Vintage or Shall We Dance?

Hello all, I hope you had a lovely weekend despite the downturn in the weather which was a bit wet and not that warm either! I thought Spring had arrived but it seems to have hidden away again.
It's time for a new challenge today at Make My Monday and yours truly has chosen the theme of Vintage which I know won't be a surprise to those of you that know me well :D

I came across a stamp which had managed to stay in my stash uninked until now as it was hidden away and I found it whilst looking for something else (this happens to me quite often so, note to self - tidy up craft stash!)
The image is a Blue Moon one which I bought at a show because it combines 2 of my favourite things - collage and dance (I'm a big fan of Strictly). I stamped it on smooth cartridge paper and coloured the image with watercolour pencils, then cut it to a panel, trimming along the curved top edge.
I then made the background paper by using scrunched up cling film to apply Brilliance Pearlescent Beige and Galaxy Gold to a square of card. I then stamped on the Ornate Flourish (Inkylicious) with Brilliance Crimson Copper, stamping twice before re-inking.
I distressed the edges of the background paper and then added a little Tim Holtz Idea-ology tissue tape to this and a scrap of dark red card which I trimmed to shape to make a mat for the collage image. I glued everything to a kraft card blank to finish.

Have a great day and a lovely week.
Fliss xx

Let's Keep It Simple

Hello again, we're Keeping It Simple for the next fortnight at That's Crafty Challenge Blog and I actually really enjoyed something that it is normally way outside of my comfort zone but I've been loving leaving some white space lately, very unusual for me!
Here's my inspiration which I hope you like.

My Brusho Crystals came out to play here and I finally managed to produce something I actually rather like with them. I've found it really is a case of less is more and I sprinkled a very tiny amount of turquoise and purple on some watercolour paper and misted the crystals gently with water. That's literally all I did to produce the background which you can see below before I did anything else to it.

This one was scanned so the colour looks a little different but you can see how gentle misting spreads the colour well.

I then stamped on the Carabelle Studio Journal du Jour image with Archival Jet Black ink followed by Papillon Grunge with the same ink (I have a little tip to share here as I like to stamp butterflies at an angle so I actually cut off the number ticket and used it separately, writing a number 1 in the little box with a fine black pigment pen).

I then stamped the butterfly again on stamping card and painted it with purple Brusho Crystal colour - I sprinkled a little of the pigment on my craft mat and mixed it with water to make the paint. I then cut the image out and glued it on top of the butterfly on the background paper.

I glued the paper to a card blank to finish.

Have a great day and a good weekend and good luck if you enter (there's a great prize of a £20 voucher for the online shop with loads of lovely goodies to choose from)
Fliss xx

Always There

Hello folks, hoping you've all had a good week and welcome to my first post today which is to let you know I have my usual Friday tutorial over at That's Crafty which this week is a journal page in my A5 size journal which I find very useful as the size isn't quite as daunting as a larger one.
It's quite bright and cheery too, in keeping with the lovely Spring weather we've had this week and I hope you have too.

My Carabelle Studio stamps have come out to play again and you'll find the whole creation and the details over at the blog. Hope you can visit as there are some fabulous tutorials over there.

I'll be back a bit later with the details of our new challenge over at That's Crafty Challenge Blog which goes live at 8am today.

Fliss xx

Thanks to Valerie for her comment about Art Journal Journey and I thought I should put the whole page here to view :)
Thank you to anyone who comes to visit the start of my journey too. Hope you like it!

Earth Day

Hello all, I hope you had a lovely weekend and managed to fit in some crafting as I did - the first time in a while I got some bonus time too due to unforeseen circumstances which meant I couldn't do the other stuff planned in - not that I'm complaining!
Today's post is to tell you about the new challenge over at Make My Monday and teamie Joan has picked Earth Day as the theme so we'd like to see your creations with this in mind or on the theme of nature.
I decided to take the Earth theme literally and do some recycling as I can't think of anything more appropriate for Earth Day than that.
Here's what I created and underneath you'll see what I recycled to make it.

I covered a piece of greyboard with some of my vintage music score and then brushed on some white gesso and then applied a little pink and green acrylic paint.
I then cut a panel of the corrugated packaging and brushed on some gesso and green paint for a grungy effect.
I die cut some floral shapes from the tea box with a Marianne die set and glued some of these to the painted corrugated panel and glued this to the music score panel.
I next chose one of the birds from my bargain illustration bird book which I acquired in a charity shop in Margate. This one is a Rock Thrush and I picked him because the colours go well with my project. I cut him out and glued him to the panel.
As a final touch I added a little more pink paint to the free area and stamped on the text from the Dina Wakley Scribbly Birds set with Archival Watering Can ink I added some paper string to the top to make the hanger.

Have a great day and a lovely week.
Fliss xx

Thanks go to Marina for pointing me in the direction of Inkspirational Challenge as it seems my creation might just fit the photo inspiration due to the colours, bird (from the birds eggs) and the kraft packaging.

A Little Happiness

Hello folks, hope you're having a lovely weekend with some sunshine wherever you are. It's lovely and sunny here but rather cold due to very strong winds so at least my washing will dry!
I'm here today to share the first creation in an age which isn't DT stuff as when I saw the current challenge theme at Allsorts, Quick and Easy Does It, I challenged myself to try and do something I find rather difficult so although there was more thinking than the time it took to actually make the card, the stamping from start to finish took only 10 minutes including stamp cleaning - very unusual for me I can tell you!
Here it is and hope you like it:

All of the stamping was done directly on the card blank and I first used the sequin waste stamp (Carabelle Studio Etoiles, Taches et Background) to stamp the dotty design on each side with Mustard Seed Distress ink.
I next stamped on the main image (Artistic Outpost Happiness) with Archival black ink, then followed with the text in the same ink together with the tiny butterfly.
As a finishing touch, I stamped the splats from the Carabelle set with Worn Lipstick Distress ink.

Tada! Done!

Have a lovely Sunday.
Fliss xx

April Showers

Hello all, I'm back from my trip to Kent last week and had a great time with lovely sunny weather. I also managed to acquire some vintage cabinet cards in Broadstairs and a lovely songbird illustration book in a charity shop in Margate, very happy additions to my vintage crafty stash too.
There will be some photos to share as well when I've had a chance to go through what I took and hopefully find some good ones!
We have a new challenge for you today over at Make My Monday and the theme this week chosen by Marina is April Showers - not something I really want at the moment!

I've chosen to ink up one of my favourite Viva Las Vegastamps for my card as she's such a cute and quirky image. I stamped her on smooth white stamping card and added the sentiment to the side of her. I coloured her with pencils and hand drew a puddle under her feet with a fine black pen, adding a little pencil colour.
I then stencilled the edges of a white square card blank with a Crafters Workshop mini tiny dot stencil using Worn Lipstick and Stormy Sky Distress inks. The ones going down the card remind me of rain drops which I think fit quite well with the image.
I added the main panel to pink and blue mats before adding to the tent fold card to finish.

Have a great day and a good week.
Fliss x

Grunge, Grunge, Grunge!

Hello again, as you can see now from my post title I just loved this challenge theme as I'm a big fan of grunge which is what we'd like to see at That's Crafty Challenge Blog for the next fortnight.
I've made a wall hanging creation as my inspiration and my Julie Nutting Prima doll has come out to play again.

I made the background first by applying vintage music score to a piece of mixed media paper with matte gel and adding torn pieces of book text over the top. I then lightly brushed on some white gesso to bring all the pieces together, following up with Vintage Lace and Lavender Paper Artsy Fresco Finish acrylic paint applied with baby wipes. This gives a soft mottled look which is very grungy in style.

I next stamped on Carabelle Studios Texture Chevrons with Bundled Sage Distress Ink followed by the star border from the Etoiles, Tache et Background Stamp Set with Picked Raspberry Distress ink, stamping once on scra paper to soften the colour a little.

I stamped the Prima doll on smooth stamping card and on book text with Archival Watering Can ink then coloured just the dress on the plain surface with pencils and Picked Raspberry DI. I just coloured the flesh and hair on the book text image then cut out the doll, gluing the coloured dress on top.

I added lace in places (very useful if you have any bubbles in the background as I did despite a good application of gel and using a brayer for smoothing!)

I stamped some Kaisercraft butterflies with the grey ink onto a scrap of gelli plate paper from my bits box (I always save them as you never know when they'll come in useful) and cut them out. I stamped the Dylusions text with the same ink on a scrap of stamping card and coloured it with Picked Raspberry DI after trimming it to a panel.

I finished off by applying some embossing ink to the top corners and the base of the panel and heat embossed it with Stampendous Frantage Shabby Pink Embossing Enamel. I swiped on a little Creative Expressions Gold Gilding Wax and a little more blue paint to pull everything together.

The challenge is open for the next fortnight and the prize for the randomly drawn winner is a £20 voucher for the online shop where you'll be truly spoilt for choice.

Good luck!

Fliss xx

Live The Dream For That's Crafty

Hello all, this is my first post of 2 today which I hope appears as scheduled as I'm currently down in Kent on a few days break.
It's just a quick one to let you know that I have my Friday That's Crafty project over at the blog if you want to pop on over and see how it came about. It's a Carabelle Studio creation again and hope you like it.

As you can see the lovely Helena has popped up again as I just love the rather sultry look she has which is perfect for all sorts of creations.

See you in a bit for my second post today as we have a new challenge at That's Crafty Challenge Blog going live at 8am and I just loved this one!

Fliss xx

Spring Picture Inspiration At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you've had a lovely Easter and haven't eaten too much chocolate! I've managed to restrain myself so far as we only just finished all the choccies we got at Christmas which I can tell you were rather a lot!
Today we have a new challenge for you over at Make My Monday and the theme this week chosen by Suzi B is a picture to inspire you and you must include a bird or birds in your entry.

A lovely picture I think you'll agree and here's my inspiration:

My background paper was made by applying patches of Distress inks in shades of pink, green and yellow with a Ranger ink applicator tool. I then stamped on the Crafty Individuals flourish with Archival Fern Green ink.
I stamped the Stampendous bird on smooth cartridge paper with brown and green inks and then coloured the image with pencils before trimming to a circle with a Spellbinders die. I added a scalloped, die cut green mat.
The flowers by Crafty Individuals were stamped with brown ink and coloured with pencils and cut out. I stamped the Flonzcraft sentiment with the brown ink and cut it out as the image is a little large as a panel. I inked it pink.

Have a great day and I'll see you next weekend as we're off to Kent for a few days tomorrow so my Friday posts will be scheduled and will hopefully publish when they should!
Fliss xx

Shine For That's Crafty

Hello folks, a bit of an oops here as I totally forgot to schedule my post here to let you know about my weekly project at That's Crafty blog! This was because my yonger daughter came back home from London late yesterday for the Easter weekend and with all the chatting it went straight out of my head!
I have a mixed media creation this week as at the moment I can't get enough of my treasured Tim Holtz Alterations layered butterfly die set and I've made a little wall hanging to share.
Here's a sneak peek and I hope you'll pop on over to see the whole thing too.

A special welcome to Shilpa from me and thank you so much for choosing to follow my art jouney - so lovely to have you on board and will be over to visit very soon.

Have a lovely Easter everyone.

Fliss xx