Autumn Colour Challenge at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope this finds you all OK and I'm just back from my hols in lovely Austria which was mostly very hot even at 1300 metres up a mountain believe it or not!
I will share some of the pics I took in the next couple of days when I've gone through them all as I took quite a lot this time and it will take a while to find the best ones.
We have a new challenge today over at Make My Monday, chosen by Caz with the theme of Autumn or Fall Colours and as usual the first thing that popped into my head was Autumn leaves as being an Autumn girl by birth, I just love the turning leaves as the colours are so glorious.

Here's my inspiration and unusually for me, there's no stamping! I hope you like it as I'm a bit iffy about this one - it's very simple to make the leaves speak for themselves.

I made the leaves by colouring a sheet of copy paper, pressing on Distress inks - Fossilized Amber, Crushed Olive and Rusty Hinge - in a rather haphazard way. I then scrunched the paper up a little.

I then used an X Cut maple leaf die to die cut the leaves and I have a tip for you here as the paper being thin was not so easy to die cut. I solved the problem by placing some greaseproof paper underneath to stop the leaf sticking to the plate. I then peeled the coloured leaf off the greaseproof. This gave me a second leaf which I will colour and use on something else - the greaseproof looks a lot like vellum.

I dry embossed part of my square kraft card blank with a Darice embossing folder and added a strip of paper from my mixed media pad which had picked up Brusho colour, the golden shades happily toning well with my Autumn colour scheme.

I added the leaves with foam tape and a sticker from the Tim Holtz Small Talk Occasions book which I cut in half as I felt it fit better like that.

I'll be round to catch up as soon as I can after I've dealt with the million and one things I have to do!
Fliss x

Back to School at Make My Monday

Hello there, I hope you've all had a lovely weekend and that those here in the UK are enjoying the Bank Holiday so far. I've been very busy with crafting stuff over the weekend as I'm off on my hols next weekend so have to get ahead and will be sharing my makes over the next couple of weeks.

There's a new challenge today over at Make My Monday which has the theme of Back to School, something I struggled with as my 2 are way beyond the school stage now and I couldn't think what to do! Luckily my Tim Holtz Sideshow stamp set came to the rescue and I hope you like my simple inspiration which is a Tim style good luck card.

I stamped the main image and numbers border on mixed media paper with Ranger Cobalt Archival ink and then sprinkled on Brusho Crystals in shades of orange, red and yellow then misted gently with water and allowed the colours to run.
Once I was happy with the colour, I then used the number block image with the cobalt ink, stamping partially several times before re-inking to add texture to the panel.
I added a deep turquoise mat and glued to my white card blank, finishing off with a Tim Holtz Small Talk sticker.

Have a great day and a lovely week.
Fliss xx

Photo Inspiration at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, a fairly quick post from me today as I'm feeling rather sorry for myself having woken up yesterday morning deaf in my right ear and on my hubby's recommendation put some stuff in it which was really horrible - fizzing in the ear very uncomfortable! It's a bit better today but I slept rather badly so don't feel great!
Our new challenge today at Make My Monday has a photo for inspiration:

My Oxford Impressions Mystical Mermaids stamp set came out to play although it's not I think my best creation as I felt so yuk.

The base is a That's Crafty! Surfaces large White/Greyboard Tag which was coloured using my Gelli Plate and some blue and green acrylic paints with a dash of white. I then used the That's Crafty! Bubbles Background Dinky Stencil with white transparent acrylic to add some texture.

I next stamped on the seaweed with Archival Olive ink followed by the mermaid and fish. I then painted both the mermaid and fish with white gesso which is my favourite trick to avoid adding cut out images. Once the paint is dry, stamp over the top again with the image and the olive ink.

Then I coloured the images with Twinkling H20 paints in various colours including smudging some deep blue over the seaweed to make it pop. The finishing touch was to stamp on bubbles from the set using first and second generation stamping with Archival Watering Can ink.

I then tied some wired chiffon ribbon through the top.

We have our new DT members joining us for this challenge and they've made a fabulously inspiring start so I hope you can pop over to see.

Have a great week.
Fliss xx

Fun In The Sun At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I'm here today with my inspiration for our new challenge at Make My Monday which for the next fortnight has the theme of Fun in the Sun.

I have to admit to a bit of a struggle with this one as I don't really have anything that fits and in the end had to do a bit of recycling which I hope you like. The theme brought holidays to mind which is the reason for this card.

The background was made with Distress inks and then stamped on the weathered wood background by Kaisercraft which I stamped repeatedly.
I stamped the Crafty Individuals collage image on smooth card and coloured with Distress inks and Promarkers.
I tore out a piece of corrugated card and distressed it with Frantage Aged Bronze Embossing Enamel.
I then stamped the tickets from a Crafty Individuals set on card and coloured them with pink Distress ink then cut them out.
I made the bunting by colouring some card with bright shades of Distress inks and cut out triangles. I stamped the text with alphabet stamps and then assembled all the elements on a kraft card blank.

Have a good week and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Sentimental at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, hope you all had a great weekend with some glorious sunny weather as we did down here in the South of England - actually wore a short sleeved top all day for the first time this year!

Sorry for my lack of visiting lately too which is because I'm working on something behind the scenes which is taking up most of my spare time at the moment and I also started a new job 2 weeks ago with a change in my working week which will take a while to get used to.

There's a new challenge today over at Make My Monday which has a theme chosen by your truly for the next fortnight and it's Sentimental, by which I would like the sentiment or text to be the focal point of your creation whatever it might be - a tag, card, art journal page?

Here's my inspiration which is a simple card and unusually for me, took only 15 minutes to make!

My Brushos came out to play along with my treasured Tim Holtz Good Thoughts stamp set which I haven't inked up in an age!

The background was made by sprinkling lemon, purple and turquoise Brusho crystals on mixed media card and misting gently with water, blotting with a paper towel as the original colours were a bit in your face.
One the background was dry, I stamped on the text with Archival Cactus Flower ink which I think tones very well with the Brusho colours. I added a deep lilac mat and attached the panel to a white card blank.
As a finishing touch, I added a scattering of purple and fuchsia gems for some added sparkle.

Hope you can join in and would love to see you there. We have a DT call out at the moment too as we've lost a couple of DT members lately, the latest being Martina for the best possible reason as she's just had a beautiful baby girl - good luck Martina!

Have a great day and a lovelt week and see you soon I hope.
Fliss x

Fairies at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Mine was very busy with family stuff as it was Fathers Day and there was quite a bit of visiting to do!
We have a new challenge today over at Make My Monday with the theme chosen by Joan which for the next fortnight is Fairies.

My inspiration features a beautiful image by Aurora Wings which was printed out on to thick smooth cartridge paper and coloured with Prisma pencils. I trimmed the image to a panel and added contrasting mats.
The paper is Polkadoodles  and I added a contrasting strip of card with a punched strip over the top. I embellished with some butterflies die cut ffrom glittery card and added a sentiment stamped on patterned paper, die cut and matted on contrasting card.

Have a great week and see you soon.
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

Going Round In Circles At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a lovely Easter break with hopefully not too much in the way of bad weather. It's been very windy, wet and cold here since yesterday which was such a change after Friday which was sunny and much warmer!
Today's the day for a new challenge at Make My Monday and this week I chose the theme which is Going Round In Circles as I'm sure you all know how much I love those!

For my inspiration my Inkadinkado stamping gear has come out to play again and I used the round cog with one of the lovely flower petal stamps to make 2 circles of petals with Memento Cottage Ivy ink.
I then coloured the petals with Brusho Crystals used as paint by sprinkling them in a paint dish and misting them with water. I used lemon, gamboge and lime green. When the paint was dry I cut the floral circles out.
I assembled my little plaque using a round chipboard shape by Papermania and added an embossed circle and some ribbon to finish.

Have a great day and a good week.
Fliss xx

I'd like to enter my little plaque in the following challenges:

Stamping Sensations March Challenge - Flower Power (as you see I have a rather big flower here :D)
Creative Corner - Anything But A Card

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

The Love Word at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was somewhat busy yet again so apologies for the lack of visiting which is all I seem to be doing lately!
We have a new challenge for you today at Make My Monday and we'd like to see your creations with the word Love on. Easy, huh!
My inspiration is the Valentine card I gave to my hubby which is very simple as he doesn't like fussy and unusually for me took only 10 minutes to make! Hope you like it.

As you can see there's only one layer. I started by stamping the 2 bunnies (Crafty Individuals) on my card blank with Archival Watering Can ink and coloured them with pencils. As the bunnies are a bit scribbly I scribbled the colour on and I think I quite like the effect!
I then stamped the love and heart text above with VersaFine Satin Red ink, the stamp being the lovely free cover stamp from Jennie of The Artist Stamper given by Craft Stamper magazine. I added a little colour with pencils to finish.
Ta da! Done!

Some challenges I'd like to enter:

CAS on Sunday - Valentine
Come and Get It Challenges - Love Is In The Air
A Gem of a Challenge - Love Is In The Air

A Colour Challenge At Make My Monday

A slightly late post from me for my inspiration for the new challenge today at Make My Monday as I was a bit naughty having been desparate to get my tag done for Tim's 2016 Remix Tags and I couldn't manage to fit both in due to family stuff over the weekend.
The challenge is a colour one Pink, Red and White which although perfect for Valentine cards is not what I actually did!

This was very simple to make and I began by applying dots of Sherbert and Vintage Lace Paper Artsy Fresco Finish acrylics to my 6x6 Gelli Plate and scraped the paint over with an old store card. I then pressed on a panel of smooth cartridge paper and picked up the colour.
I next stamped the taxt from Tim Holtz Handwritten Thoughts stamp set with VersaFine Crimson Red ink and heat embossed it with Chinese Red which has a sparkle you can't see that well here.
I then used a That's Crafty hearts Dinky Stencil with a slightly deeper pink paint to make a pattern on the painted panel.
I stamped the Tim Holtz Runway lady with Archival Watering Can ink on cartridge paper and painted her with a mix of Paper Artsy and Martha Stewart paints.
I distressed the edges of the painted panel and added it to a white card blank then finished off with the lady, cut out and added with foam pads for dimension.

Have a great week.
Fliss xx

Stitching at Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend and stayed warm if you had snow which I have to say we did not! Snow only makes a very rare appearance this far south and all we had was grey skies and rain!
We have a new challenge for you today at Make My Monday with a theme which I chose as today is my younger daughter's birthday and as she's a print designer in fashion, I picked Stitching - Real or Faux.
Here's my inspiration which is a fairly simple card to show off my beautiful new Penny Black poppy stamp. Hope you like it!

 
I inked up the stamp with several shades of Memento ink - Bamboo Leaves, Pear Tart, Lilac Posies, Sweet Plum, Grape Jelly. I then stamped the image on smooth stamping card. I trimmed this to a panel and stamped on the sentiment with the bamboo ink.
I trimmed a panel of green textured card to form a mat just on either side as the stamp image is very large (around 14cm high). I used the Tim Holtz ruler to make rows of holes and then used a Sharpie fine white marker to make the faux stitching. It actually came out looking rather like my real stitching - somewhat wonky!
I glued the panels to a pearl card blank to finish.

Have a great day and a lovely week.
Fliss xx

New Year

Hello everyone, hoping you all had a very lovely Christmas and that Santa brought you some lovely pressies too. Apologies for my lack of visiting which is because I've been really busy with family stuff and had to work right up to Christmas so didn't have much time for blogging.
I also hope that none of you have been flooded out in the North but my sympathies are with anyone affected as I felt so sorry for all those poor folk whose Christmas was completely ruined this year.

We have a new challenge for you today over at Make My Monday which with the new year fast approaching has the theme of New Year or Calendar.

I've made a simple one layer card which started off with the clock from the Kaisercraft Time Machine set being stamped with Archival Watering Can Ink.
I then stamped the Carabelle Studio Journal du Jour image twice with Mustard Seed Distress ink followed by the star background stamp also by Carabelle Studio with Cracked Pistachio Distress ink.
I finished off with some orange and blue letters and numbers die cut with the Tim Holtz Vintage Market alphabet strip set.

I'll be back on Friday if not before as this week I have the honour of starting off a whole new year of tutorials at That's Crafty and if you haven't yet signed up to follow I can recommend it as 2016 has some very exciting things happening!

Fliss xx

Wings At Christmas

Hello everyone, hoping you had a lovely weekend. Mine was rather busy as it was my hubby's birthday so we had our two down from London for the weekend and although we didn't go out for a meal having had my hubby's office Christmas dinner on Thursday, we had a great time with family. I can't believe it's Christmas next week - eek! Where did the time go and why haven't I finished my Christmas shopping!!!

We have a new challenge for you today over at Make My Monday and this time it's Wings At Christmas so for my inspiration my favourite Dina Wakley scribbly bird is a robin again and I've used up a piece of my Christmas masterboard too for a very simple design that I hope you like.

The masterboard was made with Brusho crystals and stamped with trees and text from the Tim Holtz Scribbly Christmas stamp set with Mowed Lawn Distess ink and Olive Archival ink.
The bird was stamped on smooth cartridge paper with Watercan Can Archival ink and then painted with Brusho Crystals and cut out when dry.
I stamped the Christmas text across the base of the card blank with Fern Green Archival ink and then glued the paper panel and the painted bird on the card.

Have a great week and see you soon.
Fliss xx

White Christmas At Make My Monday

Hello everyone and hope those of you in the UK are surviving the current nasty weather. Hoping too that none of you are flooded out as the pics on the news last night made me feel so sad for all those poor people affected especially at this time of year too.
I'm here today with my post for our new challenge this week at Make My Monday which has the theme of White Christmas. I have to admit to having stretched the theme a little but snowflakes are white - right!
I have to say this is also the quickest card I ever made in my life involving stamping which took less than 10 minutes from start to finish so hope you like it!

Here's how to make it:

• Take one square kraft card blank.
• Using Versamark ink, stamp on snowflakes in the top half, varying as shown.
• Heat emboss the snowflakes with white detail powder.
• Stamp the Tim Holtz text (Scribbly Christmas) with Versamark and heat emboss as before.
• Use a Sharpie fine white paint pen to add dots as shown.

How easy is that! I used some snowflake stamps I've had for many years too by Denami and Art Impressions - I still think they're the best!

The Design Team have made some fabulous inspiration for you if you'd like to see. Hope you can join us too.

Have a great week.
Fliss x

Some challenges I'd like to enter:
Inkspirational Word Prompt - Flake
Crafty Calendar - Let It Snow
Crafty Catz - Let It Snow

Stamp Without A Stamp At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I'm a little late with my post for our new challenge at Make My Monday which has been chosen by Shawna and shock, horror, the theme is to Stamp But With Something That Isn't A Stamp!
Here's my rather zingy inspiration which I hope you like.

I made the background by using my fingers to apply several shades of acrylic paint to a piece of mixed media paper. I then used a piece of netting that held fruit as a stencil to apply Ranger Dye Ink in Wild Orchid and Electric Lime to the painted paper.
I used a That's Crafty Dinky Stencil with Archival Watering Can ink to apply the dotty pattern to the paper. I then used 3 different sizes of bottle caps with all 3 inks to apply the circles randomly to the paper.
I coloured some paper with the 3 shades of ink and die cut the flowers and centres from these with some X Cut flower dies. I drew the stalks and glued the flowers on then added this to a card blank. I finished off with some Tim Holtz Big Chat stickers.

Have a great week and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Oh Christmas Tree At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend despite the somewhat chilly weather. I woke up yesterday morning to sunshine but the coldest day for a long time as it was -1.5 degrees and we normally only get that in February in the middle of the night!
Today sees the start of a new challenge at Make My Monday and Caz has chosen the seasonal theme of Oh Christmas Tree so would like to see Christmas trees of the outdoor or indoor variety as the focal point on your creation.
For my inspiration my Tim Holtz Scribbly Christmas trees came to the rescue.

I stamped the trees on medium surface cartridge paper with Archival Fern Green and Adirondack Butterscotch inks. I then added a little colour with Intense pencils and cut the images to a panel.

I stamped the text repeatedly on a strip of the same paper with the Fern Green ink. I then used a ruler with the Adirondack Cranberry marker pen to draw a box around round the edges of the panels.

I glued the panels to a long card blank I made from an A4 sheet of card to finish.

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

Architecture At Make My Monday

Hello there everyone, I'm here with a rather late post for my inspiration for the new challenge at Make My Monday chosen by our new DT member Shawna who would like to see your creations with ARCHITECTURE as the theme.
My post is a bit late as we had internet issues which are now resolved thank goodness and here's my offering which is an addition to my slowly growing festive heap!

My image is one of the Michael Powell stamps for Papermania Urban Collection which I picked up at a bargain price after Christmas last year. I stamped it with Archival Jet Black ink and then painted the image with Twinkling H20s - quite a lot of sheen that doesnt show in the photo, sadly.
I trimmed it to a panel and added it to a silver card mat. I embossed my white card blank with a Darice corner snowflake flourish embossing folder then stamped and embossed the Tim Holtz sentiment with silver detail embossing powder. I added the painted image to finish. Simples!

I hope you can join us and you'll see there are quite a few different interpretations on the theme too if you hop on over to the blog to see.

Back soon.
Fliss xx

Shabby Chic At Make My Monday

Hello there from an exceedingly misty Woodstock (well, it is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!). I'm a bit late with this post as I'm away and have a rather dodgy internet connection but I wanted to let you know we have a new challenge today over at Make My Monday and you can probably tell I picked the theme as it's Shabby Chic which I'm sure you know how much I love.

Here's my inspiration which I hope you like as it's very vintage in style.

The background paper is a piece of rough watercolour paper which was coloured by pressing in Crushed Olive and Victorian Velvet Distress inks misted with water. I then used the same inks to stamp on a Hero Arts frond image.

I painted a panel of corrugated card with deep green acrylic paint and then swiped on some dusty pink when it was dry. I added the pretty vintage image (Dezinaworld) to the panel.
I glued the background panel to a pink card blank and added a central dry embossed border of pink card using the Cuttlebug Victoria folder swiped with gold ink. I then added a pink punched border over the top and glued on the corrugated panel.
I made a wire embellishment by twisting beads on to green wire to make a pretty spray which I glued on the card with a fabric flower and some Prima paper leaves to finish.

We spent a glorious day at Blenheim Palace yesterday which is a 5 minute walk from our hotel and I'll have some pics to share soon as the grounds are just gorgeous in their Autumn splendour and it was so warm and sunny it was more like September than November and was apparently the warmest November day on record!
We visited Oxford today and took in the dreaming spires, wandering in a slight daze among the incredibly beautiful architecture and went on a tour of the Bodiean Library where we weren't allowed to take photos and sadly the postcards don't do it justice so I will just have to keep the memory in my head - needless to say it was the perfect place to visit for someone who is often lost in a good book!

See you again soon with some of my pics.
Fliss xx

Cats At Make My Monday

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend with some sunshine as we did down here in the South of England. e've definitely had an Indian Summer the last week!
This is a rather quick post again to let you know we have a new challenge today over at Make My Monday and the theme is Cats - Big or Small.
I've chosen to ink up my favourite cat stamp by Lost Coast Designs with a rather tongue in cheek sentiment which seemed to fit the expression on the cat's face.

I made the background with a Carabelle Studio stencil and Distress inks - Twisted Citron and Salty Ocean. I then added mats of turquoise and navy blue.
I stamped the cat with Archival Jet Black ink and coloured him with watercolour pencils then cut him out.
The text is from the Tim Holtz Crazy Talk set and was stamped on navy card with Versamark ink and heat embossed with white detail embossed powder then trimmed to a panel with scissors.
I assembled the card as you see.

Have a lovely day and a great week.
Fliss xx