Joy and Serendipity at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello everyone, apologies yet again for my lack of visiting. My whole week has been spent down at my in laws house moving my father in law's clothes downstairs to the bedroom he will use when he gets home (some washing needed doing too!) and dealing with taking my mother in law's clothing to charity shops plus a dress agency which will be selling some of the more high value items to raise more money for charity. I still have to sort out her flower arranging stuff as my father in law has asked me to do that so I'll be down there again next week to get it done. It seems never ending at the moment!
My father in law is now much better and can walk at last and get out of bed by himself. We're now waiting for him to be transferred to a rehabilitation centre to get him ready to return home.

I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog today too and it's another tag using lots of the new products from the last Hochanda show.

You'll find all the details of how it came about over at the blog.

Have a great weekend and will be round as soon as I can find a spare hour or two!
Fliss xx

Imagine - A Mixed Media Tag for That's Crafty!

Hello all, I'm really glad it's Friday as I've had quite a week with sorting out my mother in law's clothing, shoes etc. I'm almost there now and just have her knitwear to deal with plus her coats of which she has a lot! The end is finally in sight and all I have left are some very expensive items that I want to take to a dress agency that my mother in law loved to see if they can be sold and raise more for charity.

I have my usual Friday tutorial over at That's Crafty! Blog and this week I'm sharing a mixed media tag on one of the new substrates with one of Lynne's beautiful new Word Flower stamps.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.

Fliss xx

Spookalicious Part 2

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a good week so far. Mine has been very busy as I'm in the middle of the rather daunting task of sorting through my mother in law's closets full of clothes and it's taking ages as she has an awful lot of stuff! There will be some very happy charity shops once I've got everything together.
As we're now half way through our October challenge at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog with our topical theme of Spookalicious, I have a little more inspiration to share.

Hope you like my tombstone which I created using one of the fab dinky MDF uprights.

I gave the front and base a coat of black multi surface paint, then scraped texture sand paste down the front, leaving a slightly thicker layer on the top half temporarily. I inked up some alphabet stamps with black ink and pushed them into the wet texture paste to create the debossed R.I.P. as shown above. I then scraped off some of the excess texture paste to create a worn stone effect.
Once the paste was completely dry, I painted it with diluted grey and green multi surface paints, allowing them to run down the surface.
I added diluted paint to the base section and glued the tombstone into it. I die cut some ivy using the Tim Holtz Garden Greens die set and some green painted paper then dabbed it with some black paint before gluing it on.
I used black paint with the Scaredy Cat Dinky stencil to create my cat on some white card and cut the cat out. I made him some eyes with a scrap of green card and added the pupils with a black Sharpie pen. I glued him on to finish my spooky make.

There are some great prizes if you enter so don't forget to check out the challenge blog and see what you'd be missing if you didn't.

Have a great rest of the week.
Fliss xx

Going Floral at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello everyone on a rather blustery day, it seems like Autumn has arrived at last as it's definitely that sort of weather today.
Apologies for not visiting much lately, I'm in the middle of the rather daunting task of sorting out my mother in law's clothes on behalf of my father in law and it's taking ages as she has a lot of very lovely and classy items which I'm reluctant to just give to the local charity shops as they're worth quite a lot. I'm trying to find second hand clothing shops that would be interested at the moment so we could get more for them and donate it to a charity we choose.

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a floral mixed media chunkie which I hope you'll like if you hop over to see how it came about.

I've been playing with the texture pastes again as I love these for mixed media.

Have a great weekend and will visit as soon as I can find some spare time.
Fliss xx

Dragonfly Collage and Hochanda News

Hello! I hope you've all had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend as I am. I have one of my samples for today's Hochanda show which if you're reading this before 12 noon you can watch!

Here's a sneak peek of my dragonfly collage which I hope you'll hop over to That's Crafty! Blog to see the whole photo of and of course, how I created it.

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

Fliss xx

Quoth The Raven

Hello! Welcome to my inspiration for our new challenge this month over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog where, being October, we have the theme of Spookalicious and would like to see your creepy or Halloween artwork.
My mixed media panel was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and came about because when rummaging through my stencils, I came across my as yet unused raven stencil.

I chose a square MDF panel and covered this roughly with texture sand paste, leaving a few bits of the panel uncovered - mainly around the edges.
I sprayed the panel with Walnut, Blueberry and Blackberry flat matte sprays, giving it several coats and drying between each one.
Once the background was completely dry, I used the raven stencil with texture paste to create my main image. I let this dry well and then painted it with Black multi surface paint by placing the stencil back on top and applying the paint with a sponge.
I then removed the stencil and painted in between the sections as well to form a complete image. I then added some highlights to the bird with Metallic Blue and Silver multi surface paints. I went around the edges with Red shimmer paint and also painted his eye.
I trimmed a greyboard tree so that it would fit on the side and covered it with texture paste, scraping in a knarled bark pattern with a cocktail stick. When it was dry, I painted it with black multi surface paint and charcoal shimmer paint, treating several greyboard leaves in the same way. I glued these on the left hand side of my collage.
I stamped the skulls (actually the skull and crossbones image from Donna's Claire stamp set) on mixed media paper with black pigment ink and clear embossed them. I coloured them a little with my Zig pens and then heat embossed them further with Vintage Beeswax Baked Texture embossing powder. I also used this on a Tim Holtz quote chip.
I created a spooky moon in the top right hand corner with texture paste using a circle stencil and coloured this with a mix of multi surface and shimmer paints.

I hope you can join us for some great prizes.

Thank you to everyone who left kind comments on my last post. My father in law is now recovering well and is awaiting transfer to an NHS centre for physiotherapy care.

See you soon.
Fliss xx