Friday, February 19, 2016

Floral Delight

The colours and layout of a card I saw on Pinterest got my creative juices flowing this morning and I sat down to have a play with new set, Birthday Blooms from the Occasions catalogue. I've been seeing a lot of peach and aqua around in bedding and home decor shops lately and the card that inspired me also featured those shades, so that's why I've used them.


I embossed the front piece then ran my Versamark pen over the stripes and embossed them with clear embossing powder to get the darker stripes. Not a raging success (don't look too closely) but quite happy for a first try. I think perhaps the lace needs something else but by the time I thought of it, I'd already stuck it down (I should tell myself off like I do my class ladies when they race ahead without waiting for instructions!!! lol) so too late! The flower was tons of fun to colour in but a bit of a .... to cut out, let me tell you. If you know the stamp you'll see I've cut off the smaller, finer leaves - they cluttered the card up and I had enough detail already.

Materials used:

  • stamps - Birthday Blooms
  • card - coastal cabana, whisper white, watercolour
  • inks - Bermuda bay, wild wasabi, garden green, watermelon wonder, crisp cantaloupe, Versamark
  • other - watermelon wonder lace, Apothecary Accents dies, Big Shot, Dimensionals, Veramark pen, white embossing powder, clear embossing powder, heat tool, aqua painter, markers, rhinestones, stylish stripes embossing folder

Here's the original card that inspired me:


Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Beached As, Bro

Today is Waitangi Day (aka New Zealand Day) so as I made a card for Australia Day (I'm both a Kiwi and an Aussie), I was naturally obligated to make one for Waitangi Day as well. And by obligated I mean I would never hear the end of it from my Aussie sister-in-law if I didn't! Lol.

The theme I chose is from a little cartoon series called Beached As, which is about a blue whale that finds itself beached on a shore somewhere in New Zealand and then meets various birdlife and sea life creatures. It was actually created by some Aussies and poked a little bit of fun (read tons of fun) at the Kiwi accent, but it was immensely popular both in New Zealand and in Australia. The first creature the whale meets is a pelican, which I assume was a humorous dig from the Aussie writers as the only pelicans found in NZ (and there's only been a couple of dozen over the centuries) are ones that flew over from Australia! The pelican realises the whale must be hungry and offers him a potato chip (crisp). However, the NZ accent has a flat vowel sound, so to Aussies an 'i' sounds like a 'u' and the word chip becomes chup. Get it? Good.

So, here's my card.


I thought there was also a cute parallel with my own situation - ie being a Kiwi who has lived in Australia for going on 19 years, I guessed I'm kind of 'beached' here!

The (semi) nautical theme of the card ties in beautifully with our Waitangi Day dinner (coz I'm clever that way) - we're having dishes that originated or were very commonplace in NZ when I lived there and all feature seafood. Salmon dip, marinated mussels, smoked trout and seafood chowder (with smoked fish fillets all the way from across the ditch). Dessert was a bit of a problem for the theme - I'm making marshmallow surprise (click HERE for the recipe) - until I thought of a unique way to help it fit in: to accompany the dessert will be a chocolate fish! Hahaha, yes, I crack myself up sometimes (I know - small things amuse small minds). In case you're not aware, a chocolate fish is marshmallow covered in chocolate and shaped like - yep, you guessed it - a fish. Here's a pic:


Thank you, thank you, you may now all bow down in salaam to the genius that is my brain. (Peers into the blogosphere) Hmmm, I don't see much bowing going on. Ah well - wanna chup, bro?

Thanks for stopping by. Have a good Waitangi Day!

Cheers
Kez

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Soaring

I've had another play with the great SAB set, The Sky is the Limit. Here's my card:


I used a stencil in the background, sponged with crushed curry ink, then stamped my sentiment. The plane was stamped with craft black and clear embossed, then I went over the body of the plane with my Versamark pen (you can see it's turned it slightly grey) and clear embossed again - this enabled me to stencil some sun's rays over the image without the actual plane itself going yellow - because you just wipe the excess ink off the clear embossed parts. Love this technique! The plane was then cut out and adhered with Dimensionals, lining up the rays to match those underneath.

Materials used:

  • stamps - The Sky is the Limit
  • card - cherry cobbler, basic black, crushed curry, whisper white
  • other - MFT stencil (Sun Ray), Dimensionals, sponge, sponge dauber, clear embossing powder, heat tool, stamp-a-ma-jig, scissors, snail adhesive


Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

By Popular Request

This month in class we are dusting off our brayers and getting inky with some brayered backgrounds and silhouette stamps. Not only do they look fantastic, but they also act as enough of a focal feature on your card that you rarely need anything else.

Brayering is a lot of fun but it does take a bit of practise. I love the wonderful blending I can achieve when I just can't seem to get quite the same effect with sponging. If you're interested, I've got a short video tutorial on brayering over in the right hand sidebar - look for the heading Tutorials - that someone took when I was demonstrating at a Stampin' Up! event a couple of years ago.

For the first card I used pool party and blushing bride inks and a circle punch mask. I brayered from opposite ends of my whisper white paper and the middle third of the piece is overlapped inks. Doesn't it make an exquisite sunrise/sunset?


Materials used:
  • stamps - World of Dreams, Wetlands
  • card - pool party, basic black, whisper white
  • other - brayer, 1 1/4" circle punch, post-it note, stamp-a-ma-jig, Dimensionals

I've used masking again for the next card, this time to mask off an area to brayer in. I stamped first then laid the circle mask and a post-it along the bottom. The sentiment was done on the computer. Ink colours used were delightful dijon, cajun craze, cherry cobbler.


Materials used:
  • stamps - Landscape Silhouettes (Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps)
  • card - cajun craze, basic black, whisper white, delightful dijon
  • other - circle framelits, Big Shot, brayer, Dimensionals, post-it note, computer and printer, banner punch

And lastly a 'birdies on the wire' card. This time I brayered with daffodil delight, calypso coral and watermelon wonder.


Materials used:
  • stamps - none
  • card - Sahara sand, basic black, whisper white
  • other - bird punch, Dimensionals, hello honey thick bakers twine, brayer

Hope you like the brayered cards and are inspired to give it a go yourself. But be warned - once you get the hang of it, it's terribly addictive! 

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers
Kez