Cafe de Paris

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend and managed to stay warm. We actually had to put the heating on for a while which has to be the first time we've done that in September in quite a long while.
I'm excited to tell you today that we have the start of a new monthly theme over at Make My Monday and this time it's my turn to choose. I've picked France so the challenges for the month concern everything FRENCH with the theme for this week being PARIS. This is mostly because this wonderful city is on my wish list as we still haven't managed to get there - a big hint to my OH I think!

I decided to create a Parisian cafe scene for my card and started by making a background paper. I inked the square of paper with Crushed Olive, Victorian Velvet, Spiced Marmalade, Dried Marigold and Mustard Seed Distress inks and then stamped on the fleur de lys and squares design from an All Night Media French clear stamp set (ref 91416) with Archival coffee ink and my trusty Hero Arts manuscript stamp with the Spiced Marmalade.
I then stamped the Eiffel Tower (B Line Designs), the cafe ladies (Art Impressions) and the cafe sign and text (All Night Media) with the coffee ink, coloured the ladies with Promarkers and cut them all out.
I then assembled the card as you see, adding a border punched with the Martha Stewart wrought iron punch which I inked with Vintage Photo DI and embossed with clear powder.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for this challenge and if you'd like some more inspiration, do pop over to the challenge blog as my teamies have risen to this chosen beautifully.
Have a great week.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
That Craft Place Challenge - Make Your Own Backgrounds
Card Crafters Circle - Vintage
Frilly and Funkie - Fall Into Fall (Autumn Colours)
Vintage Stamping Challenge - Anything Goes

Snow Is Falling

Hello folks, hope you've all had a lovely weekend.
Before I share some cards with you, apologies are necessary for my lack of blogging and commenting this week which is because I've been a bit under the weather. First I had a headache and puffy eyed thing which meant not being able to wear my contact lenses all day. Then when that got better I went down with a mild stomach bug which nevertheless made me feel rather rotten.
I'm recovered now so will try and catch up with you all over the next few days. The cards here are the samples from a class I taught last week using a rather lovely clear stamp set by Papermania called Christmas Time.

This is the stamp set that I used for my oval easel card for the FSC challenge last Sunday and you can see how versatile it is.
The first 2 cards use the gorgeous snowy village and were coloured with Promarkers using pink skin tones and accents for the first on and ivory to golden shades for the second. These are really easy to colour if you assemble 5 or 6 similar shades and arrange in colour order, starting with the lightest first. You then use the lightest colour all over first using the broad chisel end. You then add detail to the houses and so on using the rest of the colours in order from lightest to darkest. As a finishing touch, you go all over the top again with the lightest colour - this was Satin on the pink version and Ivory on the golden version. When dry, add glitter highlights or snow effects with Fluffy Stuff (Woodware).
The pink card uses a snowflake from the set stamped in Brilliance Galaxy Gold, Pearlescent Beige and Coral together with a Hero Arts sentiment stamped with the beige. A die cut gold mat was added to the village panel.
The golden version has a snowflake embossed panel, a deckle trimmed kraft card mat, punched leaf sprays, pearls and ribbon and a die cut sentiment panel.
The remaining cards show how different the seasonal door image can look. The first one took a while to colour with Promarkers and has an embossed side, a Hero Arts sentiment panel and a cut out wreath also coloured with Promarkers.
The second one was coloured in a similar way to the village cards, using Ivory first then adding pink shades and pastel blue for the door for a completely different look. The card has a kraft background panel embossed at the base and stamped with an Art Impressions snowflake which was white embossed and a snowflake from the set stamped with Brilliance Ice Blue. The greeting panel is Penny Black.

Challenges for my cards:
Paper Sundaes - Winter Wonderland
Gingerloft - Winter or Christmas
Stamptacular Sunday - Anything Christmas
Totally Papercrafts - Christmas
4 Crafty Chicks - Snowflakes
Fun With Shapes & More - Cold As Ice (the first 2 cards only)

Thanks for looking and have a good next week.
Fliss xx

Christmas Foliage, Flowers and Snowflakes

Morning everyone, a bit of a long title I know but this is the theme of the new challenge over at Make My Monday which you give you plenty of scope for your entries and help with those Christmas cards still needing to be made. Rather a lot in my case but I'm slowly getting there.
I chose snowflakes for mine as I couldn't find my lovely poinsettia stamp (until I finished this card of course!) and I've gone for a blue and brown colour scheme as I really like that combination of colours.

I started off with a kraft card blank and stamped an Art Impressions snowflake all over with Stormy Sky and Frayed Burlap Distress inks. I added a blue border embossed with the Cuttlebug snowflakes folder and some silver ric rac braid.
I stamped the snowman (Art Impressions) on white card, coloured his hat with a brown Promarker and ink and cut out a panel with a Nestabilities label die then inked the edges. I then inked it up with Versamark ink and heat embossed it with crystal embossing powder. I set this on a larger silver mat cut with the same die set.
I stamped the sentiment (Crafty Individuals) with brown and blue inks, cut this out and set it on a kraft tag embossed with the snowflakes folder. I added this to a blue tag shaped mat and finished off with more silver braid.

The Design Team have made some gorgeous creations to inspire you so don't forget to pop over for a look. Hoping to see you enter too.

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges:
Moving Along With The Times - Let It Snow
I Did It Creations - Snowmen
Scrappy Frogs - Kraft Cardstock

Have a great week,
Fliss xx

Spots And Dots

Good morning everyone, it's Friday again and the week disappeared really quickly - I can't believe it's almost the weekend!
As it's Friday, we have a new challenge over at Polka Doodles which has been chosen by team mate Miria. She would like to see your creations with Spots & Dots. It's also our stashbox stamps week so my card has quite a few stamps from my stash as I decided on a collage style effect. As you'll see, if you stamp directly on the background paper, you'll get lots of interest without adding too much weight to the card.

I've chosen a very chic paper to go with the lovely image of 2 ladies relaxing with a drink and the scene always seems to have a French flavour so where better to put them than Paris.
The lovely dotty paper is from the Paper Boutique Vol 3 CD and I stamped this with the Eiffel Tower and Paris text by B Line Designs and a dotty stamp by Great Impressions. I used VersaFine Smokey Gray ink which is softer then black and inked the edges with a brown ink pad.
I stamped the ladies (Art Impressions) with the same grey ink and added them to a mat of kraft card. I finished off with pretty border with stripes and dots from the A Double Sprinkle Of Kraft CD.

Don't forget to pop over and look at the Design Team inspiration as our new team members have joined in this week and there are loads of lovely creations on show.

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:
Delightful Challenges - Use Digital Paper
More Than Favors - Travel
My Time To Craft - Here Come The Girls
The Stamping Boutique - Stripes & Dots
The Paper Variety - Travel

Have a lovely weekend,
Fliss xx