sponge dauber, marker

I began with stamping the deer using my Stamparatus and soft suede ink, then overstamped with Versamark and clear embossed (this was so sponged ink wouldn't change their colour later). Then I stamped the snowfall in Versamark and white embossed, having masked my ground area with the stencil. Next came the sponging in pool party ink for the sky, then moving my stencil and sponging more snow drifts. Excess ink was wiped off all the embossed pieces with a tissue. Shadows were added with a marker and my sentiment was stamped last in cherry cobbler.

Have you challenged yourself lately to try something completely different to your usual style? 

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

Double Front Dashing Deer

While I've been studiously avoiding a winter theme on purpose for my Christmas cards this year (the festive season falls smack-dab in the hottest months here in Australia), a snowy card was hard to pass up when I saw the inspiration challenge for this week over at Just Add Ink.

So here's what I came up with, a double front style card (design idea gleaned from Lisa Curcio).

Front 1:

Front 2:

Inside:

Navy and white always look so elegant together, I love them, and here with soft suede they're perfect.

Materials used:

• stamps - Wonderland, Gorgeous Grunge, Dashing Deer
• card - night of navy, whisper white, soft suede
• inks - night of navy, soft suede, Versamark
• other - Detailed Deer thinlits, Big Shot, white embossing powder, embossing buddy, heat tool, Sahara sand marker, stitched rectangle dies (Poppystamps), stitched hills dies (Poppystamps), Stamparatus

I'm toying with the idea of doing a video on how I made this card, so if that's something you'd like to see please leave a comment to that effect and if there's enough interest I'll do it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Edited to add: Thrilled to have been picked for the challenge! Video made and uploaded at THIS LINK.

Stampers Anonymous November Blog Hop

Welcome to the Stampers Anonymous Team Blog Hop!

It's been an age since our last blog hop but we hope you will enjoy visiting each site to see what we've created for you. For this inaugural hop we had a sketch as our inspiration:

My three offerings not only have the sketch in common, but also all use the Buffalo Check background stamp. I've been having such fun with this amazingly versatile stamp!

First up is a soft baby card with some three-step stamping.

Materials used:

• stamps - Buffalo Check, Baby Bear
• card - soft sea foam, granny apple green, whisper white
• inks - soft sea foam, granny apple green
• other - Stamparatus, markers, ruler

Isn't that bear adorable? Makes me wish I had grand-babies to spoil!

Next is a fun little card I know one of my daughters will love to have. I angled my background and moved the sentiment panel a little to preserve the balance of the card. The coffee cup is covered with a die cut piece of acetate to give the look of those clear plastic cups they use for iced coffees, and I made my whipped cream from shimmery white embossing paste. It has tons of texture and looks amazing in real life.

Materials used:

• stamps - Buffalo Check, Coffee Cafe
• card - basic black, whisper white, daffodil delight
• inks - daffodil delight, Memento tuxedo black, crushed curry
• other - Stamparatus, shimmery white embossing paste, spatula, Coffee Cups framelits, Big Shot, Dimensionals, markers, ruler

For my third card I deconstructed the background a little, tilting again for added interest. The dog and bird were coloured with a blender pen and inks, then fussy cut and raised on my sentiment panel.

Materials used:

• stamps - Bella and Friends, Itty Bitty Greetings, Buffalo Check
• card - lemon lime twist, gorgeous grape, whisper white
• inks - lemon lime twist, Memento tuxedo black, crumb cake, daffodil delight, poppy parade, gorgeous grape
• other - circle dies, Big Shot, Stamparatus, Dimensionals, clear Wink of Stella, scissors, blender pen, gorgeous grape marker, ruler

Well, that's it from me; now click on one of the links below to be taken back or forward and see what the other ladies in the team have created for you. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez