A Little Shabby Chic

Hell folks, hope you're all having a lovely weekend despite the rather iffy weather - April showers in the UK that is!
The last fortnight has just flown by and it's time for a new challenge over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges which you're going to love as much as I did I'm sure. The theme this time is Heat Or Dry Embossing and I've actually used both on my wall hanging made from a piece of recycled greyboard.

I've used the acrylic paint resist technique (tutorial link on my side bar) on the piece of greyboard to make a background. The under layer is dusky rose acrylic with a little periwinkle blue sponged randomly on.
I then stamped the flourish design (B Line Designs curley floral) with Versamark ink and embossed with clear powder. I painted over the whole thing with cream acrylic paint and when dry wiped the paint off the embossed areas with a baby wipe. I obtained the shabby chic look by wiping off more cream paint until the underneath layer showed through and am very pleased with the result.
I next made the fan embellishment by creating a paper using my Millefiori Stamping Technique (link on side bar) using pink and blue inks and Rubber Stamp Tapestry flowers. I stamped the fan (Stampington) on the paper with Archival Coffee ink and cut it out.
The tag is from the Artistic Outpost Whimsical Melange set and I stamped this with the coffee ink and stamped the girl image (Prima) on the tag as it's happily just the right size. I coloured this with a mix of Distress inks, pencils and Promarkers and cut it out.
I next made the bunting (image from the AO set) repeat stamping the larger bunting element with the coffee ink and adding the text from a Hero Arts alphabet. I cut them out, punched holes with a paper piercer and threaded them onto brown linen thread with a button at each end.
I used the Cuttlebug Victoria folder to make a central border and swiped the raised areas with Spun Sugar Distress ink. I made a lacy central strip with the Martha Stewart double edge punch using parchment card (Southfield Stationers) coloured with Stormy Sky Distress ink.
I finished off with a doily aged with Antique Linen Distress Stain, a feather recycled from packaging on a present my daughter brought back from South Africa, a metal butterfly charm and a flower made with a flower loom using recycled yarn and a button. I pierced holes at the top and added bakers twine as a hanger.
Sorry about the long explanation but I did quite a lot here!

The Fashionettes have some stunning inspiration lined up on the catwalk for your delight and our sponsor is once again the lovely Marina of Cottage Crafts.

Challenges for my wall hanging:
The Stamp Man - Shabby Chic/Distressed
Charisma Cardz - Shabby Chic
Crafts & Me - Vintage
Divas By Design - Anything But A Card
Sisterhood Of Crafters - Recycle, Re-use, Renew (Greyboard, feather from packaging)

Have a great Sunday.
Fliss xx

2 For The Price Of 1

Good afternoon everyone and hope you're having a good weekend. I also hope you've got better weather than the strong winds we still have in Sussex.
Don't know about you but I'm really missing my followers who have been gone for 2 days now, apart from a short reappearance earlier on but they're now gone again! I know lots of others are in the same boat and have no idea what's going on.
Anyway, rant over and on to bit of crafting I've been doing today. When I saw the challenge over at Try It On Tuesday was Scraplings, I just knew I had to have a go as this sort of follows on from my tutorial of a couple of weeks ago about using up the leftovers I get from making square cards which you may have noticed are a real favourite of mine! If you would like to see what I did click HERE.
I've actually made 2 rather different scraplings because I enjoyed making the first one so much:

I've just got my crafty mitts on the new Tim Holtz Sewing Room die set which I had to have as my younger daughter is doing a fashion degree - we have a real mannequin in our lounge at the moment!
I cut the images out with kraft card and beige parchment card. I then decorated the beige card torso with Versacolor inks in Umber, Cinnamon, Aqua, Peach and Sand Beige using my Millefiori Technique (tutorial page with links at top of blog) and the Polka Doodles Daisy Doodles stamp set.
I decorated the scrapling (mine is 6 x 14.8cm as I make my square cards from A4 card and cut a strip off the long edge) in the same way using Smoke Blue, Lilac and Umber. I then inked the edges with Atlantic Blue. I stuck this to a scrap of kraft card for contrast.
I added lace, braid and pearls then scored the kraft mannequin to look like wood. I tied some thread round the cotton reel and through the buttons and added a stamped tape measure piece (Creative Expressions) to finish.
This will be going to my daughter for her new accommodation when she starts the second year of her degree in September.

Challenges for this one:
Fairytale Challenge - Anything But A Card
Southern Girls - Frills & Polish (Lace & Pearls)
Papertake Weekly - Pretty Pastels (hope the neutral kraft is OK here)

And now for the slightly more quirky one!

I absolutely adore the Party Cats set (Lost Coast Designs) which I think look a bit naughty, especially the one I've used here.
I stamped the cat with VersaFine Onyx Black ink, coloured with Promarkers and cut her out.
I decorated the scrapling base by stamping with a Hero Arts stripe and diamond stamp using Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door and Mustard Seed Distress inks.
I added the cat with foam tape and a sentiment which was a free Craft Stamper stamp a while back, coloured with a Lime Promarker.

Challenge for both of the scraplings:
Try It On Tuesday - Scraplings

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Paper Piecing Challenge

Please join us for this week's challenge at Polka Doodles which has a great theme of Paper Piecing and has been set by Claire.
My card is a mix of several CDs and I decided to go for a bright Spring colour theme (I live in hope!!!).

Most of the card elements, including the pretty green paper, the cute image, the cut out flowers and grass and the text, came from the Back to Nature CD and the pink polka dot paper from the latest Love & Cherish CD. You'll find these at the Polka Doodles online shop.
The flowery paper I made myself using my Millefiori stamping technique with pink, yellow and green inks and 2 of the tiny flowers from the gorgeous Polka Doodles Daisy Doodles stamp set. I also had to be a little creative with the scalloped green oval as I don't yet have my wished for Nestabilities set. I cut mine with small scallop scissors.
I printed the image on the green paper and the polka dot paper and cut various pieces out. The rest of the image I coloured with my Promarkers.

Love Cat

Hello everyone, another day, another challenge-well 2 actually! My card is bright and sunny unlike today's weather which is really dull but al least it's not raining.
I'm entering this one in this week's Allsorts challenge which is Hearts and Flowers and also this week's challenge at Incy Wincy Designs which is called Colour Me Wonderful and you have to use your favourite colouring medium which in my case (as if you hadn't noticed!!!) is to use inks in various creative ways.

The image I've used is from Alison at Stretch 'n' Bubbles and as you can see, her shop has the most gorgeous whimsical images. She also has freebies on offer to her followers every so often so why not pop over and check out her shop. To me the greatest thing about digital stamps is that once you have them,  they can be resized and altered really easily to fit your particular project. I resized this one slightly and printed it out on both white and pink card.
I coloured the cat using my Millefiori technique (see sidebar for the technique labels) using pink and yellow inks. I cut out various parts of the pink image and adhered them on the floral cat. I then added a heart sticker.
For the background, I printed out the pretty daisy paper from the latest Polka Doodles Love & Cherish  CD and added some colour by sponging with the pink and yellow inks. I ran my pink panel and a yellow one through the Cuttlebug with the Floral Fantasy folder. I trimmed the edges of the yellow panel with scallop scissors and sponged on some deeper yellow ink.
The card was assembled as shown, with the addition of some ribbon, daisies and some Prima leaves. The greeting is from the Polka Doodles Back to Nature CD.

Millefiori Recycling

I made some more atcs using the back of a lined pad that I found on my daughter's desk yesterday. As it was grey board, I painted it with 2 coats of gesso first and then used the Millefiori technique on it. As the resulting surface is a slightly different texture, the floral stamping has a slightly softer look.
The background card has been stamped with a border design in black ink and then embossed with the Cuttlebug Paisley folder. The butterfly was stamped and embossed, then painted with H20s.
These will also be up for swapping a bit later on.

ATCS With Millefiori Background

Here are some atcs I made with my technique. I got quite carried away trying out different colour combinations! These will be on the Trimcraft forum later available for swapping.

Millefiori Stamping Technique

I chose to call this stamping technique Millefiori which is Italian for 1000 flowers as the resulting paper looks like lots of tiny flowers.
The background is made using Dauber Duos which are tiny double ended ink pads made for detail inking of stamps. I've had mine for a while and as I'm trying not to buy too much at the moment, decided to see if I could think of another use for them. Millefiori technique is the result.

Step 1
To make an atc background cut a piece of white card measuring 2.5 x 3.5 inches. I chose a yellow/orange duo. Dab spots of yellow ink at random over your card to produce a spotted effect.

Step 2
Dab spots of orange ink in the white spaces, dabbing some lightly so that there are only a few spaces left.

Step 3
Choose a small flower stamp-mine is from a Rubber Stamp Tapestry set and stamp at random in a darker ink colour.

Step 4
Using an even smaller flower, stamp in between the larger flowers in a medium coloured ink. You can add as many images as you like until you're happy with the effect. You now have your background paper.

 You can create this paper on a much larger scale simply by using slightly larger floral stamps to make a lovely background paper for a card or to stamp on a die cut.

Enjoy!
Fliss xx