All of a Sparkle at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello again and welcome to my inspiration for the new challenge over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog where for the next fortnight we're All of a Sparkle!

There's quite a bit of sparkle here although it isn't easy to see it in the photo as my camera struggled a bit with the colour and the glittery elements.

I made the background paper by pressing a square of mixed media paper on my large Gelli Plate on which I brayered Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Acrylics (Blush, Sherbert and Wisteria). I then used the large circles Dinky Stencil with Wisteria paint and the circles background with Lavender paint and Wisteria to add a pattern to the paper.

I stamped Penny (one of Donna's lovely stamps) on mixed media paper and painted her with various Fresco acrylics then over painted her frock with Grape Stickles glitter glue. I cut her out and added a flower painted with glitter glue to her hair.

I glued the background paper to a card blank then added a couple of toning doilies and a scrap of green crochet ribbon. I added Penny with foam tape and finished off with a glittered up die cut and text.

There's a fab prize for the randomly drawn winner and all you have to do is enter!

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

Roses in Bloom for That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, I hope you've all had a good week and sorry I haven't been around much lately, things have been rather busy again on the home front with little time for blogging.
This is to let you know I have a post today over at That's Crafty! Blog where I'm sharing a card featuring Donna's stamps again as I just love this rose stamp and as you'll see, I have roses galore on there!

Hope you like it and you'll find all the details over at the blog as usual.

I'll be back in a while as we have a new challenge today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and I'll have my inspiration to share.

Fliss xx

Love Gives You Wings For That's Crafty!

Hello everyone from a rather tired Fliss. I've been really busy since we got back from our hols in Austria with all sorts of family stuff as well as work and some crafting behind the scenes too.

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a tag featuring what I think is my favourite of the new That's Crafty! clear stamp sets by our own Donna Gray. This is Serena and isn't she lovely and looking so angelic too.

You'll find all the details over at the blog as usual if you'd like to see how my many layered tag was created.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend too and I'll be round very soon to catch up if I haven't already.

Fliss xx

Christmas in September at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello again, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog for the next fortnight even though it's chucking down the rain at the moment!
Here's my inspiration which I hope you like as it's a 2 for the price of one type creation. My hubby liked them and asked how easy they were to make and could he order 50 for the office!

They weren't that difficult to make, the only tricky bit being sticking on the die cut trees.

I made a sheet of decorated paper with an A4 piece of white card. I added dots of DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Green Gold, Yellow Green Light, Titan Buff, Metallic Gold - to my 8x10 Gelli Plate, spread the colour with a brayer and misted with water, pressing on the card to pick up the paint and smooshing on the white bits left with the brayer to cover the card roughly. I then misted on more water and picked up a second print which meant enough paper for quite a few cards - yippee!

I then stamped on the dry papers with text from the Tim Holtz Scribbly Christmas stamp set using Fern Green Archival ink and Galaxy Gold Brilliance ink. I was hoping to cut each A4 sheet in 4 but the dies are a bit big for that so I cut squares instead which left me with 4 narrow bits to use on more cards.

I die cut 2 trees from the square which left me with a negative to use on a second card - good huh!I dry embossed the centre of a white card blank front with a snowflake folder and then glued the negative panel on top.

For the second card, I dry embossed the card front with a snowflake border folder then glued on the 2 die cut trees. I stamped on the winter wonderland text with the gold Brilliance ink to finish.

It's great to have finally made a start on my Christmas cards and if you do the same you could win a fab prize of a voucher for the online shop.

That's Crafty! are also at Ally Pally at the weekend so do visit the stand if you're lucky enough to attend as there will be lots of demos and make and takes with Lauren Hatwell, Alison Hall, Helen Chilton, Carol Fox and Kerry Roberts - not to be missed! Have a great time if you do go!

Fliss xx

Cracklin' Rose Tag For That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, you may already know about this but if not. we're celebrating the launch of That's Crafty's own range of stamps designed by our very own Donna Gray. The stamps are most definitely in Donna's style being rather quirky and unique and I can't wait to show you all the things I am in the middle of creating, but for now, there is just the one.

I think you can probably guess what inspired my tag - are you singing yet?!

You'll find all the details on how I made my tag over at That's Crafty! Blog as usual.

I'll be back in a while as we have a new challenge today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and it's one that might seem a bit strange in view of the heatwave we've been having!

Fliss xx

Autumn Colour Challenge at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope this finds you all OK and I'm just back from my hols in lovely Austria which was mostly very hot even at 1300 metres up a mountain believe it or not!
I will share some of the pics I took in the next couple of days when I've gone through them all as I took quite a lot this time and it will take a while to find the best ones.
We have a new challenge today over at Make My Monday, chosen by Caz with the theme of Autumn or Fall Colours and as usual the first thing that popped into my head was Autumn leaves as being an Autumn girl by birth, I just love the turning leaves as the colours are so glorious.

Here's my inspiration and unusually for me, there's no stamping! I hope you like it as I'm a bit iffy about this one - it's very simple to make the leaves speak for themselves.

I made the leaves by colouring a sheet of copy paper, pressing on Distress inks - Fossilized Amber, Crushed Olive and Rusty Hinge - in a rather haphazard way. I then scrunched the paper up a little.

I then used an X Cut maple leaf die to die cut the leaves and I have a tip for you here as the paper being thin was not so easy to die cut. I solved the problem by placing some greaseproof paper underneath to stop the leaf sticking to the plate. I then peeled the coloured leaf off the greaseproof. This gave me a second leaf which I will colour and use on something else - the greaseproof looks a lot like vellum.

I dry embossed part of my square kraft card blank with a Darice embossing folder and added a strip of paper from my mixed media pad which had picked up Brusho colour, the golden shades happily toning well with my Autumn colour scheme.

I added the leaves with foam tape and a sticker from the Tim Holtz Small Talk Occasions book which I cut in half as I felt it fit better like that.

I'll be round to catch up as soon as I can after I've dealt with the million and one things I have to do!
Fliss x

Pearls In Her Hair For That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, I'm hoping this post pops up as scheduled as I'm currently on holiday in Austria with no internet access!

I have a post today over at That's Crafty! as usual being Friday and this week I have a tutorial on how I made my MDF tag which features one of the latest Carabelle Studio stamps.

Here's a sneak peek and you'll find all the details over at the blog if you'd like to hop over.

I'm back at the weekend so will be round to visit as soon as I can.

Fliss xx

Craft Stamper!

Hello everyone, a quick post to let you know that the October issue of Craft Stamper hit the shops today and guess who has a project featured in there which has made me really proud!

I'm only allowed to share a sneak peek of my project which you can see above and I think you can probably guess the theme I chose from this :D

My team mates at That's Crafty! are also featured and there's a very varied selection of projects all made with the same substrate. Alison, Lynne, Amanda, Moira and Donna are all featured along with me thanks to Laura and Graham at That's Crafty! and of course Craft Stamper editor, Trish Latimer.

Hope you manage to see the mag and you won't be disappointed as there are lots of fabulous projects in there including the gorgeous cover artwork by Brenda Brown.

Have a great week and see you when I get back from my hols.
Fliss xx

All Square At That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello and welcome to my inspiration gor the new challenge today at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog. This will be my last post for a bit apart from scheduled posts which I hope will pop up as planned as I'm off on my hols to Austria tomorrow and will be incommunicado as my phone doesn't have FB and the screen is not big enough for me to be able to see anything blog wise clearly enough!

When I found out what the challenge was the first thing that sprang to mind with the theme of All Square was patchwork quilt squares. Here's what I made and I hope you like it!

Do you like my patchwork squares? My hubby thought they were fabric when he saw the background paper I made. My treasured Tim Holtz Lady Rose has come out to play again, this time in rather vintage style.

The roses in the stamp set are gorgeous and lend themselves very well to repeat stamping which is what I did here using Archival inks in Fern Green and Plum, roughly inking up the flowers with the plum and the leaves with the green. I stamped on as many of the large images as I could fit then took the stamp off the acrylic block. I inked up just portions of the images with same same inks and filled in the gaps, holding the stamp in my hands and pressing down gently to transfer the ink.

Once I finished stamping, I coloured the images with a Spun Sugar and Crushed Olive Distress Markers. I then sponged Antique Linen Distress ink over the top and serendipity struck again! The sponge seemed to pick up some of the Distress marker colour and the result looked just like vintage stained fabric - how's that for luck!

I cut 4 squares from the paper and pierced holes around the edges with the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Ruler, creating the effect of stitching with the Aged Mahogany Distress Marker. I then stuck them on a square of double sided adhesive sheet (floating around in my stash for an age!). I left gaps between the squares and pressed Finnabair Art Ingredients Bronze Micro Beads on to the adhesive.

I added the panel to a square kraft card blank. I stamped Lady Rose on mixed media paper with the plum ink, colouring her with Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Acrylics. I trimmed the image to a square panel and inked around the image with Spun Sugar Distress ink. I then stamped around the edges with an image from the Tim Holtz Damask stamp set using the Spun Sugar Distress Marker to ink the stamp.

I distressed the edges of the panel with an emery board and inked them up with plum before attaching to the background panel. I finished off with some inked Big Chat stickers.

Have a great weekend and a lovely week and see you in a while.
Fliss xx

The Poppy Field For That's Crafty!

Hi there, I hope you've all had a good week and welcome to my first post of the day which is to let you know that I have my usual Friday project over at That's Crafty! and this week it's the second part of my triptych as I'm sharing the other side which continues the nature theme.

This is the middle panel and you'll find the whole triptych with full instructions on how I made it over at the blog as usual if you'd like to hop over.

I'll be back in a while as we have a new challenge today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog which goes live at 8am and I can't wait to share my inspiration!

Back soon,
Fliss xx