Flutterby Butterfly

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend even if you were rather hot like me. I have a card today which is my inspiration for our new challenge over at Make My Monday with the theme of Butterflies chosen by Laura.
I was really pleased with this theme as I really love butterflies but I was rather short on time as I've had a very busy weekend. A good rummage through my bits box solved the problem as I found a butterfly and a bit of background paper perfect for the challenge.

The background paper is made with the Stampendous Jumbo Cling Rosebud Set which I stamped with deep blue ink. I scribbled pastel pencils over the paper and rubbed them with a finger to blend the colours. I then added colour to the flowers and leaves with the pastels and Prismacolor pencils.
The butterfly (Hampton Art) had been stamped with black ink and clear embossed then sponged with Shaded Lilac Distress ink before cutting out.
I stamped the sentiment (Flonzcraft) with black ink on white card, trimmed it to a panel and added a purple card mat.

Have a great day and a lovely week and see you again soon.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Some Challenges I'd like to enter:
Glitter n Sparkle Challenge - Add Some Purple
Crafting When We Can Challenge - Make Your Own Background

The C Word At That's Crafty Challenge

Hello folks and sorry for my lack of blogging and commenting lately which is because of a lot of family stuff going on at the moment but normal service will resume as soon as possible.

In the meantime today sees the start of a new challenge at That's Crafty and as it's the 25th today, our new theme is The C Word aka Christmas in July. Eek I hear you say! It is a good opportunity to get ahead to avoid panicking in December so below you'll find my first card of the year which is actually quick and easy to make if you have an Inkadinkado Stamping Gear as I do.

For my card I used the round cog which is the perfect size for anyone that is a fan of 6x6 square cards. I used the cog with the Pinecones Evergreen stamp set. I first stamped the sprigs with Adirondack Lettuce ink, following up with the pinecones using Brilliance Cosmic Copper ink and finally the pine needles with Brilliance Pearlescent Ivy.
I then stamped my favourite Tim Holtz sentiment with the ivy ink on a scrap of the paper and die cut it to a circle to fit in my pine wreath.
I trimmed the wreath panel to fit my 6x6 kraft card blank and added it together with the sentiment panel to which I added a scalloped mat of kraft card.
As I said, really quick and easy!

Do hop on over to see my team mates inspiration as they've made the most gorgeous creations which you're sure to love. If you're a UK resident and enter you're in with the chance of winning a £20 voucher to the online shop so what are you waiting for!

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

En Vacances For Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend and didn't feel like you were about to melt like me! It was really hot and humid with thunderstorms mostly at night and is apparently going to be like that all week so I'm not that happy as I always find it hard to cope with very hot weather - sigh!
Anyway, enough whinging and on to our new challenge today over at Make My Monday which has Sue's chosen theme of Vacations (or holidays) and my inspiration came about because of a photo I came across of my favourite holiday destination - Italy. I've put the photo underneath so you can see what I mean.

I actually bought this Michael Powell stamp because it reminded me of our last trip to Italy when we stayed at Sorrento which if you haven't been there I can recommend as it's so lovely and a great base to visit quite a few amazing places including the Isle of Capri which is where I took my photo.
My card is very simple as I just stamped the image with black ink on watercolour paper and then painted it with Aquamarkers.
I then added several paper mats before sticking the panel to a 5x7 white card.

Here's my photo which was taken on our walk from the harbour up to where the shops and cafes are. It was a winding path leading up with lots of beautiful iron grille gates which gave glimpses of the most gorgeous gardens and villas. The shops were a sight to see when we got there as window shopping was all we could do - there was Dolce and Gabbana, Valentino, Prada, Versace - you get the picture!
We also had the most fabulous lemon iced tea I've ever had, also the most pricey as they were 8 euros each which bearing in mind this was 6 years ago was quite a lot!

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

Hello Dolly For That's Crafty

Hello folks and first up is a huge thank you to everyone who left such kind messages after my sad post on Monday. I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate you taking the time to do that. It still hasn't quite sunk in as it was so sudden I'm sort of floating around in a bit of a daze. I don't think it will seem real until the funeral next week.
I have a project today over at That's Crafty which is another rather girly creation although in complete contrast to last week I've gone all bright and zingy as I needed cheering up.
Hope you like it!

You'll find all the details over at the blog including how I made the background paper and also how I made the paper her dress in stamped on - you'll get a surprise if you pop over to see what I stamped with!

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

New Challenge At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, this is rather a sad post from me today as I've just had the most traumatic weekend in a very long time which started on Friday when I got home from work to find that my stepfather was in hospital extremely poorly having suffered a very bad brain haemorrage and we spent some time at his bedside that evening.
Sadly he passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning having never regained consciousness. I did think that might happen as the very kind nurses did say that all they could do was try and keep him comfortable but it was still a shock as I'm sure you can imagine.

I'm keeping going by keeping busy and managed a small bit of crafting yesterday for our new challenge today at Make My Monday with the theme of End Of Term chosen by Marina.
I've been a bit creative with the theme as I chose to see it as the start of something new which does hopefully happen after graduation.

 
I made the background paper by inking a scarp of card by swiping it through Distress Ink Re-inkers sprayed with water. I used Scattered Straw, Mustard Seed, Tattered Rose and Victorian Velvet.
I then stamped with some Crafty Fairy images starting with circles stamped with Spiced Marmalade, then flowers stamped with Picked Raspberry and dotted circles stamped with Salty Ocean.
I trimmed this to size and added it to a pink mat. I then stamped the B Line Designs butterfly on the piece I trimmed off with black ink and cut it out. I brightened the colour a little with Mustard Seed ink.
I die cut the Tim Holtz weathered clock and inked it with Peacock Feathers and Salty Ocean then glued it to the card. I stamped the text with Hero Arts alphabet stamps and VersaFine Deep Lagoon ink. I added this to the card with the butterfly.

Have a good week.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Stencils, Masks or Templates

Hello again and welcome to my second post for the day with my inspiration for our new challenge over at That's Crafty Challenge Blog and this time I've been getting creative in my journal.
As you can see from the title, we're playing with Stencils, Masks and Templates this time and we're challenging you to do the same.
Here's my page and hope you like it:

I coloured my page with Distress inks - Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Dried Marigold and Spiced Marmalade. I then added a pattern with a Prima stencil using Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade and Crushed Olive Distress inks.
I then stamped on the stalks from the Carabelle Studio Ombreline Aux Pistils stamp set which I planned to add flower heads to. I stamped some flower heads from the set on to white stamping card as I wanted them to really pop. I then cut them out and added them to the page.
I then used the stalk stamp to add a funky border round the edges and stamped the text from the Andy Skinner Batik Garden set on stamping card and cut them out by hand.
I finished off with some doodling down the sides and the sprigs at the bottom - really handy for covering up stray ink marks caused by stamping when extremely tired!

I hope you can join us as the random winner will bag a £20 voucher to the online shop.

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

Beautiful For That's Crafty

Good morning all and hope you've all had a good week so far. This is my first post today to let you know that I have a new project today over at That's Crafty which if you hop on over, you'll see I've gone all girly this week with a pastel flowery creation.
Here's a sneak peek and I hope you'll want to go and see the whole creation.

I'll be back a bit later on with the details and of course, my inspiration piece for our new challenge over at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog.

Hugs,
Fliss xx

Postcard From Paris

Good morning folks and welcome to my post today especially my new follower Annie - so lovely to have you on board.
We have a new challenge today over at Make My Monday which has the theme of Mail Art chosen by Suzi B who would like to see creations involving postcards, envelopes and so on.
I decided on a postcard featuring a real wish of mine which is to travel to Paris as I've never been there - my younger daughter is going there for the weekend in a couple of weeks as a friend of hers has been an au pair for the last year and as you can imagine I'm rather green!
My postcard has a rather vintage feel to it as you'll see.

I cut my piece of thick cartridge paper slightly smaller than 4x6 as I wanted to add it to a card backing for strength.
I then used sponge applicators to apply Distress inks - I used Spun Sugar, Shabby Shutters, Victorian Velvet and Crushed Olive. I then stamped on a rose from a Glitz Design set with the darker Distress inks and added Hero Arts Old French Writing with Crushed Olive.
I then stamped on the Stampendous Paris image with Memories Creamy Coffee and added the post marks from an Inkylicious stamp with the same ink. When the ink was dry, I added colour to the flowers with Polychromos.
I stamped the Lost Coast Designs Rose Boy with the brown ink and added a little colour with the pencils. I cut the image out and swiped it with embossing ink and heat embossed with clear powder. I did this because the image needed a little something to pop agains the background.
To finish off I stuck the panel to a 4x6 piece of kraft card.

Bye for now and have a great week.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my postcard:
Anything But A Card Challenge - Anything Goes
Paper Crafting Challenges - Anything Goes
Paper Creator's Crafts Challenge - Anything Goes

Going Steampunk For That's Crafty

Good morning all, hoping you've all had a lovely sunny week which has been so warm here and it's fabulous to be able to walk about in short sleeves at last.
As it's a certain date I'd also like to wish a very Happy Fourth of July to all of you in the United States - have a great day!
It's my That's Crafty day today and this week I'm sharing an altered arch frame by those lovely peops over at Tando Creative who make such wonderful and amazing value items crying out for ink or paint so this time I got very messy indeed and had purple fingers for a while!
I hope you like my tranformation and you'll find all the details of how I created it over at the blog.

If you haven't yet entered our latest challenge over at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog, you still have a week to enter your creations with a seaside flavour as the theme is All At Sea - why not give it a try as the winner is randomly chosen to be fair to all entrants.

Have a lovely weekend,
Fliss xx

Some challenges I'd like to enter:
Crafty Creations Challenges - Things With Wings
Altered Eclectics - Anything Goes - mine is an altered chipboard arch frame
Rhedd's Creative Spirit - Anything Goes Altered Art