Cards For Our Troops

It's only 4 sleeps now until my very special event making Christmas cards for Aussie troops serving overseas in combat zones to send home to their families and loved ones. All stations are GO! (as Thunderbirds would say!) and I've a few things still to organise, so will be MIA for a few days here on the blog.

These are the card designs for everyone to make; I kept them as simple and straightforward as I could without being too plain (IYKWIM):

We have some fantastic raffle prizes and lucky door prizes to give away, thanks to the generosity of Stampin' Up!, my upline Marelle Taylor and fellow demos Juliette Chapman, Nikki Stalker and Robyn Irving. So I am looking forward to a fun day for a wonderful cause and I'll be back next week.

Have a good one!

Cheers
Kez

Last Christmas Card of the Year

Yes, that's right, I will NOT be making any more Christmas cards! Wow, feel like they're ready to come out my ears, LOL! Made a couple of this one a while ago but forgot to photograph and post it, so here is my last Christmas card for the year ...

Stamped images copyright Stampin' Up!

Love, love, love this colour combo - Handsome Hunter and Real Red - and simply ADORE the new real red polka dot ribbon from the Summer mini. A very simple card to make, but I love it and am keeping one for myself! This card was inspired by a gift card holder card by Kay Kalthoff.

Thanks for dropping in!

Cheers

Kez

Those Special Cards

While most of the Christmas cards I send are "mass produced" for speed, I always make special one-of-a-kind cards for my nearest and dearest. Here are some of those - but warning! I have used a lot of non SU content on these ones. Not because I don't love SU stuff (which I do, I truly do) but because the people concerned have seen all my SU ones and I needed to do something different that they haven't seen!
Created by Kez.

This one uses a digital image for the fairy and also digital paper. I put some vellum over the holly paper to tone it down a bit and give me something to stamp the sentiment on, and added some glitter to her wings.

Created by Kez. Some stamped images copyright Stampin' Up!

Another digi stamp for this one and I added some puff paint for the falling snowflakes and snow in front of Kai. Isn't she adorable? The snowflake stamp on the background is from SU set Winter Post, which I embossed in white on bordering blue card.

The last one is similar to this post. I decided to give the red one to DD17 and made a green one similar for DD11.

Hope you like them! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Christmas Magnolia

Phew! I hope your week has not been as hectic as mine! I'm so glad it's the weekend! DD17 has been off enjoying Schoolies so I have had unlimited access to the computer, which has been nice! LOL! As I haven't done much watercolouring lately I really loved sitting and colouring last night, especially as my new Magnolia stamps arrived just in time for me to enter a challenge.

Not surprisingly, Christmas is the theme for the current Magnolia Down Under Challenge. This is Tilda Unwrapped, which I think goes perfectly with the "don't open till Dec 25th" stamp. Not much SU content in this one, so die-hard fans be warned!

Created by Kez.

Materials used:

• SU stamps - Winter Post
• SU punches - boho blossoms, designer label
• SU card - riding hood red, bordering blue, creamy caramel, watercolour paper
• SU inks, sponge daubers, dimensionals
• other - Magnolia stamp, pearls, pearl brad, papers from stash

Isn't she cute? I think she'll be just perfect for birthday cards too. Thanks for calling in today. Have a great weekend.

Cheers

Kez

I Wish

A while back I did a class with team mate Sue where we made a totally GORJUS mini scrapbook album using half of an "I Wish" Simply Scrappin' Kit. I have since made another one and put my own 'stamp' on it, as it were (I know, a poor pun!) and am running classes to make them, the first of which is tomorrow night. I have one spot left so if you are interested in coming along, please let me know. I am also happy to bring the class to your place if you and some friends would like me to, or maybe even making a kit you can buy by mail if there is a demand.
Stamped images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up! ®

Ain't it cute?! The hard part is deciding which photos to put in there!

Thanks for dropping by today. Have a great week!

Cheers
Kez

Edited to add: the last spot has been filled. If you missed out just contact me for another class time.

There's a Sucker Born Every Minute!

OK, now before you look at today's card, I have to say in my own defence that you KNOW what a complete sucker I am for cute little critters! When I saw this image earlier today I tried to resist it - you would be proud of me, I hung out for a whole 10 minutes! I really did! I went and looked at other images too, but I just kept coming back to this one (and others like it!) and it seemed to beckon to me, "buy me! buy me! you know you want to!" And, well, I can resist anything but temptation, so I caved and bought it! It wasn't my fault!!!

So then of course I had to immediately make a card.

And this is a first for me, because this delightfully adorable image (alright, hold your horses, you'll see it in a minute!) is a digi stamp. Talk about instant gratification! Wowser! No having to trundle down to the shops, no having to wait for things to be sent in the mail; you just pays your money and you receive the images. Hoop-la!

I knew instantly that I wanted to use the gorjus snowflake paper from the Ski Slope DSP set and I kept the card simple because I want the stamp to take centre stage. (Which it does. Oh yeah.) I printed it on whisper white and coloured it with watercolour crayons and markers (just in case you're interested in the details!). The rest is self explanatory.

So, here is the card in question. If you don't think it is one of the cutest, most adorable things you've ever seen ... well, check that faulty cute-o-meter!

Created by Kez. Stamps copyright Stampin' Up! and Judi Maddigan

Please ignore the fact that I need photography lessons! BTW, Stampin' Up! have just introduced digital stamping and scrapbooking in the US, so we will see it here eventually; I'm looking forward to that!

Cheers

Kez

Seasonal Change of Look

Hey ho all! Well, with Christmas just around the corner (I know, you didn't really want to hear that, did you?) I have a change in the look of my blog. I'm doing so many Christmas related classes at the moment that I'm worried I'll be over it before it even arrives! LOL! Here's some Xmas bags and boxes:

This treat box is so easy to make and can hold baubles to decorate your table, or filled with chocolates or other yummy goodies as a gift.

The bag in a box (or is it a box in a bag?) is fun to make and again can be used to hold an assortment of treats for someone special. I love using DSP for them so you get double sided decoration.

Gift card holders are particularly useful in a house with teens! And I love how easy they are to make and the thousands of ways you can decorate them.

Well, we are off to see WICKED tonight (again! lucky us, we saw it in Melbourne last year) so I'll be 'Dancing through life' and 'Defying gravity' today, which will make me 'Popular'!!!! OK, I'll stop the silly puns now ... see ya!

Cheers

Kez