Saturday, July 26, 2014

Christmas In July

Tomorrow we begin our Christmas card stamp-a-stack classes, making 10 cards each month from July-October. I decided to begin with some soft pastel cards and our first uses pool party with crumb cake, very vanilla and a touch of soft suede.


Materials used:
  • stamps - Snow Swirled (retired)
  • card - pool party, crumb cake, very vanilla
  • other - embossing folder, dimensionals, holiday framelits, Big Shot
  • non SU - ribbon, hot glue gun

The baubles were embossed after inking the embossing folder with pool party ink to achieve this gorgeously elegant, vintage look. 

Our second design involves some watercolouring, so I limited it to four colours and kept the background very simple - when making 5 of these, we don't want it to be too time-consuming.


Materials used:
  • stamps - House Mouse, SU Christmas greeting
  • card - pistachio pudding, crumb cake, watercolour, whisper white, strawberry slush patterned paper
  • other - aqua painter, dimensionals, markers, banner punch, stylish stripes embossing folder, Big Shot

I bought my first Christmas present last week, so I am certainly starting to gear up for the holiday already! LOL

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Friday, July 11, 2014

Ah, Memories!

When I first began my teaching career (many moons ago), I taught typing on the old manual typewriters - today's youngsters probably don't even know what they are! But one of the new stamp sets in our 2014 catalogue sent me down Memory Lane and I just had to add it to my "must have" list.

This card was inspired by Allison Kamitsu. I have used new in colours blackberry bliss and hello honey along with Sahara sand and whisper white.


Materials used:
  • stamps - Tap, Tap, Tap
  • card - blackberry bliss, hello honey, Sahara sand, whisper white, Moonlight paper stack
  • other - cute clips, stamp-a-ma-jig, clear embossing powder, white embossing powder, heat tool, pennant punch, owl punch, dimensionals, alphabet press embossing folder, Big Shot

The other card I have made is a real labour of love. I just adore the Girlfriends range of stamps from Art Impressions and as my SIL and I are both avid movie-goers, I simply couldn't resist getting At The Movies. Inspired by Sue Kment, this hybrid centre-step card was soooooo much fun to create.



Aren't they gorgeous? There are two layers on the 3D glasses and the seats and this card has the honour of being my best yet, according to my husband.

Materials used:
  • stamps - That's the Ticket (SU), At the Movies (AI)
  • card - basic black, watercolour, riding hood red, silver glitter, blue glitter
  • other - digital images, dimensionals, aqua painter, small star punch (retired), mini star punch, markers, inks

Now, speaking of movies, I never got around to showing you the AMAZING item my afore-mentioned SIL made me at Christmas. As a family we always see a movie on Boxing Day and last Xmas our choice was The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. My SIL gave me some "movie cash" as a gift and made a small cinema-in-a-box to package it in! Check it out in the following photos - here's the view from the front with the box open to see the screen, curtains (real fabric) and row of seats:


Here you can see the detail for the seats - she even cut hand rests!


Is that incredible or what? I was totally blown away by it, I can tell you!

Well, that's all for today. Back soon with the first of this year's Christmas cards.
Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Monday, July 7, 2014

The Lemon Is In Play

WARNING: this post is completely NON craft related; it's just me and my daughter being total geeks and having a ton of fun!

Much hilarity abounded in our household today, and beyond, but I must warn you that if you are not familiar with or a fan of (although the two usually go hand-in-hand) the BBC radio show "Cabin Pressure" by the 'brilliant' John Finnemore, then this post will mean absolutely nothing to you and you can continue to go about your usual business.

If, however, you - like DD22 and myself - are avid fans of this wonderful comedic show, then you will undoubtedly appreciate the tale I am about to unfold ...

So, background story - DD22 works in Melbourne with people with disabilities and today for their outing they went to Oz ComicCon. She rang me yesterday to ask for help in choosing a costume to wear as she had some limitations, to whit: a budget of not more than $40 and only 3 hours in which to prepare anything. After discussing a few options, she decided to go as Captain Martin Crieff from Cabin Pressure in the episode with the travelling lemon (S03e01 Qikiqtarjuaq). I looked up costume places in Melbourne that had pilot hats and she would go to Savers or similar for a navy jacket. The scene was set ...

This morning I get the following photo with a text:


She was having trouble attaching the lemon to the top of the hat! Eventually she managed to get some duct/gaffer tape from a local store which did the trick. Here's her final costume:


While she was on the train going to work we exchanged a series of text messages consisting mainly of quotes (or close to, anyway) from various episodes of the show that had me in fits of giggles (I was in my craft room but apparently laughing so loud I woke DD16!!!) Here are screen shots of our exchanges - again, you need to be a fan of the show to understand what we are rambling on about:






She reported afterwards that she had two people acknowledge they recognised her costume and a few more who saw it and smiled, which she took as meaning they were also fans but too shy to say so ...

Brilliant!

Well, that's enough geeking for now! I think I need to go listen to an episode of Cabin Pressure before I go to bed ...

Thanks for seeing it through to the end.

Cheers
Kez

Friday, July 4, 2014

Best Wishes Blendabilities

While I have been thoroughly enjoying a lazy first week of the holidays, I finally decided today it was time to get something done in my craft room! I had temporarily taken it over for studying, but as DD22 is coming to visit soon and I have craft classes to prepare for before that happens, it was desperately in need of my attention. Once that task was completed, of course I then had to reward myself by making a card - and more specifically, doing some of my favourite craft activity - colouring in.

I had a play with the new Blendabilities alcohol markers to colour a Magnolia stamp and am very happy with how it turned out.


Materials used:
  • stamps - Short & Sweet (retired)
  • card - rich razzleberry, whisper white, Polka Dot Parade dsp, regals patterned paper
  • Blendabilities - light and medium rich razzleberry, light, medium and dark daffodil delight, skin tone assortment
  • other - oval punch, scallop oval punch, oval framelits, Big Shot, daffodil delight seam binding, dimensionals, Sahara sand marker
  • non SU - Magnolia stamp

I just love the Tilda images, she is such a cutie! The markers were lovely to work with, so I am really looking forward to more colours being available (to us lucky demos) later this month.

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers
Kez