Just Because

Hello everyone, hope you're have a good start to the Bank Holiday weekend. I've managed to fit in a bit of crafting after the supermarket trip and a trip to town with my Sarah who's home for the weekend.
It's something that was a bit of an experiment and I'm not quite sure about it! I wanted to do something for the Rubber Dance second April challenge which is to use Black and White with One Colour and I picked green with my beloved Crushed Olive Distress ink which is one of my favourite shades.

I made the paper, which is actually foreground rather than background due to my experiment, by pressing the Distress inkpad repeatedly on a square of white card to make a sort of grungy criss cross design.
I glued this onto a mat of black card leaving a narrow border all round. Then came my experiment as I tried stamping the asters from the Antique Botanicals stamp set on white card and die cutting into a shape before adding to the card. It didn't quite work as I wanted so instead I die cut a shape out of the inked paper attached to the mat.
I placed this on my white card blank and marked the top and sides of the cut out with a pencil dot, then stamped the asters directly on the card blank.
I added a little more green using a Crushed Olive Distress marker on the leaves and flowers then finished off the card with a Tim Holtz sticker (as an aside, my hubby came in when I was adding the sticker, looked and the book and said it must have been very time consuming cutting out all the stickers - he thought I did it!!!).

You'll have to let me know what you think as I'm still rather iffy about it.

 

I want to say thank you so much here to Bibi for my prize from the recent blog hop which arrived a couple of days ago and I've only just had time to say this. I'm thrilled with the stamps and Bibi has generously included some more stamps as well - thank you sooo much and I hope to play with them very soon xx

I'm linking this up to the current Rubber Dance Challenge in the nick of time I think as the challenge ends tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend,
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

Feminine Challenge At That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello again and welcome to my inspiration for our new challenge today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and having had a masculine theme last time, this time it's one for the girls!

I have a rather girly tag to share created with the gorgeous Lady Rose stamps by Tim Holtz. Hope you like it!

I sponged a large white/greyboard tag from That's Crafty! surfaces range with pink and green acrylic paints - Paper Artsy Fresco Finish acrylics in Blush and Guacamole.
I then stamped on the small ticket image from the set with Fern Green Archival ink, stamping off on scrap paper first to make the colour more subtle.
I stamped the larger rose spray on twice, inking with Fern Green and Potting Soil Archival inks. I then coloured the flowers and leaves with pink and green Distress Markers.
I next stamped the main image on stamping card, coloured with a mix of pencils and Distress Markers and cut it out. I added the image near the bottom of the tag, with her hair over the edge slightly.
I finished off with some crochet lace trim and tied some ribbons through the top.

I hope you can join us as there's a great prize for the randomly drawn winner.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

In The Garden At Make My Monday

Hello and welcome to my first post of the week. I hope you're all well and had a good weekend. Mine was busy as usual with family stuff as one of my nephews has his 21st this week. I'll be sharing his card later in the week too but for now I have my inspiration for the new challenge today at Make My Monday which has the theme of In The Garden.

My card is actually one I made for a friend a little while ago who was going through a very difficult time and I hope you like it.

I used a Tim Holtz stamp set that I love and have had for quite a while. I inked up the flowers with Fern Green Archival ink and Pink Grapefruit Versa Magic ink and stamped them several times on thick smooth cartridge paper. I stamped the bird with Memories chalk coffee ink and added the Tim Holtz sentiment with the same ink.
I coloured the bird with a pink Distress Marker and then inked the panel with Spun Sugar Distress ink used a sponge applicator. I added my panel to a white card blank to finish.

I hope you can join us and let us know what inspired you to make your creation.

Have a great week and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Something Fluffy For Make My Monday

Hello all, I hope you had a lovely weekend and managed to fit in some crafting time as I did, although only a little in my case as I had quite a lot of other things to do!
Our new challenge today at Make My Monday is rather a fun one as we would like to see your creations with Something Fluffy on and yes - you did read that right!
When it comes to something fluffy, what else could I pick for my card but this cute Just Inklined bunny - isn't he just adorable?

OK, so my card actually became mixed media as I had the background floating around just waiting for the right image and as it has a meadow look to it I thought it perfect for this cute Meadow Rabbit.
The paper was made by sprinkling lemon, yellow and gamboge Brusho Crystals on a piece of mixed media paper and misting it with water. I then allowed the paint to run and it formed streaks down the paper. When it was dry, I turned it upside down (can you see the streaks at the bottom).
I then put some lime green and olive crystals on a plate, misted them with water and picked up colour with an old store card, using it to form the blades of grass on my paper.
I printed the bunny out on to mixed media paper and coloured the image with a mix of Prismacolor pencils and Distress markers, trimmed it to a panel and added a blue mat.
I assembled the card as you see, adding a Tim Holtz Chit Chat sticker also on a blue mat to finish.

Have a great week and see you again soon. Sorry if I haven't been round lately, I've been really busy with little time for blogging.
Fliss xx

Some Challenges I'd like to enter:
Try It On Tuesday - Nature
Dragonfly Journeys - Hippity Hoppity
Challenge Up Your Life - Bunnies