Laughter - The Best Medicine

Hello folks, hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas and got lots of lovely crafting pressies (I did and will be trying out what I received very soon when I get a bit more spare time - one of my New Year hopes!).
Time has been a bit short with visitors, trying to sort out a mega damp problem caused by our cavity wall insulation (which has to be removed at a cost which practically made me faint with shock) and I have a house full of sick patients - my OH has a stinking cold, elder daughter an ear infection and younger one a sick bug and I'm hoping they all keep what they have to themselves!
I'm here today with my creation for our new challenge over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges which is Surprise Us! so anything goes. Our lovely Joanna also had the idea of a Secret Santa with each of us sending our creation to one of the other Fashionettes. Having this in mind, I decided to go with something inspirational and made a little wall hanging piece with one of my favourite stamps.

I love this image from Paper Bag Studios as she reminds me a bit of a lovely photo I have of my dear Mum laughing and it's very true that laughter is the best medicine. I stamped her on a piece of cream mountboard then added a mat of kraft card trimmed down one edge with a Martha Stewart punch.
The background paper came from my bits box and I thought it fit the retro image perfectly. It was made using Crushed Olive, Mustard Seed and Tumbled Glass Distress inks using my Grunge Background Technique (click on the tutorial page at the top if you'd like to see how to do this). I then stamped on it using various floral images with Barn Door and Broken China DIs and swiped on a little more of the red ink.
I added the paper to a chipboard page from a Papermania blank book (these make fabulous wall hanging artwork) and glued on the image panel together with some very pretty floral lace (bought ages ago from Art From The Heart).
I finished off with a Hampton Art butterfly stamped on pink card with deep rose pink ink and cut out. Twine was added at the top to form the hanging section.

I can't tell you who this is for yet but hope she likes it. The other Fashionettes have made some fabulous creations so do hop over to feast your eyes on the catwalk!
We'd love to see your entries although please don't forget that we're a stamping challenge (we're all addicted to this!) so your creation must include some stamping and no digital stamps are allowed.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2013.
See you next year.
Fliss xx

Some Challenges for my Wall Hanging
2 Sisters - Anything But A Card
Hiding In My Craft Room - Freestyle
Pause, Dream, Enjoy Challenges - Anything Goes
Stampin For The Weekend - Anything Goes

Christmas Wishes

Hello everyone, a very speedy post from me to wish all of my followers old and new a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2013.
Thank you all so much for all your lovely encouraging comments which I so appreciate. Sorry from me too for my lack of commenting lately which is due to being so busy lately and I'm still in the middle of Christmas preparations for the big day tomorrow - eek!

Hoping you all have a fabulous time over the festive season and will be back again with the next Fashionable Stamping Challenge.

Hugs, Fliss xx

Christmas Bingo

Good morning everyone, don't know about you but I'm still behind on the Christmas preparations as I've got quite a lot of work and house and family stuff to do as well and I shall be so glad to get it all out of the way. A bit bah humbug I know but it seems to get more stressful the older I get!!!
As it's Monday, we have the last December challenge for you over at Make My Monday as we're taking a break after this until 7th January. We're continuing with the Pot Pourri theme chosen by Caz and this week we're playing Christmas Bingo.
I have a slight confession here as my card below was made in rather a rush due to silly me not having realised it was supposed to be a Christmas card until I went to upload my non festive card yesterday afternoon. A rummage in my bits box produced enough bits to make the card which I hope you like.

I picked the Words, Lace and Distressing line and tore the edges of my background paper which I made earlier (very Blue Peter here lol) using a Papermania text stamp applied with an inked baby wipe and then sponged with Tattered Rose Distress ink.
The sweet image (Holly's Christmas by Stamp It) was stamped with Archival black and coloured with a mix of Promarkers and pencils then cut to a panel and matted on some green linen paper trimmed with deckle scissors.
I added some cream crochet lace over a border of red card trimmed with a Martha Stewart punch and finished off with a layered flower and punched holly.

Have a great week and a lovely Christmas.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Crafty Mess Challenge - Vintage Christmas
One Stop Craft Challenge - Distressed Christmas
Brown Sugar Challenge - Red, Green and Cream

Late Again!

Or at least my DT post for today's new Fashionable Stamping Challenges is lol. This fortnight the theme is Mask It and you can use all sorts of masking techniques for this including actual masks, a masked stamped image, a stencil etc. etc. Don't forget that you must include some stamping too as we are a stamping challenge.
I decided on something a bit different for my inspiration this time as I've used a stencil of a large flourish shape that was free in a mag a while back but did something you might not expect with it. Read on to find out what I did!

I prepared my background paper first using a piece of card which I covered with Distress Stains in Victorian Velvet and Crushed Olive and spritzed with Glimmer Mists in Vintage Pink and Olive Vine.
Using the stencil, I applied embossing ink with the Ranger Emboss It Dabber which is brilliant for this sort of thing. I then sprinkled Fran-tage Shabby Pink Embossing Enamel on and heated to melt the powder. I sponged Victorian Velvet round the embossed flourish to make it really pop.
I then stamped the lovely lady (B Line Designs) on cream card with VersaFine Crimson Red ink and die cut the image into a circle. I embossed around the edges with the Cuttlebug roses folder. I coloured the lady with Promarkers and then added ink around the edges to highlight the embossed areas.
I assembled the card using some die cut doilies (Marianne Design) and some layered Prima hydrangea flowers which I glittered up a little and added pearls to.
To finish, I stamped the Hero Arts sentiment directly on the background paper at the base of the card.

Sorry for my lack of visiting lately, I will try and pop round before Christmas once I've got my unexpected workload out of the way!
Hope you have a good week.
Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Addicted To Stamps And More! - Bingo (My line is Diagonal - Green, Free, Pearls)
Try It On Tuesday - Let's Get Inky

Drum Roll Please............

As I'm here with the 2 winners of my blog candy. Really sorry it couldn't be everyone but thank you all so much for entering and there will be more soon as I'm heading quite quickly towards 700 blog posts and will post some more then.

The winner from my new followers from the blog candy start point is:

Number 43 which is Rebecca of The Miss Haven 

and the winner of my followers from before the blog candy start point is:

Number 29 which is Claire of Hope Jacare

Congratulations ladies! Claire, I have your address and will send your candy off early next week. Rebecca, if you could email me with yours, I'll send it off at the same time. I don't know if they'll arrive in time for Christmas but fingers crossed!

Thanks again everyone and hope you're having a lovely weekend.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

A Stitch In Time

Good morning folks, before I get on to the latest Polka Doodles challenge, I would like to say a huge thanks to everyone that entered my blog candy and to my new followers too. I haven't forgotten about posting the winners, I've just been up to my eyes in work this week having got behind because of my nasty chest infection. I'll be back tomorrow with the news so do keep an eye out for it.
Today we not only have a new challenge for you over at Polka Doodles with the most fantastic prizes (first prize is a £50 Goodie Bag!!!) but Nikky will be on Create and Craft at 10am and 4pm today to launch the gorgeous new CD which is called Cherry Blossom Lane and has the most adorably cute characters ever (those who know me will see why I love it when I can show you my samples) so do watch if you can or set the recorder.
The challenge this week has been chosen by Lou as her son will be 20 years old in a few days so the theme is

A Birthday At Christmas Card Or One For A Young Adult

I've made a card for one of my nieces with a birthday on 31 December as all the other birthdays this month -and we have quite a few- are either over 50 or less than 10!

Holly loves quilting so I've made a sewing themed collage style card for her.

All of the elements and papers on the card are from the Sundae of Seasons CD. I covered the card blank with some of the pretty ribbon stripe paper then added a blue panel of the same design trimmed at the top with a Papermania scallop cut and emboss border die.

I cut out the sewing machine topper with another Papermania die and hand cut a mat for this to make it pop.

To finish I added a die cut text panel and cut out the gorgeous pin cushion (I just love this and wish I had one like it lol) and some bobbins then added them with foam tape.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend and keep warm!

Fliss xx

At Last Candy!!!

 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR NEW POSTS

THIS WILL STAY AT THE TOP UNTIL THE CANDY IS DRAWN

Hello folks, I'm here today with the news that I've been promising for a while now and I've finally managed to get together some CANDY for my lovely followers - that means you!
The candy is a little collection of Vintage Style elements made up of stamps (how could I leave those out!), ribbons, lace, flowers and pearls.
This first collection is for my ever faithful current followers (up to the lovely June at number 284) but new followers shouldn't despair as there is more underneath for you!

Here's a list of what's there:
Prima Cling Stamps -En Francais and Nature Garden
Prima Mini Clear Stamp Sets - Nature Garden, Songbird, Sun Kiss
Queen & Co Pearls - Chocolate Delight, Silver
A Selection Of Chiffon, Fabric and Paper Flowers
Lace
Ribbons
String Of Pearls

This is to thank you all for your lovely comments and encouragement which mean the world to me and help me to keep on creating.

Now for the second collection:

This little collection is made up of doilies, paper flowers, bows, lace, ribbons and fibres and I will add to this if I reach 300 followers.
As promised, here's a little extra for my new followers and I'd like to say thanks so much for joining in here and this is the addition.

Hoping that you can spread the word for me. The candy is up for grabs until 10 December so that it might possibly be a lovely Christmas surprise - if the post allows!

All you need to do now is add your name on the link list below and I'm wishing you good luck!
Fliss xx

White As Snow

Good morning folks, hoping you all had a lovely weekend. Mine was quite busy with family stuff and a meal out on Saturday which made me feel rather tired yesterday as we got home late and I always find that's when my age catches up with me lol.
Today we have the second of the Pot Pourri challenges chosen by the lovely Caz over at Make My Monday and this week the theme is a White On White Christmas card which I have to say I struggled with somewhat as it's not something I do very often. I went for lots of texture and sparkle but unusually for me, there is no stamping!!!
Here's my creation and hope you like it.

It was really hard to take a decent photo of this so in the end, I balanced it on 2 red cushions as it showed up a little better. You may need to click on the pic to see all the detail as there is quite a lot.
I made the background by swiping a square of white card with White Opal liquid Pearls and Diamond Stickles using my trusty Paper Artsy splodger. When dry it looks lovely and pearly. I then embossed the top area with the Cuttlebug large polka dot folder and attached this to the card blank.
I then used my new Sissix snowflake die (an incredible bargain at £6.49 in our new Hobby Craft store!!!) to cut out some layered snowflakes from white card. I embossed the large one with the Cuttlebug snowflake folder and added frosting using Ranger sticky embossing powder and Distress Stickles Rock Candy dry glitter. I added brushed on Liquid Pearls in some places and on the smaller snowflake then added pearls to the large one.
I cut out some letters to spell my sentiment with the Tim Holtz Upon A Time strip die and glittered these up with Icicle Stickles. They've gone a bit pink in the photo but the glitter glue actually has gold flecks in it. I attached these on the flat area at the base of the card and added the die cut snowflakes with foam tape to finish.

Hope you're all doing better with your Christmas preparations than me because as usual other things (such as VAT returns - ugh!) have got in the way and made me behind.
Have a great week.
Fliss xx
PS: Don't forget that my CANDY ends today so if you haven't yet entered you need to be quick!

Some challenges for my card:
Christmas Card Challenges - Die Cuts
Dream Valley Challenges - Christmas
2 Sisters Challenge - Snowflakes
Just Us Girls - Embossing
My Time To Craft - Non Traditional Christmas Colours

Poppies

Happy Monday folks and welcome to my lovely new followers, so great to see you here ladies and thank you so much for choosing to join my little band.
Hoping everyone had a lovely weekend and managed to fit in a bit of crafting as I did despite being rather busy with other things!
It's time for a new challenge over at Make My Monday and the lovely Caz has chosen our monthly theme which is Pot Pourri and there will be quite a mixture of weekly themes I can tell you! This week the theme is Your Favourite Flower so there's quite a lot of creative scope here.
I ended up in a bit of a quandary as I have quite a few favourite flowers but I chose poppies as I love their bright cheery colour.

I've made a fairly simple card which is for our next door neighbours to thank them for the wonderful buffet they invited us to on Saturday.
The backing paper came from my bits box and was made using Shabby Shutters Distress ink applied with an acrylic block and then stamped with a Hero Arts leaf sprig using Shabby Shutters and Crushed Olive DIs. I trimmed one edge with the Martha Stewart loop punch and added this panel to a kraft card blank.
I stamped the poppies (a very old stamp by A Stamp In The Hand) with VersaFine Crimson Red and Spanish Moss on white card and heat embossed the image with clear powder. I die cut the image with a Papermania frilly rectangle die.
I finished off with a sentiment by Hobby Art stamped with VersaFine Olympia Green matted on deep green card.

Have a great day.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Sketchy Colors Challenge - White, Green, Red
Craft Us Crazy - Give Thanks/Thank You
Milk Coffee Challenge - Thanksgiving/Thankful/Thank You
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Longing For Spring

Hello folks and especially my new followers who I would like to welcome to my little band and say thank you for choosing to join. Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. Mine is a bit busy as the round of December celebrations has started early this year with a neighbours' do yesterday and today we're off to my brother and sister in law for a birthday tea.
We have a new challenge for the fortnight over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges today and our theme this time is To Die For so there's loads of things you could create for this one. I took the opportunity to make my sister in law's birthday card as it's a special birthday but she hasn't let on so I didn't dare make one with age mentioned!

 
I made my own shaped card blank using a Go Kreate XXL frilly square die, cutting it from an 8x8 white square card blank.
I then cut a white card shape with the next die size down and stamped this with my new Indigo Blu clematis flourish corner stamp using VersaFine Smokey Gray ink (isn't it just gorgeous!). I stamped it a second time on scrap white card and coloured just the flowers and bird with Prisma pencils. A little artistic license came in here as I decided to make the clematis blue because my sister in law likes the colour.
I then added colour to the stamped panel with pencils and Distress inks using Scattered Straw, Tattered Rose and Victorian Velvet. I then inked the edges of the panel with Broken China. I stamped the music score from the Tim Holtz mini holidays 4 set with Victorian Velvet and then stamped the sentiment (Hobby Art CS016D) with the grey ink.
I inked up some scrap white card with the same Distress ink shades and stamped on the music score with the Broken China. I then die cut some flowers with the Nestabilities carnation flowers set and layered these up with a metal embellishment in the centre.
I cut out the flowers and bird stamped earlier and added these to the card with foam tape to finish.

The Fashionettes have made a huge variety of stunning creations for your inspiration so do hop over for a look. Our sponsor is Marina of Cottage Crafts as usual and please do remember you must stamp to be in with a chance of winning as we are a stamping challenge.

Have a lovely Sunday.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Crafty Ann's - Birds And/Or Animals
Lady Ann's Card/Stamp Challenge - Anything Goes
Ruby's Rainbow - Shaped Cards