Spring Green

Hello everyone, hope you're having a good weekend. Spring actually felt like it was here this morning but the weather has now started to turn grey again.
Before I show you my creation I'd just like to say that my very best wishes go out to those suffering from the earthquake after effects in Japan as I've been so horrified with all the devastation caused by the tsunami. Those of you that know me will be aware that my elder daughter Claire is studying Japanese at Sheffield uni and returned a few months ago from spending a year over there at Tsukuba university. Whilst there, she made a number of Japanese friends and has been very upset by the disaster. As far as she can tell her friends are all OK as Tsukuba is quite a distance from the area hit by the tidal wave and only suffered a loss of power due to the power station shut down. I can only hope that the power station causing problems can be made safe.

After the doom and gloom, I have a piece of artwork that I finished today which was made with Spring in mind, inspired by the sunny weather of the last couple of days.

My wall hanging is made out of squares from my bits and pieces box and was inspired by the current and sadly last Compendium of Curiosities challenge - Design Details, on page 67 of Sir Tim's awesome book. I can't tell you the techniques as these are in the book and hopefully you have a copy. The pieces I decided to display use most of the techniques that I really enjoy doing to make my background papers and all except the diamond stamped paper (left over from a very long time ago) were made using Distress inks in various ways. They mostly involve my 2 favourite colours, Crushed Olive and Victorian Velvet which I also used to colour the stamped flowers and the butterfly which are all by Hobby Art.

I'm entering my creation in the following challenges:
Studio L3 Compendium of Curiosities - Design Details
Sir Stampalot March Challenge - Spring Is In The Air
The Artistic Stamper March Challenge - Spring Has Sprung
Meljen's Designs - Green

I've also got a little reminder that there's still time to enter the current Lets Ink It Up challenge - Show Us Your Embossing which has another week left for you to make your creations. It's really easy as all you need to do is break out those embossing folders or embossing powder and combine them with some stamping - please remember that no digital images are allowed as the LIIU challenges are all about getting inky.

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Vintage Style

Good afternoon everyone, it's a gorgeous sunny day down south although somewhat chilly as we started this morning off with a frosty temperature of 1 degree - very unusual for mid October. I had to dig out my winter woollies!
I'm here today (in the middle of some very difficult work which came about from a VAT inspection at one of my book-keeping clients where the lady inspector made us feel like naughty school children!!!) with a finally finished entry for Linda Ledbetter's Studio L3 Compendium of Curiosities Week 18 Challenge which is Sir Tim's fabulous  Dabber Resist Technique on page 37 of the book. I can see I will be doing more of this as it fits very well with my favourite vintage style.

As you can see, the technique made a very vintage style background paper with my choice of colours, these being a Paint Dabber in Lemonade and Vintage Photo Distress ink. The flourish stamp is from a set by Viva Decor available from The Craft Barn.
I stamped the same flourish on a manila tag with Vintage Photo ink and added a pretty vintage image from Dezinaworld on a mat of dusky pink velvet paper trimmed with scallop scissors. I also added a small piece of Gisela Graham ribbon and a brass stamping from Empire Beads.
I assembled the card with a border of the pink velvet paper with a lace doily border of cream velvet paper made with a Martha Stewart punch. Pink pearls were used to decorate the flower centres on the border. The final finishing touch was a flower from the Prima Essentials range, coloured with Promarkers with a pearl centre.
My card also fits the current Charisma Cardz challenge theme of Vintage so I'm entering it in that one too.
Thanks for looking.
Fliss x

Meadow Tag

Morning all on a very bright Sunday. Hope you're all having a good weekend. I'm on my tod at the moment as my hubby has had to go to a church service at one of the many churches where he's the church architect as he has to discuss colour schemes with the vicar.
I have another of my experimental pieces from yesterday to show you and as it's a tag, I'm also going to enter this in the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge, Wrinkle Free Distress for week 16.

This one's a bit different as when I was experimenting with card yesterday, I used a bit too much water and dropped on an embossed pattern kitchen towel to mop up the excess. The resulting colours looked so lovely on the textured surface that I dried it off and glued it to the tag to make a background.
I stamped on images from the Penny Black Enjoy Life clear set in black and added a Japanese coin (kindly donated by my elder daughter) to the top.
I also think that sometimes the simplest thing is the best so I hope you like it.
Fliss xx

Enjoy

Hello everyone, hope you're all having a good weekend. I have yet another card to share with you as I've been doing lots of crafting this week to keep me occupied and sane as I'm missing my 2 girls loads at the moment. As I work mostly from home it's very strange being by myself from 8am to 7pm a lot of the time.
This card is my entry for Linda Ledbetter of Studio L3's Compendium of Curiosities week 16 challenge - Wrinkle Free Distress from page 33 of Sir Tim's book. Click HERE if you'd like to see all the other gorgeous entries.

I made the background paper with the wrinkle free distress technique and Distress inks in Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Crushed Olive. I then stamped on Hero Arts G3664 Leaf with Stitching in Rusty Hinge DI.
I then had somewhat of a dilemma as I like the background so much that it seemed a crime to cover it up! After a lot of thought, I decided the simple approach was best and simply added a stamped butterfly (from the Inkadinkado Garden Delight set) in VersaFine Spanish Moss ink sponged with Wild Honey Distress ink.
I finished off with some Gisela Graham ribbon and text from the Penny Black Enjoy Life clear stamp set.

Harlequin Flower

Hello everyone, hope you're all having a good weekend. I'm very inky fingered here having been experimenting with Tim Holtz's fabulous Alcohol Ink Agate on Grunge technique from page 53 of his Compendium of Curiosities which is the subject of this week's challenge at Linda Ledbetter's Studio L3.
My creation turned out a little different to my original plan as I couldn't find my grunge board (a really big tidy up is on the cards I think!) and used instead some harlequin patterned grunge board squares that I did come across in my search. The end result is a little more blingy than intended because the pattern on the grunge board caused the alcohol ink to behave in a different way.
Here it is!

I arranged my treated squares in a grid pattern to fit this week's challenge 77 at Stamptacular Sunday and glued them to a piece of silver embossed card rubbed with Royal Purple Stazon ink.
I inked a larger square of the same card with Olive Green Stazon ink and then stamped on Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz paisley with the purple ink.
I cut out some metal flowers with the Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Florals die and coloured these with alcohol inks. I stamped the paisley design on the larger flower petals. I added a brass charm in the centre.
That's it from me until next week as I'm off to Ally Pally to the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show tomorrow and have a very early start!

Blended Batik Effect with Klimt

Hope you've all had a good weekend. I've had a very busy day baking as we had lots of family here for tea today before my 2 girls head off for uni so I'm very late with this entry for a couple of challenges. The first of these is Gingersnap Creations GC65 - Famous Painters or Paintings.  Mine was inspired by Gustav Klimt and in particular his Lady With Fan painting as I'm always drawn to the beautiful colours and patterns he uses in his work.
As I used Tim Holtz's Blended Batik technique from page 36 of his fabulous Compendium of Curiosities Book to make the background paper with just a slight twist of my own to make it Klimt style, I'm hoping it will qualify for Linda Ledbetter of Studio L3's Compendium of Curiosities Week 11 Challenge.

My little twist to Tim's technique was just to colour the stamped images by sponging and painting with various Distress ink colours before carrying out the final step. My base colours are Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed as I was trying to reproduce the glorios rich colour of Klimt's painting and I think Distress inks are ideal for this.
The lovely image I used is from Dezinaworld's Emerald Collage Sheet and the stamps are Elusive Images Curly Birds UA5SP0253 and Papermania Hampstead Sketch Flower PMA9072100.