Fred's Fishy Christmas

Hello! Hope you're all ready for the big day. I'm nearly there at last with just the wrapping left and a couple of stocking fillers to buy - yippee!
I didn't say here but last Friday we had yet more drama as my poor father in law suffered a mild stroke late in the evening and ended up back in hospital. Luckily he has recovered quickly and we'll be collecting him late this afternoon to bring him home. A great relief as we were not sure he would be home for Christmas.
I have my last post of this year over at That's Crafty! Blog today and Donna's cute Fred has come out to play with 2 rather cheeky looking mice. From the expression on his face, he looks as if he's been up to no good.

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

Fliss xx

Anything Goes For December

Hello! Welcome to my inspiration for the December Challenge at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and our theme this month is Anything Goes so hopefully you'll join in as you can enter anything you like, nothing easier than that!
I'm still in Christmas mode so I have more cards to share made with another masterboard that I've used to make a varied collection of festive cards with a tree theme. Read on to find out what I did.

My favourite Christmas set has come out to play again as I love all the elements in Donna's lovely set which has something for everyone.

I used ink sprays to create my masterboard, using Aqua and Rose Flat Matte Sprays with Aqua, Lilac, Lime and Silver Lustre Sprays. The silver was a bit stronger than I thought it would be so I used a brayer whilst it was still wet to spread the colour further and the end result was the sheet above which is an A3 size piece of cartidge paper.

I found a piece of spray overflow paper in my stash of these types of paper, this being A4 size and green and gold so perfect for my trees. I managed to get 9 stamped on the sheet with black VersaFine ink which I heat embossed with fine clear embossing powder.

I cut the masterboard into 8 pieces and decorated it in a variety of ways with stencils and metallic paint, stencils and heat embossed embossing ink and stamped, heat embossed images. I cut all the trees out and then stamped just the top star on yellow/orange spray overflow paper using black ink and clear heat embossing as before, then cut these out.

I added a little colouring to the trees with Zig Clean Color brush pens then assembled my cards using glitter cards as mats in most cases and finishing off with either a Tim Holtz seasonal sticker or a stamped sentiment.

I used:

That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Christmas Collection Set 2 by Donna Gray
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Scribbled Shrooms by Melina Dahl
That's Crafty! Flat Matte Sprays - Aqua, Basil, Rose
That's Crafty! Lustre Sprays - Aqua, Aubergine, Frost, Lilac, Lime, Red, Silver
Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
VersaFine Onyx Black Ink
Fine Clear Embossing Powder

I hope you can join in for some great prizes - all details on the challenge blog.

Have a great rest of the week.
Fliss xx

Winter Wonderland at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello! It's a really horrible day today down here in the South as we have really strong winds and intermittent rain, really not nice!

On the crafty side, we have the November challenge beginning today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and to go with the now chilly weather, our new theme is Winter Wonderland.

My inspiration is rather 2 birds, 1 stone as I've made a start on some festive cards with my favourite snowman and made a masterboard so that I could create 6 cards at once.

I began with making the masterboard from an A3 sheet of smooth cartridge paper. I sprayed it with a mix of flat matte and lustre sprays using Aqua and Bluebell Flat Matte Sprays and Aqua and Lilac Lustre Sprays. You'll notice there are a couple of areas that are green and pink, this being the accidental result of leaving the paper to dry rather too near some later ink misting so it ended up with a bit of lime and rose flat matte spray on but, hey, what does it matter! It just adds to the effect.

I then cut the sheet into 6 pieces as these fit 6x6 card blanks rather well. I used the snowflake background Dinky stencil with white multi surface paint to add a pattern just around the edges of the paper panels.

I next stamped the snowmen from Donna's Christmas Collection Set 2, 6 times on an A4 sheet of smooth thick cartridge paper with black ink. I cut these out with a stitched square die from my stash and coloured them up with Zig Clean Color markers (now in stock at That's Crafty! - yay!).

I distressed the edges of my background paper panels and glued these to some 6x6 kraft card blanks. I added the snowman panels, tucking a white die cut snowflake behind each in the top right corner and finished off with some Tim Holtz Holiday Talk stickers.

There are some great prizes if you enter so don't forget that you have to be in it to win it!

Have a great day and see you soon and it's a rather exciting Thursday tomorrow as That's Crafty! have 2 shows on Hochanda TV at 11am and 3pm with lots of new gorgeous goodies. Here's a sneak peek of what is on the shows.

See you soon!
Fliss xx

Midnight in the Fairy Garden

Hello everyone, hope you've all had a good week. Mine has been a bit hit and miss as the in laws saga continues!
My mother in law is still not better so they're doing tests to try and find out why the antibiotics haven't worked. I suspect that she has an ongoing stomach issue as I can vaguely remember her trying a gluten free diet a few years back due to problems with her digestion. I have told my hubby and my brother in law to mention this to the hospital but of course, being men, they haven't! Looks like I'll have to do this myself.
My father in law had another op on Wednesday and has now had a hip replacement so hopefully this will sort out his problem although I suspect the recovery from the op will be quite lengthy.

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with the second of my Hochanda samples from the show last week having been lucky enough to play with Melina's new and gorgeous stamps. This one is a fairy garden and hope you like it.

You'll have to pop over to the blog to see the whole project and obviously I hope you will!

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

Friday Post at That's Crafty! Blog and News

Hello everyone, many apologies for not being around much lately which is because we have chaos down here at the moment with both my parents in law still being in hospital.

My father in law has multiple fractures in his right hip and it's taken the doctors ages to work out what to do. He's been taken over to Brighton for a "major op" today but no-one has been told what they're actually going to do!!! It's very stressful for us all not knowing what's going on so with luck we'll know later on today what they've done.

My mother in law is sadly not well at all as she's not eating or drinking and it's uncertain whether this is because she's got a stomach bug, she's refusing to eat or has forgotten how to swallow as she's suffering from dementia. This is even more worrying but we should know more today when the doctor has seen her.

I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog today where I'm sharing one of my Hochanda samples (lucky I had that as I haven't felt much like crafting lately!).

If you caught my last post you'll have seen a bit more of this one but to see the whole creation, you'll have to hop over to the blog.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

Bentley's Midnight Garden

Hello! I hope you've all had a good week and better than mine which has been rather busy with accounts stuff but thankfully that's nearly all finished for the moment.
I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog today and I've been using up some of my spray overflow scraps from last week's make to create another upright. This week the lovely Bentley has come out to play as it's a while since he made an appearance and I thought I should ink him up again.

Hope you like this sneak peek and you'll find all the details over at the blog as usual.

I've got a busy weekend as tomorrow we're off up to London to help my daughter Sarah move from her lodgings with a family to a flat she'll be sharing with 2 other girls and I know she can't wait as it's what she's wanted for ages but found that finding a flat share was worse than a job interview!!!

See you soon and have a great weekend.

Fliss xx

A Stitch In Time Challenge Midway Inspiration

Hello everyone with an oops from me as guess who forgot to schedule her post for the midway inspiration for the May Challenge at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog!
I hope you're all having a good week and enjoying some warmer weather at last. It's not been sunny here today and is rather windy but it's not cold really.
We have 2 new members of our family now having picked up our little furry babies on Sunday and they're right little devils, zipping around like greased lightning! Pics are at the end of the post for some awwws.

 

My chosen substrate is the largest size of MDF tag by That's Crafty! Surfaces and I started off my background by using the Triangle Lines 8 x 8 Stencil with texture paste to add a pattern. Once it was dry, I gave it a coat of Evergreen Multi Surface Paint.

The next layer was crackle glaze and once this had set, I brushed Green Multi Surface Paint over the top and hey presto! lots of crackle appeared as you can see on the second photo.

I stamped my flowers and leaves from my Fanciful Flowers stamp set 1 on Gelli printed papers from my stash, made with multi surface paints and Distress Oxide inks and stencilling. I cut out the whole flower from one and just the centre from another, then layered these up to make my floral element.

I brushed Lime Multi Surface Paint over a scrap of mixed media paper, stamping the lines of stitching from Donna's Girls Claire set of stamps using VersaFine Olympia Green ink and distressed the edges with an emery board.

I glued on the stitched panel and my floral embellishment, finishing off with the quote from Fanciful Flowers set 2 stamps on a scrap of lime painted mixed media paper.

There's a great prize of a £30 voucher for the online shop for the randomly drawn winner and stencils for the Top 3 so what are you waiting for!

Now for some cute pics of Hazel and Sage our new furry babies.

Hazel is an Agouti colour which is a soft brown like a wild rabbit and Sage, her brother, is a Black Otter colour being mostly black with a reddish cream underside and they are both Netherland Dwarfs like our Dill who it must be said isn't too impressed with the babies at the moment! He's the grand age of 8 years and they're only 8 weeks old!!!

Have a great rest of week and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Craft Stamper Take It Make It Challenge April 2018

It's been an absolute age since I've created anything for a challenge due to various issues which have taken up a lot of my time. A New Year resolution was to try and remedy that so as I had a large number of flowers in my stash to be used box (pic below if you didn't see them when I first did them), I made another card following on from yesterday's offering for That's Crafty! Blog as I'm still on rather a high after the Hochanda shows and if you caught them, you might just have seen my floral wreath which was made from some of the big heap of flowers below.
Spring is finally in the air so I made this card to celebrate in pretty blossom shades as the trees are at last starting to bloom.

My flowers were stamped on gelli prints after I had a long session making quite a few with muted prints which I love for stamping flowers and leaves on as it saves on having to colour them! Here's my finished haul below!

I shaped a couple of whole flowers made from my stamps for That's Crafty! (link in my side bar if you're interested) plus a couple of centre parts and the rounded centre in green. I layered these up with dimensional glue and shaped some leaves to go with them in a fresh green shade.
My background paper was a ghost gelli print, made from cleaning the plate after making a green and a pink print where I used a jar lid to make a circular pattern. It turned out a pretty soft green, perfect for my card. I cut a piece to fit my 5 x 7 kraft card blank and distressed the edges with an emery board. I then stamped on the stitching from Donna's Claire stamp set from her Donna's Girls Collection for That's Crafty! (she gave it to me as a gift too, thanks Donna!) using Fern Green Archival ink, adding the quote from my Fanciful Flowers Set 2 stamps with the same ink.
I glued on the background paper and added the layered flower and leaves with more dimensional glue to finish.

I'd like to enter the Craft Stamper Challenge for April with my card and hopefully will enter more from now on.

Hope you're all having a great weekend and enjoying the sunshine if you have it.
Fliss xx

Dreaming of a White Christmas for That's Crafty!

Hello again, this is a very quick post in the middle of some rather frantic crafting to let you know that I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog and I'm sorry to say (or not lol) that it's another Christmas card!
Here's a sneak peek and you'll find all the details over at the blog if you'd like to see what I made with one of Donna's gorgeous new Christmas designs for That's Crafty! I love this set and I know it's going to get tons of use this year.

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

Antique Baubles Card at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello everyone, sorry for the lack of commenting lately, work and family stuff have taken a lot of my free time so I haven't been able to do as much online as I would like.
I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog today and it's the C word again as I'm sharing another of my Hochanda samples for the last shows as I was so short on time.

Hope you like it and you'll find all the details over at the blog as usual.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

The C Word for That's Crafty! Blog

Hello everyone, I'm writing this post before setting off to Scotland for a week on our hols so I hope this one pops up as scheduled!
I hope you've all had a good week and wanted to let you know that I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog and this week I'm sharing another of my Hochanda samples which is a card made with Donna's gorgeous new festive designs.
Here's a sneak peek and you'll find all the details over at the blog if you'd like to hop over which, of course, I hope you will.

Hope to see you there!

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

A Card Challenge at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello everyone and welcome to my inspiration for our new challenge today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog, where for the next fortnight our theme is Only Cards.
I hope you caught the first of the That's Crafty! shows on Hochanda too as the first one has just finished having started at the early hour of 7am! The next one is at 11am and is not to be missed as the new products are amazing and I really loved working with them.
My card inspiration features one of Donna's gorgeous new Christmas stamps and I know this one will be appearing quite a lot on my festive makes.

My Oxide inks came out to play for my background which was made simply with a scrap of mixed media paper coloured with Faded Jeans and Wilted Violet Oxides. I dipped and spritzed until I was happy with the effect then stamped on the gorgeous snowman with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and heat embossed it with clear powder.
I then painted the snowman using the same Oxide inks which watercolour beautifully over the background colour. The snowy bits were painted with white gesso and I added a little shadowing around the edges with a pale grey watercolour pencil.
I used the new Poinsettia Tree stencil which has some lovely dots to apply dots around the snowman with an embossing dabber. I then heat embossed these with white embossing powder. I ended up with a few specks and streaks where I wasn't quite expecting them but hey - I like the effect!
I attached the panel to a white square card blank and finished off with a Tim Holtz Idea-ology seasonal sticker.

It's really good to enter as the prize is a voucher for the online shop where there are just tons of amazing goodies to choose from.
Have a great day and see you later with news of my That's Crafty! Blog post today.
Fliss xx

A Bentley Tag for That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, hope you have sunshine today as we do down here in the South after a week or so of rather Autumnal weather more like October than August!
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a tag featuring my favourite feline, Bentley, on a rather girly creation as the under used pinks and purples have come out to play for a change. Bentley looks rather dreamy and here's a sneak peek to hopefully send you over to see the tag.

Hope you have a great day and a lovely weekend too.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Anything But Cards at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello everyone, I've been a bit of a bad visitor again I'm afraid as I'm working on something behind the scenes which I can't reveal just yet and it's eating up my spare time so apologies for that and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!
We have a new challenge over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog today and for the next fortnight our theme is Anything But Cards and that suited me down to the ground as I haven't made many cards lately.
My inspiration is a mixed media tag made with one of That's Crafty! white/greyboard tags which can stand up to all sorts of media.

My tag was decorated by scraping yellow, orange and pink acrylic paints on to the surface using an old store card. I worked in several directions, adding thin swiped lines as a top coat.
When the paint was dry, I used the floral background and hearts Dinky Stencils to add a pattern in places with DecoArt Media Carbon Black fluid acrylic paint.
I stamped the lovely Serena (Donna's gorgeous clear stamp by That's Crafty!) on mixed media paper and coloured her with paints, adding a coat of DecoArt Glamour Dust pink paint over the top on her hair and the heart.
I stamped her again directly on the tag, off-setting her slightly over the side for interest. I then cut out the painted image and the heart shape and glued these on top of the image stamped on the tag.
I stencilled on the enchanted text from the Dinky Stencil of the same name with black paint and added gingham ribbon at the top to finish.

Have a great day and see you later.
Fliss xx

Some Bunny Love for That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, hope you're all OK. I'm rather tired after a difficult week at work wrestling with foreign currencies and bad bookkeeping by a client so I have to admit my brain hurts!

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with the card I made for my dear hubby Andrew as this week we're celebrating 35 years of marriage - it's a bit yikes as it doesn't seem that long!

As he doesn't like fussy cards, I've made quite a simple one with my dear friend Donna's gorgeous bunny for Rubber Dance who's just like our Dill (a Netherland Dwarf). She very kindly sent me the set a little while back when I was struggling with my eyesight issues.

There's only a sneak peek of the card here and you'll find the whole thing over at the blog as always. There is a pic of the lovely Dill below though so do scroll down for that as he's soooo cute!

And here's our cute little man:

Isn't he just adorable?

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss x

Here Come Summer for That's Crafty!

Hello again, this is a scheduled post as I'm on my way to Devon for a weekend away and a much needed rest at the moment.
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a bit or possibly a lot of wishful thinking! I have a beach themed mixed media panel to share showcasing a completely different way of using Donna's gorgeous Marina stamp set which is so versatile.

This is just a sneak peek so you will have to hop over to the blog to see the whole thing. I hope you will of course!

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

Seahorse Gazing for That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, I hope you've all had a good week and I've been a rather bad visitor again so sorry for that. I have to rest my eyes in the evenings at the moment and not do too much on the computer as I spend all day on one at work due to working in accountancy. I have to wait a few more weeks until i can see the optometrist and get my glasses sorted out so I really do feel frustrated at not being able to do all I want to.
I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog today where I'm sharing my first proper acrylic stack as I have to admit to being rather scared of working with acrylic but I think I've finally cracked it!

You'll find all the details over at the blog as always plus a pic of the whole thing and a tutorial on how to make it. Hope to see you there!

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx

A Fishy Tale at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello again, a quick post to let you know that I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog and this week I'm sharing a bright mixed media tag inspired by a photo I saw of a shoal of fish. Hope you like it!

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

Feline Fine at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello all, I hope you're all surviving the current heatwave which I have to say is great in some ways and not so in others especially when I have to go to work!
It's time for a new challenge over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and our theme for the next fortnight is Feline Fine so we'd like to see your creations with cats on.
I, of course, made something with my favourite feline, Bentley. Hope you like my tag.

I used the largest white/greyboard tag from That's Crafty! range of surfaces to alter and covered it with a mix of blue, green and yellow acrylic paints. I then used the paw prints Dinky stencil to add a pattern with a mix of 2 shades of grey paint.
I then stamped Bentley on mixed media paper with Archival black ink and coloured him with paints and pencils, aiming for a ginger tom look. I cut him out and glued him to the tag, not cutting out his whiskers but extending them out with a black Sharpie pen.
I stamped some text in the spaces left with Archival watering can ink and then decided it was a bit too strong so I dry brushed white gesso over everything to tone it down a little.
I finished off with some Tim Holtz Big Chat stickers and a scrap of ribbon tied at the top.

There's a great prize if you enter and it's randomly drawn to so everyone is in for a chance.
See you later.
Fliss xx

Marina's Treasure Trove for That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, sorry to have been a bit of a bad visitor this week. This is because I'm back at work and now have to rest my eyes a bit after my cataract op last week as I spend all day on the computer at work looking at figures on spreadsheets. It takes the eye around a month to properly recover so you'll have to forgive me if I don't visit as often for a while.

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with the first of a series of makes with Donna's new and fabulous Deep Sea Divas stamps which I was totally thrilled to be able to work with before their official launch this week. If you didn't see it before, I also created a couple of makes for the Stamping Contrasts feature in the June issue of Craft Stamper which was such a thrill too.

I have to say that these stamps are incredibly versatile and I can't seem to stop making things with them so there will be a lot more show and tell moments over the coming weeks.

This is just a sneaky peek of part of my mixed media creation so you'll need to hop over to the blog if you're intrigued to see the whole thing, which I hope you are of course!

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Fliss xx