Merry Christmas To You!

Hello everyone, I've just popped on here to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year too as I have to work the next 2 days so probably won't have another chance to say this.

I also need to say sorry for being such a bad visitor the last few months too which is because I now get very little time to myself and seem to be totally unable to get organised enough to fit in everything in the small amount I do get. It makes me wonder how I coped 25 years ago which is the last time I had a full time job although then it was just me and my hubby and not the family we now have!

I'm here to share the last 3 cards I made this year before I go and do quite a lot of wrapping up so at least I can say that apart from a couple of bits, all the Christmas shopping is done.

As you can see, the basic principle for the trio is the same although the papers have been chosen to fit the particular image on each one. All of the images and papers (except the hessian one which you''l find on my FREE page) are from the Polka Doodles 2012 Here Comes Christmas CD which is my favourite of the Christmas CDs as I love those plaid papers to bits. The fab sentiments which I coloured with markers are from the 2013 A Home For Christmas CD.

Hoping that you all have a really lovely time with lots of crafty pressies and will see you after the big day.

Hugs,

Fliss xx

Voyage Of Discovery For That's Crafty

Hello there everyone, a really quick post from me today to let you know that I have a project to share over at That's Crafty which is a card for one of those more difficult occasions - or at least I find cards for men rather difficult!

It's really very simple to make and you'll find all the details over at the blog.

Have a great day and hope to see you there.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

CAS Christmas

Hello folks, hoping you all had a lovely weekend and I'm here today with my inspiration (or at least I hope so lol) for the new challenge today over at Make My Monday which has a theme chosen by Suzi and is the one I find the most challenging as white space is not normally on my creations:

CAS CHRISTMAS

As you can imagine, eek! came to mind when I saw this so I hope you like what I finally came up with after several non starters.

Quite a bit of layering I admit, but still white space!

The starry tree is Crafty Individuals and stamped with VersaFine Spanish Moss as I wanted it to go with a scrap of stamped paper from my bits box leftover from a William Morris style background attempt made with a Kaisercraft stamp set and shades of Distress ink.

I added various matting layers with further bits from the leftover box and stamped the Dovecraft sentiment at the top with VersaFine Crimson Red.

I think this will be the last Christmas card I'll be sharing as with my job now taking up most of my time, I actually had to go and buy some cards this year to make up the shortfall as quick and easy is not really me!

Have a great week.

Hugs,

Fliss xx

Say It With Flowers For That's Crafty

Hello everyone, I hope you've all had a good week and are managing to get there with the Christmas preparations which I have to say are going rather slowly here but I think I'll manage to get sorted in the end!
Today's post is to tell you about the project I have today over at That's Crafty which is the result of an experiment with the Inkadinkado stamping gear kit only I wanted to try out some stamps not made by Inkadinkado to see how well it would cope.
Here's the creation and you'll have to let me know what you think. All the details and some tips are over at the blog.

The card was for my sister in law's birthday and I'm happy to say that she was thrilled with it!

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

A Cold And Frosty Morning

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Mine had some great things (seeing Catching Fire at the cinema with totally amazing costumes and talking to my daughter on Skype) and the not so great (8 yes I did say 8 wash loads!).
I did manage a small bit of crafting though which is my DT inspiration for today's new challenge at Make My Monday chosen by Rosie which is FROSTY so you could do anything that brings frosty to mind and in my case this was snow and ice.

I've again used the gorgeous Midwinter plate by Artistic Outpost which I'll be using to make quite a few cards as it's so versatile.

I decided to make a frame for the woodland scene so I picked out a die by Papermania which is slightly frilly so would suit the embossing folder I planned on using. I die cut the shape from a piece of smooth, thick cartridge paper and added colour by applying Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky Distress Stains to a large square acrylic block then sprayed on some Dylusions White Linen and spritzed with a little water.  I pressed the paper into it to pick up the colour and you'll see the result below.

I then dry embossed the frame with the Darice snowflake flourish corner, twisting it around to emboss right around the frame. I then swiped Versamark ink over the raised areas and heat embossed it with my favourite Winter embossing powder which is Wow! Puff White. If you look at the pics below you'll see the fabulous snowy effect it gives.

I stamped the woodland scene on a further panel of cartridge paper with VersaFine Smokey Gray ink and added colour with Aquamarkers. I chose colours to make me think of a soft Winter sunset which I always think gives a lovely rosy blush to a snowy landscape. I added touches of Frosted Lace Stickles although you may not be able to see it very well in the pic.
I stamped the cute bunny with the grey ink and coloured him with Aquamarkers and cut him out. I assembled the card as you see adding the bunny and a sentiment from the stamp set stamped with the grey and a little colour added with Aquamarker.

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

I'd like to link this to the Artistic Outpost December Referral Programme which has an open theme though as you can see, I'm still on with the Christmas preparations!

Midwinter For That's Crafty

Hello everyone, I hope you're all managing to survive the current rather nasty and cold weather and my sympathies to anyone affected. Just very cold and wet down here although we have flood warnings along my route to work so fingers are crossed it's OK.
I have another Christmas card to share today over at That's Crafty which was made with the lovely Artistic Outpost Midwinter stamp plate and has quite subtle frosty sparkle. All the details are over on the blog so do please hop on over if you're interested.

Hoping to see you there and that you have a great weekend and stay safe.


Hugs, Fliss xx

I'm also linking this one to the Artistic Outpost December Referral Programme which has an Anything Goes with Artistic Outpost theme.

Christmas Flowers and Foliage

Good evening folks, I'm feeling a bit like a certain white rabbit here! A late post again for the new challenge today over at Make My Monday with your hostess with the mostest being Jacqueline with the theme of

CHRISTMAS FLOWERS AND FOLIAGE

I hope you all had a better weekend than I did as we had a rather traumatic Saturday after a frantic phone call in the early evening from my mother in law as my father in law had collapsed and couldn't get up. My hubby rushed there and to cut a long story involving paramedics and A & E short, my hubby picked him up again after tests just gone midnight and he seems OK although was told to visit his GP today as they couldn't find anything wrong.

Anyway, enough of my troubles and here's my DT inspiration:

Some stamps I've had for ages came out to play here as the background paper was made with a Papermania holly stampinked up on the leaves with Brilliance Pearlescent Olive ink and the berries coloured with a Cranberry Adirondack marker. I stamped this all over and then inked over the top with Crushed Olive Distress ink.

The main poinsettia image is a Hero Arts stamp and was inked with Brilliance Pearlescent Poppy and Olive and stamped on cream paper. I added this to a deep red mat and wrapped some checked ribbon from The Craft Fairy round.

I stamped the Hero Arts sentiment on the same cream paper with Archival Coffee ink (which for some reason looks red here?!) and added it to a deep red mat. I assembled all the elements on a kraft card blank adding a scrap of red poinsettia paper from the Polka Doodles Studio 12 Gingerbread Twist CD as a contrast.

Hoping you all have a good week.

Fliss xx