Friday, November 30, 2012

Holiday Tints

My three month term on the Color Me Beautiful design team has come to an end with this lovely soft colour combination

I managed to use all the colours on my card along with my neutral of very vanilla. Here's my offering:



Materials used:
  • stamps - More Merry Messages
  • card - crumb cake, rose red, primrose petals, Baja breeze, very vanilla
  • inks - very vanilla, rose red
  • other - Sahara sand marker, chevron embossing folder, Big Shot, crumb cake seam binding, dimensionals, merry minis punch, irridescent ice embossing powder, crystal effects, pearls

Before embossing my background piece with the chevron design, I ran my vanilla inkpad over the folder to give a slightly tinted look to the pattern and also sponged the edges of the card with vanilla. My tiny baubles were embossed with irridescent ice and then coated in crystal effects for sparkle and dimension.

It has been such fun working with the other designers and the gorgeous colour combos that Carole and AnnMarie have come up with each week. Sadly, they have decided to discontinue running the challenge blog, so this is your last chance to play along and join in the fun. Why not pop on over to the blog here and see what the others have to inspire you?

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez



Friday, November 23, 2012

Christmas Boxes and Tags

Last week's Christmas class focused on gift boxes and tags and I was busy for days beforehand creating samples to inspire my ladies. Here are the boxes we made in class:


This star box is a template from Lauren Meader and is very simple to put together. I decorated by stamping in crumb cake ink using Bells and Boughs and added a tulle bow and poinsettia with pearls.

Our next treat was a hexagon box made from the mini milk carton die - you've seen plenty of these before. As I used some "bauble" papers (Snow Festival dsp), I added a bauble shaped tag to match.


And lastly a simple fancy favour box, stamped with snowflakes and decorated with tulle, chunky glitter, snowflake (snow flurry die) and sentiment from More Merry Messages.


Other boxes I had for display:


Fancy Favour box again, doubled this time, plus a box made from four scallop envelopes.


SU's kraft gift boxes. The gingerbread paper is non SU but so adorable I couldn't resist!


Some simple candy wrappers.


A petal cone hanging decoration plus elongated candy wrapper.

I had also prepared a smattering of tags to give my ladies some ideas and then I gave them free run with dies, papers, ribbon, stamps, punches and more! It was bedlam there for a while, lol!!!





It has been fun doing Christmas things - homemade items always add that extra special personal touch!

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Sunday, November 18, 2012

My Gorgeous Graduate

DD20 finished her degree this week - well, her first degree, that is. She's planning a couple more!

It sure doesn't seem like three years have passed since she moved away, and then again it kinda feels a lot more! In a few weeks time we will all travel down to Melbourne for her graduation, but meanwhile here's a pic of my gorgeous graduate:


We are naturally all very proud of her and can't wait to celebrate with her - and, of course, to have her come home for Christmas.

Congratulations sweetie!

Cheers
Kez

Friday, November 16, 2012

Ornamental Greens

Just in case you're not feeling Christmassy enough, this week's colours for the Color Me Beautiful challenge are sure to get you in the mood!


I decided to use the emboss resist method again (as on this card) and the medallion stamp for my background pattern and then I added rhinestones for some blingaliciousness (is that a word? lol). Here tis:


If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll see the bling better!

Materials used:
  • stamps - Lovely as a Tree, Many Merry Messages (retired), Medallion
  • card - gloss white, lucky limeade, soft suede, Sahara sand 
  • other - Versamark, clear embossing powder, heat tool, sponges, rhinestones, holiday ornaments dies, Big Shot, dimensionals, white embossing powder, lacy brocade embossing folder, non SU silver cord

I am sure loving me those ornament dies! And you may have noticed that on my background piece of soft suede I have shown the debossed side rather than the embossed side - I felt the raised side took a bit of attention away from the ornaments, so I turned it over to "tone it down a bit".

Thanks for calling in. Don't forget to pop over to the CMB challenge blog and see what the other DT members have made to inspire you.

Cheers
Kez

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The New Paper Trimmer

As you can see, I have added above SU's video all about the new paper trimmer. This new product will be available to my lovely customers next month but I am hoping to get my hands on one in the next week or two - and I can't wait!

Having heard US demos rave about it, I wondered what all the fuss was about, but now that I've watched the video and seen it for myself I can't wait! It seems that SU has heard the complaints about the current trimmer and fixed them all! Yay!

And BTW ladies, don't worry - even though Brian talks about imperial measurements, ours WILL be in metric!

Stay tuned for my own review once I get it in my hot little hands! LOL!

Cheers
Kez

Monday, November 12, 2012

Snow Drift Tutorial

You asked for it and here it is! I have loaded a video tutorial on how I made the snow drift panel of this card:


And you can access that video right HERE. Thanks to all the people that expressed an interest and I hope you have a lot of fun trying this technique.

Cheers
Kez

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Candy Cane Hues

I'm sure you've all keen to see what gorgeous colour combination we have for you to play with this week at Color Me Beautiful! Here they are:

Mmmmm, those candy canes sure look yum!

It's my week off and although I did attempt a project, it sadly didn't work out well AT ALL and no mojo arrived to help me at the last minute, so I'm sorry I don't have anything to show you this week. However, we would love you to pop over to the challenge blog and see what has been made for your inspiration - and of course, we would love it even more if you joined in the challenge! And do spread the word to all your crafting friends, we'd love to welcome more people.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez



Friday, November 2, 2012

Caffeine Tones


It's a coffee-lover's dream over at Color Me Beautiful, with these caffeine tones as our inspiration for this week's challenge! 

I decided to go with a sepia-toned Christmas card and managed to use four of the five colours.

Here's my card - if you click on the photo you can see the sparkle better:




I masked off my ground area for the snowdrifts before I stamped the trees in soft suede and Sahara sand. The sky was sponged with river rock and soft suede and I used suede again for the ground. When everything was dry I inked the whole area with Versamark and added iridescent ice embossing powder to give a winter sparkle! It looks totally GOR-JUSS in real life! And did you notice? I used a button again! LOL

Materials used:
  • stamps - Lovely as a Tree, Many Merry Messages (retired)
  • card - confetti cream, very vanilla, early espresso
  • other - iridescent ice embossing powder, heat tool, satin ribbon, vintage faceted button, embroidery thread, sticky strip, mounting tape, markers

Click on the link to the challenge blog to see what the other design team members have come up with to inspire you (from 5 am Sth Carolina time or 7 pm AEDST), and while you're there we'd love you to join in the challenge and create a project using this week's colours.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Edited to add: I have had a few requests both here and on other sites on how to do the snow on this card.  I will video the technique for you and add it here asap. Thanks so much for your interest!

Further edit: The video tutorial is now uploaded to Dropbox and you can get the link here.