Autumn Colours at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, hope you're all well and had a lovely weekend. Mine was rather busy as I had yet another optician visit as they're still trying to get my glasses right (at the moment I can just about see to do the washing up!!!) as I can only wear them indoors. There was a lot of tutting this time as I saw a different optometrist who got rather cross as she said my prescription was completely wrong (well duh!) and the glasses have now gone for replacement lens. All fingers and toes crossed that they get it right this time as it's been going on for 4 months now and I'm rather fed up!

Anyway, enough whinging and on to the new challenge at Make My Monday. Joan has chosen a favourite of mine, Autumn Colours, which I love as I'm an Autumn girl by birth and in fact have a birthday I'd rather forget coming up soon - aargh!

I hope you like my inspiration which is the result of a hunt through my bits and pieces box where I came across a piece of watercolour paper stamped with a Hero Arts flower using Spiced Marmalade, Rusty Hinge and Aged Mahogany Distress inks. As it was cream, I sponged on Mustard Seed and Wild Honey DIs for a lovely warm glow.
I then embossed a panel of kraft card with a Darice Autumn leaves folder and swiped Versacolor Paprika over the raised areas. I added this to the paper panel then tied round some rusty gingham ribbon before sticking to the card.
I added some leaves (a very old Rubber Stampede image) which had been stamped by adding Distress re-inkers to a paper towel to make an ink pad. I cut these out to leave a narrow border and added them with foam tape for dimension.
I finished off with some text in a metal frame I've had for rather a long time! A Junkitz Tim Holtz set in antique copper.

 Have a great week and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Some challenges I'd like to enter:
Classy Cards n Such - Feeling Fall-ish
One Stitch At A Time - Anything Goes With Leaves
A Gem of a Challenge - Autumn
Catch The Bug - Colour Challenge

Girls Will Be Girls

Hello again and welcome to my inspiration for the new challenge over at That's Crafty Challenge Blog with the theme for the next fortnight of Girls Will Be Girls.
I've chosen to use my most girly stamps for a card, these being my Paper Artsy Liz Borer set of stamps which are so deliciously feminine and pretty.

Here are the elements before I assembled the card:

I made the background paper with Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints in Sherbert, Rose and Lilac which I sponged on a piece of mixed media paper for a shabby chic effect. I then used the Tim Holtz Flourish Layering Stencil on the left half of the painted paper with DecoArt Fluid Acrylic in Green Gold. I distressed the edges with an emery board.
I stamped the square framed image on smooth cartridge paper with VersaMark ink, embossed it with Detail Copper Embossing Powder and coloured it with watercolour pencils before cutting it out and distressing the edges as before.
I made a mat for the main image by painting round the edges with Lilac and Orchid Fresco Finish Acrylics and then stamping on the small wrought iron style image with Ranger Archival Fern Green ink and distressed the edges.
I coloured a scrap of cartridge paper with the pink and lilac paints, stencilled it lightly with the green paint and then stamped with the birthday sentiment from the Tim Holtz Crazy Talk stamp set and Archival Coffee ink.
I assembled the card as you see adding lace, flowers and bronze gems.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

Lovely Bubbly For That's Crafty

Hello everyone and apologies in advance for my project title but I couldn't resist a bit of a pun because of the effect achieved on my clean and simple card which is today's tutorial over at That's Crafty.
Hope you like it and you'll find all the details over at the blog. Here's a sneak peek.

I'll be back in a while with news of the new challenge over at That's Crafty Challenge Blog which goes live at 8am today.

See you later!

Fliss xx

Nature At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend. It's been really lovely here, warm and sunny the whole time for once!
We have a new challenge today over at Make My Monday and this week I picked the theme and I chose a favourite of mine, NATURE. I hope you like my inspiration.

I made my background paper first with a square of thick watercolour paper which I sprayed with water and then swiped on Distress Stains in Crushed Olive, Shabby Shutters, Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed and Dried Marigold. I dried this off and then stamped on the large fern leaf sprig from the Hero Arts Fern stamp and die set with VersaFine Spanish Moss. I stamped some on scrap paper first for a faded effect.
I cut a slightly larger square of recycled greyboard and inked round the edges with Distress Embossing Ink then heat embossed with Fran-tage Aged Green Embossing Enamel. I distressed the edges of my background paper with an emery board and added this to the greyboard panel.
I stamped the kingfisher on thick smooth cartridge paper with Memories black ink and then coloured him with Tombow markers and pastel pencils. I cut him out to leave a narrow off white border.
I made the distressed panel by applying Tumbled Glass Distress ink to a rectangle of the cartridge paper direct from the pad and then stamped on the Kaisercraft Wood Panel stamp with Weathered Wood DI and embossed with the Cuttlebug distressed stripes folder and swiped the ink on the raised areas.
The embellishments were made by  stamping the fern with the moss ink and the dragonflies with VersaFine Deep Lagoon. I then coloured the 2 dragonflies with Tombow markers then cut them out with the die and sponged with VersaMark ink and heat embossed with sparkly powder. The fern was die cut and because of the large white areas left, I sponged on some Crushed Olive DI to make them blend in.
I assembled the panel as you see with a mix of double sided and foam tape. I finished off with some twisted green chiffon ribbon.

I hope you can join in as we'd love to see your interpretation of the theme.

Have a great week,
Fliss xx

I'm A Believer For That's Crafty

Hello everyone, I hope you've all had a good week and hopefully less busy than mine! This is a very quick post to let you know that I have a post over at That's Crafty today with my usual Friday tutorial and this week I'm sharing a card with an inspirational message.

Here's a sneak peek and you'll find all the details over at the blog.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend and hopefully see you soon.

Fliss xx

Black And White With A Hint Of One Colour And An Oops!

Hello everyone from a rather tired Fliss. I've had a very busy weekend with family stuff and very little time for crafting which is part of the reason for my oops! I managed to miss the fact that the theme of this week's challenge at Make My Monday is actually Black and White With A Hint Of One Colour and a teeny teeny bit of yellow has crept into my inspiration - oops!
Here's what I made and I hope you like it.

I decided to ink up one of my new Santoro stamps which I couldn't resist when I saw them as they're so different to the last release and much more my style.
I stamped the main image and some of the flowers directly on my card blank together with the little bird from the set. I added colour to the flowers with a red pencil and then noticed a tiny black smudge above the flowers on the right side. This was when my oops happened as I drew a butterfly over the smudge and coloured it wtth a yellow pencil for contrast. It wasn't until I went to add it to the challenge post that I saw the one colour bit so you'll have to forgive my mistake.
I finished off with a Tim Holtz small talk sticker.

Have a great week.
Fliss xx

Lovely Leaves At That's Crafty Challenge Blog

Hello again, I'm back with news of our new challenge at That's Crafty Challenge Blog and the theme for the next fortnight is Leaves so we'd like to see one or some on your creation.

I'm sure you all know how much I love Autumn when the leaves start to turn and go wonderful shades of russet and gold so that was what inspired my creation which is a card with an Autumn wreath.

I made the background paper first by inking up a piece of mixed media paper with Squeezed Lemonade and Craushed Olive Distress inks and then stamped on a leafy frond from an Inkadinkado Stamping Gear leaf set with Wild Honey Distress ink. I then distressed the edges with an emery board.
I then made the wreath using the Creative Expressions Perfect Peony Complete Petals stamp set and die set. I stamped lots of leaves and some flowers on paper coloured with various Autumn shades of Distress ink and then die cut them with the dies.
I die cut a circle of card and then added the leaves to form a wreath using both glue and foam pads for dimension. I then added the flowers in the centre and finished them with dots of Cosmic Shimmer Twinkles by Phill Oliver in Decadent Oak.
I distressed a piece of corrugated packaging with Gesso and pale green acrylic paint together with dried paint scrapings and glued the wreath to this before gluing to the card.
I finished off with a Tim Holtz Big Chat sticker which I swiped with a little yellow ink.

Hope you can enter!

Have a great weekend,
Fliss xx

Born To Stand Out For That's Crafty

Hello everyone and apologies for my lack of visiting this week as I haven't yet caught up from my hols and have been working full time since Wednesday with very little time for blogging (also have a dodgy internet connection!).
Today is my day to post at That's Crafty and this week I've made a bright tag featuring another of Sir Tim's quirky and crazy birds and I think he goes really well with the quote too.

Hope you like this and you'll find all the details over at the blog if you'd like to hop over.

I'll be back in a bit with the details of our new challenge today at That's Crafty Challenge Blog.

See you later!
Fliss xx

Something Beginning With An F

Hello everyone, I'm back from my holiday to Lake Garda with a slightly late post for our new challenge today over at Make My Monday mostly due to a dodgy internet connection over the last day or so.
I'd like to say welcome here to our new DT members Amy, Martina and Shawna and a big welcome back to Caz who has returned after a long break. Lovely to have you with us ladies and you certainly rocked Marina's chosen theme of Something With An F which if you hop on over to the blog will show you there are loads of options for this one.
My inspiration is the card for my mother in law's birthday tomorrow and is floral in her favourite shades of pink and green.

As you can see, a fairly simple creation for me as I wanted to showcase the gorgeous gerbera daisy flower die by Susan Tierney Cockburn for Sissix. I die cut the flower section from 2 shades of pink card and sponged and stippled the petals with Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry Distress inks. I then used several embossing ball tools to score, bend and shape the inked petals.
I die cut the stamens and flower centres from deep red and grey card and shaped these with the embossing tools before gluing all the flower sections together. I then used Cosmic Shimmer Twinkles by Phill Oliver in Decadent Oak to add dots to the flower centre.
I die cut 2 large and 2 small leaves fron 2 shades of green card, stippling these with Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn Distress inks, scoring and shaping as before with the embossing tools.
I added a strip of pink and green K and Co paper to my white card blank then glued on the flower and leaves.
I finished off with a Flonzcraft sentiment stamped on pale pink card with Archival Olive ink, matted on deep red paper, corner trimmed and added to the patterned paper panel.

Ciao for now and will be round to visit as soon as I can.
Fliss xx

Finding Time Art Journal Page For That's Crafty

Hello there, this is a scheduled post as I'm currently on my hols in Italy so I'm hoping Mr Blogger doesn't let me down.

I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty and I hope you'll pop over to see the whole thing as this is just a sneak peek. Hope you like it!

I'll be back at the weekend and will hopefully have some pics to share as we're at Lake Garda and lakes and mountains are one of my favourite things (apart from cable cars that is!!!)

See you soon.

Fliss xx