Bad Blogger Again!

Hello everyone, despite my best intentions blogging and visiting has gone out of the window again over the last few weeks.
It's partly due to my DT commitments as I've had lots of samples to create which is the good bit as it was lovely to get some crafting done (although I had a bit of a struggle as my mojo has been somewhat reluctant over the lockdown).
I have been out walking as much as I can which was necessary as it helps when I have to deal with difficult accounting stuff.
I have some artwork to share which I hope you like.

Another one that's part of the journal I created for the recent One Day Special That's Crafty! had on Hochanda with quite a lot of steampunk and industrial elements and I couldn't resist calling this Einstein A Go Go as it contains what I know will be my new favourite text stamp - can you guess what it is?

 

I'll be round to catch up over the Bank Holiday weekend and in the meantime, have a great weekend and stay safe and well.

Fliss xx

On Butterfly Wings

Hello everyone on a lovely sunny Good Friday. I hope you're all surviving the current lockdown and not going stir crazy! I always find crafting helps and luckily I'm still able to go out for a walk each day and so far everyone is very good at keeping their distance.

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with some very bright and pretty journal pages, chock full of floral detail as I wanted to show another way to use a lovely texture stamp.

I hope you all have a lovely Easter, well as much as you can under the current circumstances. We can't spend the weekend with our children as one is stuck in Brighton and the other in London but we will at least be able to talk to them via Skype.

See you soon.

Fliss xx

Back to Nature and all that!

Hello!

Hope you're all ok and managing to cope with all that's been thrown at you since the world went mad! This is a bit of a long post as I managed to snap a few pics on my walk this morning as nature is growing fast even if the rest of the world has come to rather a standstill.

I'm also over at That's Crafty! blog today where I've gone back to nature as I thought we could all do with a dose of serenity, the perfect time to share these particular art journal pages that were created for the February One Day Special on Hochanda.

I just love these gorgeous trees that were stamps created from the hand carved designs made by the very talented Lynne Moncrieff.

Now for my nature photos that I had to snap as it's so lovely to see nature in bloom.

I hope you like these as must as I enjoyed seeing and snapping the original flora.

Stay safe and well and keep on crafting!

Fliss x

Feelin' Groovy Baby!

Hello, hope you're all ok and managing to stay positive and cheerful in spite of all that's happening in the world at the moment.

Everything feels rather strange like a row of Saturdays and Sundays and going to the supermarket really is an ordeal! I did my usual weekly shop yesterday and we all had to queue around the outer edges of the huge carpark, 2 metres apart to enter the store. That took around half an hour as the queue was so long but when you actually got in the store it was a different story with quite a few people getting much closer than they were supposed to as they were so eager to grab the food! I mentioned this on the way out and was told they were now limiting the number of people in the store  as they seemed to have under estimated the length of time it took to do the shopping and pay.

It wasn't all bad though as the elderly man in front of me at the checkout had what I though was a walking stick in his hand but when he put it on his trolley I saw it was a riding crop!!! I nearly asked if it was to warn people away from him but thought better of it lol

I have my usual Friday post up over at That's Crafty! blog and this week I'm sharing a rather funky art journal spread with a retro vibe that I created for the last Hochanda shows.

You'll find all the details over at the blog.

Keep calm and keep on crafting and see you soon.
Fliss x

Art Journaling Day

Hello, I hope you're all coping in the current very difficult circumstances and surviving isolation if you have to do that. We're now on lockdown here in the UK and it's been difficult already as I've been doing financial things over the last couple of weeks as I'm the accounts and financial manager for my hubby's partnership which if you didn't know is an architectural business.

It's not just the shops suffering from lack of income as the business has lots of fees outstanding and no-one is paying them! This makes it so hard as we obviously can't pay our bills so we're scrambling around trying to find out what to do!

I have a couple of art journal spreads to share, one of which was my That's Crafty! post for last Friday and is very topical as is the other which shows how nature is so important to me although at the moment, the nearest I'll get is my garden! I think by the time the virus issue is over it might look a lot better than it does now.

This second is my nature refuge one.

This one has an ink spray beackground which I misted first using a stencil with walnut flat matte spray, flipping the stencil over and pressing the inky side on the other page. I followed this with the same stencil and aqua flat matte spray, flipping the stencil over again and repeating the previous step.

I stamped Alexa's gorgeous face on the right hand page with black ink, colouring her hair, eyes and lips with the amazing new satin inks from That's Crafty! I coloured her face with Prima watercolour pencils.

I stamped the trees (by Lynne Moncrieff) and mushrooms (by Melina Dahl) on the left hand page with dark brown ink, colouring the mushrooms with pencils and adding blossom to the trees by dotting with white, light pink and magenta multi surface paints until I was happy with the effect.

I then stamped the flower from the Alexa's face set directly on the pages with the same ink and coloured them with orange satin ink. I finished off with one of Lynne's fabulous affirmations from the trees set I used which I stamped on a scrap of ink spray overflow paper.

Have a great rest of the week and stay safe and well.

Fliss x

Attitude is Everything

Hello! Slightly late to let you know that my usual Friday post is up over at That's Crafty! Blog and this week I'm sharing a double page spread from my A4 journal which was one of the samples I created for the recent Hochanda shows. This journal is all about using printed papers and how you can make them your own.

You'll find all the details on how I created these pages by hopping over to the blog.

Thanks so much to everyone who left such kind comments on my last post about the scam attempt I suffered last week. It will take a while to get over it but I definitely won't be caught like that again!

Have a lovely weekend.
Fliss x

That's Crafty! and Other News

Hello all, I hope you're well and have had a good week, definitely better than mine anyway as I had a rather traumatic experience on Wednesday afternoon as a man phoned up saying he was from the security section of my bank and that a large transaction was about to go through my bank account and had I originated the payment, which I had not!

Suffice to say it went on from there with him piling on more and more pressure in various ways but it wasn't until he tried to get me to transfer money from a savings account to my current account (to protect my compromised accounts of course!) that I realised there was something radically wrong with the phone call (the number of the caller being that on my debit card by the way) and left him hanging on about to send me a "security email to prove his identity" and phoned Andy.

Andy phoned the bank and was told it was definitely a scam. I can't tell you how stupid I felt letting it get as far as it did, even though I did realise it before it was too late. You hear stories of other people being taken in by these sort of scams and don't understand how that happens. I can tell you now having been on the receiving end of one of these calls just how plausible and convincing these people can sound. It's really shaken me up too!

On another note entirely, a much more cheerful one, I have my usual Friday post up over at That's Crafty! blog and I'm sharing one of my sample journal spreads for this week's One Day Special on Hochanda featuring some of the gorgeous new stamp designs from Lynne which I absolutely love.

Here's one half of the spread but you'll need to hop over to the blog to see all of it.

Have a great weekend and see you soon.
Fliss x

Dragonfly Dreams

Hello everyone, I hope this finds you all well and sorry it's been so long since I've been here. Things have been very busy firstly with work then family stuff and then I got struck down on Bank Holiday Monday with a nasty sinus infection which has only fully cleared up in the last few days.

I've done some creative therapy as I had to take my car to the garage on Friday after a warning light came on and they phoned me later in the day to say that the cost of the repair is going to be over £1,600 due to having to take the engine apart to do it. It's really upset me as you can imagine so crafting has helped a bit to take my mind off it.

Hope you like what I've created with Melina's beautiful dragonfly stamp and her gorgeous lily design as I wanted to create a calming nature scene.

I used one of Melina's gorgeous masks with texture paste on one of That's Crafty! substrates, a large white/greyboard circle with 2 little holes to add a hanger.

Once it was dry, I misted the surface with Aqua and Basil flat matte sprays to colour it. As you can see, the white surface underneath picks up more colour to bring out the pattern made by the stencil.

I stamped the dragonfly on spray overflow paper in shades of blue and green, adding more detail with a mauve Zig brush pen. I cut the image out and painted on a coat of the new and gorgeous 3D holographic gel which if you haven't tried it is just amazing!

The lilies were stamped on white cartridge paper and coloured with flat matte sprays and Zig brush pens then cut out. The leaves were stamped on spray overflow papers as was the text. Everything was then cut out.

I assembled my panel as you see using silicone glue for a 3D effect and added thread made from recycled sari silk at the top.

Here are a few more of my creations from the last few weeks which I haven't shared here yet:

I'm hoping to try and be a better blogger from now on so fingers crossed that I can keep this promise!

Fliss xx

Brighten Up Your Life for That's Crafty!

Hello! Still trying to get back to blogging again and hopefully will now manage a bit more as my poor blog is now seeming rather rusty lol!

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with another of the journal spreads that I created for the last Hochanda shows. It's very bright and cheery and just what I need as today is dull and grey after the last few sunny and warm days.

If you'd like to see how I created these pages, please click HERE to be whisked over.

If you missed my earlier posts over at That's Crafty! Blog, here are a couple more of my journal creations which can be found there.

This is my front cover making use of the texture paste and the amazing new acrylic liquid wax which I used to embed Lynne's new and gorgeous leaf stamp which was heat embossed with rusty powder. Please click HERE to see how I created this.

These are my first shared pages which use Lynne's gorgeous new mark making stamps in a rather different way. Click HERE to see how it was done.

Hopefully I should now be able to get back into the swing of things a bit better and will hopefully be round soon too.

Fliss xx

Where Flowers Bloom for That's Crafty!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a really lovely Christmas and maybe got some lovely crafty goodies as presents - in my case this was some rather fab stitching and embroidery books as one of my resolutions is to go back to my sewing roots which have taken a back seat over the last few years.
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with my first post of the year which is a simple art journal page as I've been rather short on time due to a lot of family stuff going on over the festive season.

Have a great weekend and see you soon.

Fliss xx

Flowers Are A Must For Me at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello! I hope you're all well and surviving the current chilly weather. This is a scheduled post as today we have my mother in law Jean's funeral at last and we finally have the chance to get together and say goodbye to her properly. We miss her such a lot as before she became ill with dementia she was always so lively and great fun. I know she wouldn't like being as she was over the last year or so when things became really difficult so I hope she's now at peace.

I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog today where I'm sharing an art journal page that was quick to make as I've been short on time.

My page is all about my love for flowers and if you'd like to see the whole page you'll need to hop over to the blog.

I hope to be back to more blogging soon as it's taken very much a back seat lately and especially over the last few weeks as I got landed unexpectedly with hosting the after service lunch. The result has been a huge declutter and clean at home as my craft stuff is all over the downstairs of our house! It's all done and the only up side is that there'll be less to do for Christmas!

Fliss xx

Going Around In Circles at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a lovely Easter break and better weather than here as it was mostly cold, wet and windy with tons of rain on Sunday which actually caused puddles on our back lawn as there was too much water to drain away as usual. Something we hadn't had happen for years!
We have a new challenge today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and for April, we're Going Round In Circles, a favourite theme of mine as I love circle shapes so my inspiration is a journal page with layer upon layer of circles.

You can probably see that my inspiration for this was the sun which on it's current rare appearances, makes me happy, happy, happy!

This is actually the first page in my new black journal which I thought would be a good challenge to see how paints and inks would go on that background.

I first swiped on multi surface paints with an old store card, using first yellow, then lime and lastly teal until the surface was roughly covered leaving bits of the black underneath on show.

I then took That's Crafty! Textures Collection Sets 1 and 2 and used the various circle stamps to make my background, starting with the lined circle image and Ranger Carribean Coast dye ink, following with the double circle image and Archival Cobalt ink. I then used the 2 circle background images with Archival Cactus Flower and Fern Green inks to add texture, stamping without an acrylic block.

I stamped the rather jolly sun from Melina's Nature's Faces Set 1 with black ink, adding the happy text underneath, stamping 3 times. I coloured in the sun image with alcohol markers, followed by some pastel pencil to make the image pop more.

I finished off with some doodling in and around the circles with a white and yellow pastel pencil. I sprayed the page with fixative to ensure the pastel stayed put too.

Hopefully you can enter and there are fab prizes on offer with a voucher for the online shop for the randomly drawn winner and stencils for the top 3 which the design team choose. How can you resist?!

Have a great week.
Fliss xx

Bloom Doodled Art Journaling

Hello everyone, it's finally starting to warm up a bit as we've had some sunshine today and this has inspired me to do some doodling in my art journal. Most of it is done with Sharpie markers in various widths after I made a painty background so read on to hear what I did.

My background was made with watered down That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paints in shades of blue, teal and purple which I applied with sponges to cover my page. I then spritzed on some That's Crafty! Sparkler Spray using blue and lilac for some added shimmer.
Once the background was completely dry, I doodled on my floral design with Sharpies in various widths, adding dots and lines shooting out towards the edges and then scribbling on my chosen words as you see.
My finishing touch was to use the design element on the That's Crafty! Time Word Art stencil with white multi surface paint to add streams of dots.

Have a great week whatever you're doing and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Yesterday's Workshop with Leonie Pujol

Hello everyone, I hope you had a lovely weekend as I did, as I was lucky enough to attend a workshop yesterday run by the lovely Leonie Pujol and we got to play with Powertex, very messy but great fun and also created a very textured journal page.

I managed to finish off my journal page as when I left, the texture gel on the star wasn't quite dry as it starts out white then goes clear when dry. I also added a little detail to the stencilled white fibre paste, outlining the areas in black and decorating with dots to make them pop more.

The page involved rice paper, Distress stains and crayons, stamping, stencilling and fibre paste all topped off with some metallic wax which doesn't quite show here but gave a lovely glow to the page in places.

We decorated the front of a Pink Pig book with Powertex dipped mixed media elements, in my case using the black and you should have seen my hands when I finished adding the elements, I looked as if I'd dipped them in a tar bucket! Happily it comes off with water and a bit of scrubbing. Once the front was dry, we used shimmery paints on top. here's the main detail on mine although it will change as I want to make the colours stronger so will post this again once I've finished playing with it.

You can see all the ladies' creations over on Leonie's website if you click HERE

It's amazing how different everyone's makes are when we all started off with the same thing.

Have a great week and see you again soon.
Fliss xx

2017 in Review

Hello again and Happy New Year if you missed my post of yesterday. I've decided to share a dozen of my personal favourite creations from 2017, one from each month of the year to possibly reflect my developing style. I hope you like them.

January

An art journal page to reflect my eye troubles last year

February

Another art journal page reflecting my enforced job changes

March

More art journaling reflecting my future hopes

April

A Hochanda sample in my bright and zingy style

May

A mixed media panel with gorgeous new stamps by Donna which I was thrilled to have the priviledge to work with

June

I was thrilled to have finally cracked the acrylic stack technique with this underwater themed panel set featuring gorgeous Marina again all blinged up

July

Mixed media layers for a glam grunge art panel with a favourite butterfly theme

August

A truly mixed media piece inspired by a rusty factory on the side of a loch seen on our holiday to Scotland's lochs

September

My favourite bark technique for a woodland creation with the gorgeous new greyboard embellishments

October

My challenge to myself to create something in half an hour, quite a challenge as I'm not a fast crafter!

November

A very vintage mixed media panel with die cuts that I cut from corrugated card and texture paste through a stencil

December

My favourite from the Hochanda One Day Special samples I created which has multiple layers on a nature theme

I hope you like seeing these again or for the first time if you missed them when they first appeared or if we didn't know each other then.

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy and creative year ahead.

Fliss xx