Fairies and Fantasy

Good morning folks, Friday is here again and we have a new challenge for you over at Polka Doodles which you're going to love as the theme for this week chosen by the lovely Emma is Fairies, Fantasy and Flitter. If you're wondering about the flitter bit, Emma is a big fan of glitter and wants to see a sprinkling of sparkle on your project.
I decided to turn a non fairy image into a fairy by giving her wings and here's what I made:

As you can see, I've made an easel style card which I covered with a mix of stripe and dot design papers in red, pink and green from the Pretty Sweet CD as I love their slightly shabby look. I mixed the stripe direction around too to make the most of the paper. I also sneaked in a couple of red glitter card strips for a subtle sparkly look.
I printed out the sweet little girl from Pretty Sweet together with the toadstools and a butterfly from the Sugarplum Daisy CD on to thick cartridge paper and coloured everything with Aquamarkers (a little artistic license with the toadstools and can you tell I was in need of a chocolate fix lol), adding grass with a fine brush as I wanted to make a little scene.
I cut out the little girl and the butterfly, sponging the butterfly with embossing ink and then heat embossing with crystal sparkly powder. I die cut a Marianne Design butterfly and coloured this with a blue Promarker before heat embossing with the sparkly powder. I cut the toadstool scene into a square and rounded the corners then inked with Tumbled Glass Distress ink and set on a dark red mat before adding to the card front panel. I added my little fairy and the butterfly with foam tape to complete the scene.
I finished off with some metal embellishments and pearls and a die cut sentiment from the Sugarplum Daisy CD.

Challenges for my card:
Totally Papercrafts - Use A Digital Image On Your Creation
Charisma Cardz - Anything Goes
Little Miss Muffet Challenge - Sparkle
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking and have a great day.
Hugs, Fliss xx

The Sweetest Thing at Studio 12

Good morning folks, here's hoping you're not all suffering today like I am as I've got really bad hay fever for some reason with itchy eyes, nose etc etc. I'm also sneezing rather a lot!
I thought I'd tell you that I have another project over at the Studio 12 blog which is all about a few things I'm rather fond of - can you guess what they are from the sneak peek below lol

If you'd like to see the whole card and details of how I made it, all is revealed over at Studio 12 so please do pop over for a look.
If you're not yet following to see all the daily inspiration, you should as we've got almost 100 followers now and Nikky has promised some fabulous candy when we reach 200. We've also got a special post on Sunday so you won't miss that either.

Have a great day and thanks for looking.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Fetch A Sketch First Birthday Blog Hop

Good morning folks and welcome to the Fetch A Sketch blog hop to celebrate the first birthday of Jenny and Ruth's fabulous challenge blog which as I'm sure you've guessed is all about sketches! Happy Birthday Fetch A Sketch and my very best wishes to Jenny and Ruth for a second year of great challenges.
I'm thrilled to bits to have been asked to take part in the hop and have made some inspiration for you using a totally gorgeous image by one of the lovely sponsors, Christy of Tiddly Inks, together with papers from Polka Doodles also generously sponsoring the birthday hop.

I'm sure you can see now why I love the image being a little Alice fixated lol. I printed her out on to cartridge paper, colouring her with Aquamarkers and adding a little detail with Promarkers and Prismacolor pencils. I used the sketch from Week 15 as my inspiration and followed this using papers from the Polka Doodles Wonderland CD.
I made the faux buttons for the card using die cut flowers coloured with Distress inks and embossed with sparkly embossing powder. I pierced 2 holes in each and tied some brown linen thread through the holes. I made a computer generated sentiment cut out with the same die set and coloured with a blue Promarker.

If you're taking part in the hop (which you should as there are some fab prizes!) then you should have arrived here from Debbie's blog and now you need to hop on over to

Maria's blog

Don't forget to leave a comment too so that I know you've popped by.

If, however, you've only just seen this then please click on the Fetch A Sketch link at the top for all the details.

Good luck!

Fliss xx

Our Pearl Anniversary

Hello folks, I'm here today to show you the card I've made for my hubby as it's our Pearl Anniversary today and I can't believe how fast the years have flown by - time does go fast when you're having fun lol

A fairly simple card as my hubby doesn't really like fussy and I didn't want to take attention away from the heart I made. It's a bit of greyboard painted with several coats of latte acrylic paint after being die cut with a Papermania heart.
I then added several coats of clear UTEE and adhered pearls, vintage buttons, US Art Quest Essence of Pearls Mica Flakes and some paper flowers. I quite like the effect although you can't really see the full sheen of the pearl flakes in the photo.
I made a background paper by tearing the edges of a piece of cream card and then stamped on a B Line Designs flourish with VersaMagic Magnolia Bud ink. The second heart is die cut with the same die from pearl shimmer card and embossed with the c-Art-us roses folder. I used a kraft card blank.

Now I thought you might like a bit of a giggle with a roll back of 30 years as I've scanned one of our wedding photos where you'll see I'm sporting a very 80s style curly perm - eek!

As you can see my hair is full of confetti and my tiara has slipped! Not the most flattering pic but at least we look happy!

That's all for now folks and will see you tomorrow.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Strawberries and Cream

Hello folks, I'm a bit late with my post today as I taught a workshop this morning and got behind on my preparations so had no time to do this earlier today. Many apologies to Jacqueline and the team for that.
It's time for a new challenge over at Make My Monday and continuing with the monthly theme of June and Associated Events what else could it be this week but Strawberries and Cream with the colours Red, Green and White/Cream as the theme.
I decided to take the challenge quite literally as you'll see from my card below:

I've used a jar stamp by The Artistic Stamper and a strawberry stamp free a while back with Craft Stamper Magazine. I stamped several of each image with Archival Coffee ink and then coloured them with Distress inks (Barn Door, Fired Brick, Peeled Paint, Mustard Seed and Vintage Photo) as I wanted a fairly realistic look.
I used gingham backing paper from the Polka Doodles All Around & Everywhere CD and a strawberry themed journalling card from the Studio 12 Picknix Collection 1 CD. I also used some heart shaped doilies for a tea time look.

So there you have it and the Design Team have made a widely varying selection of samples this week so do pop over for some great inspiration and you'll see how easy this challenge really is.

Challenges for my card:
Clearly Inspired - Red, Green and White
Craft Punked - Strawberries & Cream
Daring Cardmakers - You're So Sweet
Phindy's Place - Gingham or Plaid

Thanks for looking and have a great day.
Hugs, Fliss xx

A Riot of Colour

Morning folks, summer has disappeared again and we have a wild, wet and windy day here again so those woollies have had to come out again! Don't know about you but I'm really fed up with the weather not being able to make its mind up - changeable is not the word!
Anyhow, enough whinging as I'm here with details of our new challenge over at Polka Doodles today chosen by Miria, our Italian teamie. The theme is Trooping The Colour by which Miria means that she would like to see lots of colour on your creations - as many as you can manage.
I scratched my head over this one and then inspiration struck as I can't think of anywhere that you would find more colour than a garden and here's what I have to show you.

As you can see there are loads of elements on my card which is why I chickened out of doing any colouring which would have taken me at least a week! Instead I used lots of the pretty precoloured elements from the Sugarplum Daisy CD as they're so bright and summery.
I used the cute mushroom house topper as my background and then did a lot of nifty snipping to add the cute fairy image and some of her little friends together with some pretty floral borders. I used several of the pretty papers from the CD, layered up and punched for a pretty effect and finished off with some contrast stitched ribbon and a sentiment from the CD which I die cut and coloured with Promarkers then added pearls to.

Challenges for my card:
Crafts & Me - Anything Goes
Crafty Sentiments - Bright Colours
Charisma Cardz Challenge - Summer
Cute Card Thursday - Here Comes Summer

Thanks for looking and have a great day. I now have to finish off some VAT workings - ugh!
Fliss xx

Shabby Chic at Studio 12

Hello folks, hope you're all enjoying some of the lovely warm and sunny weather we have at the moment.
Just a quick post from me now to tell you that I'm really excited to be doing my first post on the brand new Studio 12 Design Team blog which will be bringing you inspiration on a daily basis along with occasional candy so if you're not yet following the blog, now would be a good time so you don't miss anything!
My post today is about using up those paper scraps that we all have lurking about somewhere (in an overflowing box in my case lol) and I've used them to make a shabby chic type background for my card. Here's a sneaky peek:

I'm hoping you're intrigued enough to pop over and see what the tutorial is all about so if you are, then click HERE to be transported over to the Studio 12 blog.

Have a great day everyone.
Hugs, Fliss xx

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Hello folks, hoping you all had a lovely weekend and as it's Monday again we have a new challenge for you over at Make My Monday. Continuing with June and Associated Events our theme for this week is A Midsummer Night's Dream so we would like to see your creations featuring dreams or fairies or both.
In my case I seem to have fairies at the bottom of my garden and have made a little scene with my Graphic 45 fairy set of stamps which I bought because I love the toadstools (and have gone a little ott with them here lol)

I made a background paper by stamping repeatedly with a large floral foam stamp and Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass and a little Crushed Olive ink. I then stamped the toadstools across the bottom with Archival coffee ink and coloured them with Promarkers. I stamped the dragonfly in the top left corner with the same ink and coloured the image with Aquamarkers.
I stamped the fairy on thick cartridge paper with the coffee ink and watercoloured her with Aquamarkers.  I die cut the image into a circle and then inked the edges with Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky Distress inks.
I stamped a couple of butterflies with the coffee ink and coloured them with Aquamarkers then cut them out and assembled all the elements as you see.

Here's hoping that we get a lot of entries this time as I think our theme last week had a record number of entries which will make it rather hard to pick the top entries.

Challenges for my card:
The Cheerful Stamp Pad - In The Garden
Pan Pastel UK Challenge - Summertime
Stampavie and More - Something With Wings

Thanks for looking and have a great day. I'm off to Brighton with my daughter and will pop over to see you all later.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Nature Walk

Hello everyone, hoping that you're all having a lovely weekend. I can't believe how fast the last fortnight has flown by as it's time for a new challenge over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this time the theme picked by Yvonne is Nature. Please don't forget that we're a stamping challenge so there must be some stamping on your entry.
I've made a tag as my inspiration this time and if you're wondering about the colours on there, it's mostly because the weather at the moment seems more like Autumn rather than the Summer it's meant to be (we have very wild and windy weather at the moment)

My tag came about because I wanted to use this gorgeous kingfisher image from a set of bird clear stamps by Artemio and for some reason I couldn't make him into a card!
I stamped him with Memories black ink on thick cartridge paper and coloured him with Aquamarkers then cut him out.
The tag came from my bits box as I'd inked it up for something else and didn't use it. It was inked with Crushed Olive Distress ink using a large acrylic block as a stamp. I embossed it with the Cuttlebug leaf spray folder and managed to get it the wrong way up so it ended up debossed! I then swiped on more Crushed Olive and some Rusty Hinge.
I made a panel for the base by stamping a Hero Arts leaf with Dried Marigold and Crushed Olive then added colour with an acrylic block and Tumbled Glass. I then embossed this with the leafy folder (the right way up this time!) and swiped on Rusty Hinge ink. I added this to a mat inked on just the edges with Barn Door and Rusty Hinge.
I die cut an oval panel for the image to sit on and debossed tis with the Cuttlebug bamboo folder. I then inked it with a mix of Tumbled Glass, Crushed Olive, Mustard Seed, Rusty Hinge and Aged Mahogany until I was happy with the colour.
The leaf embellishments were made using the Cuttlebug leaf spray to emboss card and I then cut out some of the sprays and inked then with various Distress inks before adding to my tag as you see. This came about as I don't have any leaf spray die cuts that looked right.

Challenges for my tag:
Crafty Catz - Embossing
Hotshot Crafts - Distress Ink
Paper Crafting Journey - Colour It Up!
Southern Girls - Things With Wings
Ruby's Rainbow - Tags
Stamp n Doodle - Tag It

Have a great Sunday.
Fliss xx

DT Call for the New Studio 12 Blog

Hello everyone, I have a bit of exciting news for you about Nikky's brand new venture, Studio 12, the first collection having sold out in 30 minutes on the first weekend show on Create and Craft.

Nikky has set up a new blog specially for this and she's having a DT call and here's a little of what she says:

"Studio 12 is a brand new blog which will bring you aspiring and creative work from our fabulously talented Design Team. Join us from 18th June when we will bring you a regular stream of amazing projects which you will adore and grab opportunities to win blog candy along the way with us too.

We are currently looking for some additional team members to join us!  If you love making "stuff" from paper and 'heart' combining paper, digital elements, rubber stamps, doodling, stitching and mixed media we would love to hear from you! We're looking for the best of the best creative minds to join us so if you think this will float your boat then please apply."

Hope you're interested and who wouldn't be, all the details can be found HERE and please do make sure you read all the requirements before applying. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed working with this collection and if you'd like to see some of the samples I made for the TV show, you can find them a couple of posts back.

Good luck!
Fliss xx

Harbour View

Good morning all on a rather wet Monday continuing on with last night's very heavy rain - not a good start to the week!
Hope you all had a lovely weekend and I'm here today with this week's challenge over at Make My Monday which continues the month's theme of June and Associated Events with Fathers Day/Masculine. An ideal way to get started on something for Sunday if you're needing a Fathers Day card.

My card is for my father in law as he loves the seaside and I couldn't resist this gorgeous Michael Powell stamp when I saw it as it will be so useful for all sorts of cards.
I stamped the image with Memento black ink on thick cartridge paper and I have a tip for you here if you buy one of the beautiful Papermania Michael Powell stamps as some of them are quite large - this one is on a 5x7 card and the image practically fills it. In order to make the image come out properly (I don't know about you but sometimes it's quite hard to get the middle section to stamp) and my solution is very simple - you just put the inked stamp on the paper on a craft mat, lift it down to the floor and stand on it! This works a treat so if you have trouble do try it.
I then coloured the image with my current favourite medium, Aquamarkers. I cut the panel out and inked the edges.
I then made a background paper using watercolour paper and an Anita's stripe stamp I've had for many years. I used VersaColour Sky Blue and because the paper is quite rough, I dragged the inked stamp across and was very pleased with the result which is quite distressed and made me think of driftwood.
I then made some bunting using the smaller bunting triangle from the Artistic Outpost Whimsical Melange set and coloured this with Aquamarkers. I cut this out and added as you see.
I then made a panel for the inside of the card, stamping just part of the harbour scene in the right lower corner with Memento London Fog and added a little colour with a red pencil.
The sentiment is computer generated and was die cut and the edges inked.

Challenges for my card:
Dream Valley Challenges - For That Special Guy
Pan Pastels UK Challenge - Boys/Fathers Day
One Stop Craft Challenge - Fathers Day
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Happy Fathers Day
Delicious Doodles Challenge - For The Fellas
Simply Create Too - Fathers Day/Male

Thanks for looking and have a great week.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Studio 12

Hello all, hoping you're having a good start to the weekend. Mine has unfortunately been spent catching up on my washing and although it's still very windy we at least had sunshine which meant good drying weather and I managed to get 4 loads washed and dried.
I also caught Nikky and Rosemary on Create & Craft and 80% of the stock sold out in the first 15 minutes and the whole lot went by the end of the show so I think Nikky must have had to go for Plan B for the 4pm show!
I just popped on here to show you my samples which I've been itching to show you as I think you'll realise why the collection sold out (not from my actual makes but what's on them lol)
So here we go and it's rather photo heavy so you might want a cuppa!

All of the above photos are my creation from the fabulous All Sewn Up collection and I'm sure you can see why I love this one as all the vintage elements are just stunning.

The two above were created with the Welcome Home collection which has loads of elements concerning baking and as you can see, some of the papers have the most amazing texture that make you want to reach out and touch (bet you didn't know I'm a secret paper stroker lol)

This last one is made with elements from the Heavenly Garden collection and I went for a really shabby chic effect with this one and will share the cheats torn paper effect very soon as it's much easier than you might think.

So there you have it and there will be a lot more creations using this CD as I've got loads of ideas and just need the time to make them. The shabby chic effect of all the elements of the full collection is just gorgeous with a lovely mix of hand drawn, vintage and photo. The papers are 8x8 so can be used for scrapbooking, either digital, hand or hybrid. All the embellishments are in png form and there are brushes and cutting files.
If you're tempted, you can find the CD here along with all the information and details.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend and I'll be round really soon now that panicking is over!
Hugs, Fliss xx

Flowers Galore

Good morning folks, the weekend is nearly here and hope you all enjoyed the long weekend. I'm hoping this scheduled post pops up as I'm at the hairdressers having my hilights done (it has to be early or I can't park!).
Firstly I must tell you that Nikky will be on Create & Craft tomorrow at 12 noon and 4pm with the lovely Rosemary Merry and the brand new collection that we've all been working on and I know you're going to love it as much as we do.

Now for details of this week's challenge over at Polka Doodles with the theme chosen by me - Lots Of Flowers. This could be backing papers, stamped floral images, handmade or paper flowers and so on - I'm sure you get the gist!

As I was short on time this week (I'm sure you can guess why!), I used a coloured image from the Sugarplum Daisy CD which I matted on pink.
I then made a tall card blank and turned it round to horizontal rather than vertical and covered this with pretty paper from the CD. I added a floral border across the centre and then glued on the image panel as shown in the photo.
I made a layered flower using a Marianne Design die set from scraps of pink paper fixed together with a pearl brad. I added a green leafy flourish die cut using another Marianne die and finished off with a circular sentiment and a butterfly.

Challenges for my card:
Little Miss Muffet Challenges - Rainbows, Clouds or Wings
Fashionista Challenge - Simply Summer

Thanks for looking and hope you all have a great weekend.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Pearls

Good morning folks on a rather chilly Monday. Hoping you managed to see part of the Royal pageant yesterday and I was certainly glad to see it on the TV as the weather in London looked atrocious. My younger daughter and her friends went to watch and managed to stand under a bridge so at least kept dry for a while.
Also, apologies here for being a bad commenter lately which is because I'm doing a top secret project which you can find out about later on in the week and it's taking up quite a lot of time so I'll be round as soon as I can - I just love what I'm working with and can't wait to show you!
We have a new month of challenges for you over at Make My Monday and the theme's have been chosen by Jacqueline and are all the things associated with the month of June.
This week, she would like to see a Birthday Card With Pearls and this is what I made - simpler than I would normally do but I wanted the gorgeous stamp to really stand out.

The stamp is by The Artful Stamper and I bought this on Saturday at a coffee morning my friend Gina held on behalf of The Alzheimer's Society (as you may know my dear Mum had this as did Gina's husband) and this stamp definitely had my name on it!
I stamped the image twice with VersaFine Imperial Purple ink and then inked one with Shabby Shutters Distress ink. I coloured just the butterfly on the second image with Promarkers and cut it out.
I die cut the image with a Papermania die and stamped the Hobby Art sentiment on with the purple ink. I then added the butterfly with foam tape.
I added a simple background of green parchment card embossed with a Papermania embossing folder and finished off with green pearls in the flower centres and dotted about the edges of the design to echo the dots in it.

Challenges for my card:
Hotshot Craft - Die Cuts
Crop Stop Challenge - Pretty Pearls
Dutch Dare Card Challenges - Pearls & Swirls

Hoping that you have a lovely day whatever the weather (very chilly here - 9 degrees in June!)
Fliss xx

Mystical and Very Magical

Good morning folks, don't know about you but we had tons of rain last night being torrential at times and my hubby said we had 10mm which is more than we usually get in over a week! Just as well I'm crafting today as I think staying in is the only option.
We have a new challenge for you today over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and the theme for this fortnight is Mystical and Very Magical.
This gave me the chance to use the sweet little fairy stamp given to me a while back by a friend after I admired it and she insisted I have it as she didn't use it enough - thanks Gina as I love it!
As you'll see my card is very girly this time:

I stamped the little fairy on thick cartridge paper with Archival Coffee ink and then coloured her with various Aquamarkers - I can't get enough of these at the moment as you've probably noticed! I then added glamour dust to her wings for some sparkle and you may need to click on the main pic to see this as it doesn't show up very well. I then die cut the image into a circle and inked the edges with olive ink.
I made a mat for the circle by cutting out a larger circle of white card, inking the edge with Crushed Olive Distress ink and then gluing on some pressed daisies which have been in my stash for rather a long time!
I made a background paper by inking a small rose stamp from a Clearly Inspired set called Stencil Flowers that I've had for around 4 years with pink and green inks and stamping all over cream card. I then added a little Tattered Rose Distress ink and sprayed with Emperor Gold and Vintage Pink Glimmer Mists. I tore the edges into a square to fit my card.
I rounded the corners of the card blank then inked all around the edges with Victorian Velvet Distress ink in a wide border.
I then glued lace all around the edges of my background paper and added the elements to the card as you see, finishing off with a Hobby Art butterfly stamped with the coffee ink, coloured with Aquamarkers and cut out.

The Fashionettes have made a widely varying array of inspiration for you to feast your eyes on and as always our lovely sponsor Marina of Cottage Crafts has a great prize for the winner so hope to see you there!

Challenges for my card:
Crazy 4 Challenges - Add Some Butterflies To Your Creation
Divas By Design - Anything Goes
The Paper Shelter - Vintage/Shabby Chic
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash - May Flowers
Top Tip Tuesday - Dig Out The Old And Name It (the daisies, the fairy stamp, the rose stamp)
Crafty Cardmakers - Distress It
Ooh La La Creations - Make It Girly

Have a great Sunday.
Fliss xx