A Nice Cup Of Tea

Good morning everyone and welcome to my post for our new challenge over at Make My Monday today which has a theme chosen by Jacqueline who would like to see your creations involving Food and Drink.
I decided on my favourite daytime tipple, a lovely cuppa as I need about 2 mugs full to get me going in the morning!
Here's what I made although it's a little more dainty than a mug!

I turned to my Kanban damask tea and coffee stamp set and stamped the cup on blue card with VersaFine Majestic Blue ink. I then cut the cup and saucer out.
I then stamped a Hero Arts flourish image on white card with VesaColor Sky Blue ink and die cut into a frilly panel with an X Cut die.
I embossed a panel of blue card with the Cuttlebug Victoria folder and stuck this to my square card blank.
I stamped the tea text from the stamp set directly on the die cut panel and added the cup then stuck this to the card to finish.

As you see, quite a simple creation for me and I hope you like it.
Have a great week.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Nature's Beauty

Hello there everyone and hope you're having a lovely weekend. I'm a very happy crafter today as for the first time in I can't remember how long, I've managed to do some creating that isn't DT work - yippee!
My frame is inspired by the latest challenge at Crafty Individuals which is Nature's Beauty so how could I resist when I love nature so much. The post is a bit picture heavy to show the detail and I hope you like it.

I started off with a blank papier mache frame which I decorated using my Shabby Chic Peeloff Technique which you can find HERE. It's very easy and this time I used a combination of flourish and daisy peeloffs - the daisies were gold and the flourishes copper but I bet you'd never guess that if I hadn't told you!
For the frame, I used Wild Honey and Vintage Photo Distress inks after 2 coats of gesso as the frame was kraft coloured. After using my technique, I then stamped on a daisy from CI-206 Flower Heads with Palette Raw Sienna ink which is permanent like StazOn.I then rubbed some Creative Expressions Cast Bronze Gilding Wax.
The central panel was made by colouring a piece of thick, smooth cartridge paper with Distress Inks applied with an acrylic block - I used Crushed Olive, Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade and smooshed the ink around on the paper whilst it was still wet.
I stamped the silhouette meadow image - CI-367 - twice with VersaFine Olympia Green ink and stamped some of the butterflies from CI-231 on scrap cartridge paper with the same green. I cut these out and added them to the panel after sticking it in the frame.
I then sanded the raised peeloff elements slightly to knock off a little of the paint and embossing for a vintage look.

 Thanks to everyone at Crafty Individuals for inspiring me.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Botanical For That's Crafty

Hello there everyone and welcome to today's post which is to let you all know about the project I have today over at That's Crafty which is nature themed, something which is a real favourite of mine.
I chose to use Spring shades too as the weather has been mostly sunny this week and Spring has definitely been in the air.
We took a lovely walk in Arundel on Easter Monday and saw ducks with ducklings and also moorhens with tiny babies too. We also saw a moorhen of a different type with the most amazing big blue feet which looked so funny on a small water fowl too.

I hope you like what I created and as usual you'll find out how I made it if you hop on over to the blog.

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

Distress It!

Hello there folks and a Happy Easter to you all. I hope you had a lovely time and didn't eat too much chocolate!
I'm here now with a slightly late post for the new challenge today over at Make My Monday which was chosen by former team mate Jan and involves one of my absolute favourite techniques - Distressing.
I have a tutorial to share too, so that you can see how I turned something that has been in my stash for many years, unused as I tend to prefer stamping but this is all about how you can make a humble Peel Off look like it isn't a peel off! I think I'll be using this technique quite a lot too and you may need a cuppa before you read on although I promise it's not too long.

The finished card is above and you'll find the background paper steps below.

Step 1

For this you need a piece of smooth thick paper or watercolour paper cut to fit your chosen card blank and some peel offs. I chose corner ones but you could use flowers or patterned peel offs to make a frame shape.

As you can see, I placed the peel off in the corners of my paper.

 Step 2

For this step you need some gesso which I brushed roughly all over. You don't have to be precise with this as it gives a better shabby chic effect if the coverage is quite textured.

Step 3

This step takes the most time. You need some Distress inks - I used Tattered Rose, Wild Honey and Frayed Burlap. I applied the 2 lighter shades with a sponge and then added just a touch of the brown which you can see inked the rougher areas more. I then stamped a pattern design (Kaisercraft Lattice) all over with the Wild Honey to add more texture.
I heat embossed the paper with clear detail embossing powder. I distressed the edges and the peel off corners gently with an emery board and added Vintage Photo Distress ink round the edges.
If you click on the photo below, you'll see that sanding some of the paint off the peel offs gives them a rather distressed look like rusted metal.

As you can see on my card above, the addition of some pearls and lace together with the filigree butterfly and the lovely Gibson lady (Flonzcraft), the paper gives a soft vintage feel.

Hoping that you like this and please do let me know what you think.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

PS: I'd also like to enter my tutorial in the current Mixed Media Mayhem at Quirky Crafts Challenges as you can see from the card and tutorial quite a few things came into play. Hope that's OK with you ladies :)

Black and White with a Splash

Hello again and welcome to my second post of the day which is about our new challenge over at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog which this time has the theme of Black and White with a Splash (in my case a splash of red) of whichever colour takes your fancy.

Here's my inspiration which I hope you'll like.

As you can see it's hearts all the way! I made the background first by stamping the honeycomb design in opposite corners with red ink and then use the checkered stamp to add the black border.
I then die cut some hearts from black and white card and stamped one white heart with black checks and the larger with red.
I added these to my card and finished off with text stamped in black.

I used:
Kaisercraft Clear Stamps - Honeycomb, Arty, You!
Archival Jet Black Ink
VersaFine Satin Red Ink
White Stamping Card
Black Card
X Cut Nesting Dies - Homespun Heart

Good kuck to all who enter and hoping those eligible do for a prize of a £20 voucher for the online shop.

Have a great weekend.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Smile

Good morning folks and welcome to the first post of today which is to tell you about this weeks' project for That's Crafty which is another bright and sunny creation which is really quick to make if you're short on time as I've been this week.

You'll find all the details over at the blog as usual and I hope you'll pop over to visit as the Design Team added some really beautiful projects over the last week.

I'll be back shortly as a new challenge starts at 8am today over at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog so see you in a bit.

Hugs,
Fliss xx

Mythical Creatures

Hello there, a slight case of better late than never with this post as I didn't have enough time to do it yesterday after my return from Kent as I had to get ready for today's return to work.
Our new challenge over at Make My Monday today has the theme of Mythical Creatures chosen by Rosie and I decided on a favourite undersea mythical creature of mine as you'll see from my inspiration below.

I inked up my Santoro mermaid image with VersaFine Olympia Green and stamped her on smooth cartridge paper then coloured her with Aquamarkers. I then die cut the image to a circular panel.
The background paper is the second of my papers made with my watery effect technique which I'll be sharing as a tutorial shortly as it makes 2 papers at once - always great to get 2 for the price of 1!
For the sentiment, I inked up part of a Tim Holtz stamp with the green ink and cut round it after stamping.

Have a great week and will be round to visit soon.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

The Gift Of Life

Hello peops, I'm hoping that Mr Blogger has played nice and published this post for I'm currently in Kent on a few days much needed break.
I have a project today over at That's Crafty which is another rather bright creation which I hope you like although you might need sunglasses!

You'll find all the details over at the blog as always and I hope you decide to pop over as my team mates have been sharing some amazing creativity which is well worth the trip.

Be good and see you next week!
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Easter Wishes

Hello folks, I hope you all had a good weekend with hopefully some sunshine as we did. Not that I saw much of it as I was running around trying to get things done before we go away for a few days as I'm working up to the day before and will only have time for packing the evening before we go. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it!
We have a new challenge for you today over at Make My Monday which as a certain weekend is fast looming is Easter so we would like to see creations of any sort with Easter in mind.

I didn't have any stamps that fit the bill so I had to resort to the internet and found this rather sweet vintage postcard featuring some very cute bunnies so how could I resist!
It needed a simple background so I chose to echo the colours in the postcard with softer green and yellow card which I embossed with a Crafts Too folder.
I assembled the card as you see, adding some toning ribbon and flowers to finish.

Have a great day.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Spinning Around

Hello again, I'm back with my promised news of our new challenge over at That's Crafty Challenge Blog which this time has the theme of You Spin Me Right Round so we want to see your creations using circles.
In my case, the first thing that sprang to mind rather gives my age away as it was The Windmills Of Your Mind by Noel Harrison. I've made a wall hanging piece with rather a lot of circles as you'll see.

The paper I used began with another of my first creation with the Stampendous Creative Palette a few weeks back (I still have one whole piece and some bits left!). I stamped on the paper with a fabulous background set I recently acquired designed by Nathalie Kalbach for Stampendous called Wired. I used various Distress inks (see below).
I then used the stencil that comes with the stamp set to add the orange circles and then attached the paper to some recycled board, using some orange twine to make the hanger. I then chose some chit chat stickers to spell out some creative thoughts in a circle (I used one of the shapes from my circle cutter for the placement).

I used:
Stampendous NK Studio stamp set - Wired
Distress Inks - Seedless Preserves, Stormy Sky, Ripe Persimmon
Tim Holtz Chit Chat Stickers

The randomly drawn winner will receive a £20 voucher to the online shop so don't forget you have to be in it to win it! Good luck!

Have a great weekend,
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Harmony

Hello peops, hope you've all had a good week and haven't got too covered in the Sahara dust cloud. In my case, it's mostly my car that suffered and on the way home from work yesterday we had a rather smoggy cloud in the distance.
This is my first post of the two today to let you know that I have a project at That's Crafty today that you might need sunglasses for as as you see, it's quite bright!

All of the details of how I made my little canvas are over at the blog if you would like to pop over for a peek.

I'll be back in a bit with news of our new challenge over at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog so in the meantime, be good!

Hugs,
Fliss xx