Reflections

Handstitched Greeting Card

With the weather being really cold & windy so far these school holidays, there's been lots of time spent indoors.  The Pool Table, Wii and Playstation are all getting a good workout BUT it's also been great to see the boys taking time to draw, play games with one another and to read!  Speaking of reading - James is progressing well with his MS Readathon goals - many thanks to everyone who has offered to support his fundraising goals!  It's great to see him with his head in a book - even if he does have a head cold as well!

Anyway - I've just got a quick post today to share another card that uses up a few more supplies that I've had sitting around.

 
As you can see, I couldn't resist adding a little hand stitching to this one!  The quote and flower images are both Kaszazz rubons which were simply added directly onto the card background once the stitching was complete.

 
To create the ribbon trim, I took a length of ribbon and tied it into a knot (you end up with a circle).  Then I carefully worked out where I wanted the knot to be on my card and cut the ribbon so that I had enough to take to the back of the card and secure it in place with a little tape.

I then chose two co-ordianting buttons and hand stitched them in place, one directly over the knot and the second just slightly off to one side!

The final step I always apply to my ribbons, aside from trimming them to size, is to add a little glossy accents to the cut edge to stop any fraying of the ribbon!

Time to get busy in the kitchen - Red Lentil & Ham Soup with Ciabatta Bread for dinner tonight AND Pea & Ham Soup to get cooked for tomorrow's lunch as we have visitors joining us and I don't want to be cooking that first thing tomorrow morning!

Kaszazz - Blended Sunset Card

It would seem that everyone enjoyed another fantastic Longford Crafters day and whilst I may have only got one card complete, because I was busy helping Adam to complete his set of cards, it was certainly a fun technique to play around with and something that I'll definitely try again!

 
I have to admit that my distress ink blending was probably a little on the dark side - there's a little too much of the red down low in the sky for my liking BUT it has given the effect of a bushfire sunset I suppose - *grin*

 
The first step in making this card was to tear a hill (the approximate size of your background) from scrap paper and then use the top section to create a mask for the inking of the hill itself.  Once you achieve the desired depth of colour on your hill, you then commence working on the sky by applying a light layer of yellow ink, followed by a sun mask (a punched circle) to which you apply blended layers of orange & red ink over the top.  Once you are happy with the rest, you peel off the sun maskto reveal the un inked sun!  I love the sharp edge of colour around the sun!

 
A blossom branch stamp was then applied using black ink and then the blossom flowers coloured with a little distress ink and an aqua brush!  I love the delicate shading that this technique results in!  I also chose to colour in more of the stamped branch using my Zig Pen too!

After mounting the image onto some co-ordinating cardstock and then onto a white blank card, I added a few Kaisercraft pearls for a little finishing touch along with a clear greeting sticker!

Thanks again Jan for another fun workshop - I think everyone had a great day!

Kaszazz - Happy Funky Cards

Today Jan took our Longford Crafters group through making a colourful set of Happy Funky Cards - as always though, I couldn't resist tweaking the original design just a little.

 
I decided to keep the embossed backgrounds on all the cards the same and I added some horizontal ribbon behind the stamped accent too!

Hers's a little close-up too!

The ivy stamp along the bottom was stamped once and then without re-inking, I turned the stamp around and re-stamped over the top of the original stamped image.  The little birdie was then stamped followed by the greeting stamp!

Whilst the design is relatively simple, I love the monochromatic design of the cards.  I think I'll definitely be trying this technique again but this time with more earthy tones and different stamps from my collection too!

Shirley

Kaszazz - Notecard Set

I finally got a chance last night to finish off the second of the Kaszazz projects that we created at our Longford Crafters day last week.

This little project was a handcrafted Notecard Set with 5 Notecards & 5 Envelopes tucked away inside.

I slightly altered the way the little box was tied up - instead of wrapping the ribbon right around the outside of the box and then tying it into a bow, I simply punched a couple of holes into the flap at the top andthen tied the bow through them!

Here's how the box looks when you untie and remove the ribbon.

As I mentioned, tucked away inside the little box are 5 decorated notecards and 5 envelopes!

Each notecard was decorated with a Rollergraph stamp which I framed on either side with some thin strips of black cardstock AND then a few scattered KaiserCraft Black Gems were added to the stamped image for some dimension.

The envelopes were decorated in a similar manner with a Rollergraph stamp being added to the left hand side of each one with a thin strip of black cardstock added as a border!

Thanks so much Jan for sharing this little project with us! I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed making them!

In family news, today saw the auction of my deceased Grandparents' old Poultry Farm property. As some of you may recall, the old farm has slowly been pulled down over the past few years so that the family could sell the property with the newly renovated farm house, a small rental house and vacant land. Despite no sale actually taking place today, we do have a couple of people interested and now negotiations on price will begin. We're keeping our fingers crossed that one of them might make the purchase . . .  x x x

Kaszazz - Window Greeting Cards

Today my Longford Crafters group had it's fortnightly get together and the very lovely Jan took us step-by-step through making these funky Window Greeting Cards that featured little Shrinky Dinks images in the windows!

Isn't this little Shrinky Dinks Owl just the cutest?

As usual, I changed the design up a little from the original by adding some white hand stitching around the outside of the coloured cardstock . . .

and I also added a stamped and hand cut greeting across the front too - a little on the fiddly side when it came to cutting it out but I love the look of each of them!

Thanks again Jan for such a great little project . . . I think everyone had a fantastic time!