A Trio of Spring Artist Trading Cards

 Hello! I'm here today to share a trio of atcs in Spring colours that I created the other day using things from my bits and pieces box as I haven't been able to craft properly due to my hubby (who caught a cold from his father) passing his cold to me last weekend but unfortunately for me it went to my sinuses then on Monday went down on my chest so I've been feeling somewhat poorly.

The backgrounds on these are my ever useful ink spray overflow or inky stencil presses on the spare paper I always have on one side when spraying ink through masks or stencils.

The flowers were stamped on inky paper too and as you can see, you don't need a smaller stamp than the atc as you can use just part of the image as I've done here.

The text comes from one of Lynne's wildflower stamp sets and one of Melina's new DL key stamp sets and fit my chosen theme perfectly.

I hope you're all having a good week and will be back soon.

Fliss xx

Midway Inspiration for Close to Nature Challenge

Hello! I hope everyone is well and coping with the current long heatwave we seem to be having. A month now and no sign of rain down here on the south coast of the UK which is really unusual.

We're now midway through the July challenge at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog with the theme of Close To Nature and I have some more inspiration to share in the form of a tag (yes, another one as I can't seem to get enough of these at the moment!) and Lynne's gorgeous new wildflower stamps have come out to play again as I love these.

I made the background for the tag by swiping teal, light blue and white multi surface paints on the surface then misting with water and allowing the colour to spread.

I then took an evergreen sprig from my garden and pressed broken china and twisted citron oxide inks on the leaves and pressed it onto the tag. I repeated this step until I was happy with the effect. I next used one of the texture stamps with faded jeans oxide ink to add some texture round the edges (I did this without an acrylic block for a grungy effect).

I prepared my focal point panel using a scrap of mixed media paper torn from the pad as I like using the ripped edge to add texture. I coloured the paper with twisted citron oxide ink misted with water and repeated applied for texture. Whilst still damp, I stamped on my chosen wild flower with VersaFine Majestic Blue ink, following up with shadow stamping using the twisted citron ink which as you see ran a little due to the wet paper.

I added more stamping from the textures sets using a postmark and script for further detail. I masked off part of one of Lynne's Affirmations to give the nature text.

I  knotted some yarn around the panel then glued it to my tag and tied some toning yarns through the top to finish.

Supplies:

That's Crafty! Surfaces Size 10 White/Greyboard Tag
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Sets - Lynne's Wildflowers Set 2, Textures Collection Sets 3 and 4
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paints - Light Blue, Teal, White
Distress Oxide Inks - Broken China, Faded Jeans, Twisted Citron
VersaFine Majestic Blue Ink
 Extras - Evergreen leaf sprig or similar, toning yarns

My DT sisters have some gorgeous inspiration to hopefully encourage you to enter if you haven't yet done so over at the challenge blog where you can read about the prizes on offer which are fabulous!

Have a great day,
Fliss xx

Close To Nature at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello! Hope you're all surviving the current very hot weather we have here in the UK although thankfully it is slightly cooler today as I felt I was going to melt over the weekend as I can't cope with heat that well and actually got puffy feet and ankles which is a first in this country! Something I normally only get if in somewhere like Italy in August!!!
We have a new challenge up today for July over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and this month our theme is Close To Nature so we'd like to see what nature means to you.
I've been lucky enough to get my inky (and painty) mitts on Lynne's gorgeous new wildflower stamp sets so this was the perfect excuse (not that I really need one!) to ink some up for my inspiration which is a tag with a meadow theme.

I don't actually have process photos here as it was a go with the flow piece and the first thing I did was to colour my tag. I used slightly diluted multi surface paints, starting at the top right with mustard yellow and orange, then drawing in bright magenta. I then added more yellow, graduating to lime and teal on the lower half of the tag. To draw the areas together, I used a baby wipe to pick up excess paint in turn and dabbed this on contrasting areas. This really does help to bring it all together.

Here are a couple of close-ups so that you can hopefully see what I mean:

I then used the distressed harlequin stencil with white gesso to add a pattern in a couple of areas. I next began to add some stamping, using jet black Archival ink and 2 of the silhouette style images. I stamped the blossom image twice, using only part of the image the second time.

I then stamped the blossoms image twice with black ink on a scrap of orange Gelli paper from my bits box and cut the just the floral images out. I glued these over the top of the flowers stamped on the tag and trimmed off any excess.

I added a little more silhouette stamping using cactus flower Archival ink, masking off parts of the image as necessary to bring the elements together. I stamped one of the lovely affirmations from the sets on a further scrap of orange Gelli paper and cut the text into tiles, running black ink around the edges before gluing on.

As a finishing touch, I painted some small greyboard Bits and Pieces butterflies with multi surface paints, adding detail with pencils and scoring them with an embossing ball tool to bend the wings slightly before adding to the tag with 3D glue. A piece of torn, recycled sari ribbon was tied through the top.

Hope you can enter for some great prizes - a voucher for £30 for the online shop for the randomly drawn winner and stencils of choice for the Top 3 (see the challenge rules for details).
Have a great day and a lovely rest of the week too.

Fliss xx