Bright and Funky Floral Art for That's Crafty!

 Hello on a rather wet and dismal evening. I luckily went out for my walk today quite early and managed to get home before the deluge started thank goodness!

I have my usual Friday post up over at That's Crafty! blog today and this week it's something bright and cheery, much needed in these very uncertain times. 

I've actually had to stop watching the 10 o'clock news as it's so distressing that I have trouble sleeping after seeing the devastation in Ukraine and it's so heartbreaking seeing the people struggling to leave.

If you'd like to see how this was created then please click HERE

I hope you have a lovely and hopefully crafty weekend (I know I will as I have birthday cards to make!) and will see you soon.

Fliss x

 

Back After A Long Blogging Break

 Hello! I'm finally back after rather a long break from blogging as due to family and work commitments there haven't been enough hours in the day to cope with all the social media stuff I should be doing so I'm hoping to gently get back into the swing of things.

I'm over at That's Crafty! blog today with a mixed media piece of artwork that was inspired by the photos I took last summer of the patches of wildflowers along our local coast. It was so lovely to see them with beach huts in the background and I'm eagerly awaiting this year's crop in a couple of months, not to mention the warmer weather too as it's been cold for so long.

You'll find all the details of how I created this by clicking HERE

Here are a couple of pics so that you can see where my inspiration came from 😀

I hope you're all well and managing to cope with the lockdown and will be round to visit as soon as I get a few spare moments.

Fliss xx

Always Look For Rainbows!

Hello on a rather dull and blustery day. Hope you're all staying safe and well in our troubled times at the moment.
I have a project to share over at That's Crafty! Blog today which came about as I wanted to create something to show my appreciation for our brave and amazing care workers and this is the least I could do.
If you watched the Hochanda shows yesterday That's Crafty! had, you may have spotted this on the counter next to the gorgeous new stamp designs from the ever talented Melina Dahl. There's rewind if you missed them and they're well worth a look for some amazing demos from the lovely Jo Channon, back in the studio for the first time since lockdown started and her nasty brush with the dreaded Covid-19 virus.

If you'd like to see how I created my rainbow, please click HERE to be transported to the blog.

Have a lovely weekend and see you soon,
Fliss x

Bad Blogger Again!

Hello everyone, despite my best intentions blogging and visiting has gone out of the window again over the last few weeks.
It's partly due to my DT commitments as I've had lots of samples to create which is the good bit as it was lovely to get some crafting done (although I had a bit of a struggle as my mojo has been somewhat reluctant over the lockdown).
I have been out walking as much as I can which was necessary as it helps when I have to deal with difficult accounting stuff.
I have some artwork to share which I hope you like.

Another one that's part of the journal I created for the recent One Day Special That's Crafty! had on Hochanda with quite a lot of steampunk and industrial elements and I couldn't resist calling this Einstein A Go Go as it contains what I know will be my new favourite text stamp - can you guess what it is?

 

I'll be round to catch up over the Bank Holiday weekend and in the meantime, have a great weekend and stay safe and well.

Fliss xx

On Butterfly Wings

Hello everyone on a lovely sunny Good Friday. I hope you're all surviving the current lockdown and not going stir crazy! I always find crafting helps and luckily I'm still able to go out for a walk each day and so far everyone is very good at keeping their distance.

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with some very bright and pretty journal pages, chock full of floral detail as I wanted to show another way to use a lovely texture stamp.

I hope you all have a lovely Easter, well as much as you can under the current circumstances. We can't spend the weekend with our children as one is stuck in Brighton and the other in London but we will at least be able to talk to them via Skype.

See you soon.

Fliss xx

IndigoBlu Stamp Play

Hello!

I hope you're managing to have a good weekend in spite of not being able to go anywhere, in fact such lovely weather today, going in the garden if you have one is what I would recommend as a spot of weeding and digging is a really good way to get some much needed fresh air.

I have been doing that but also fitted in a bit of crafting to finish off some of my works in progress as I have quite a few on the go which haven't quite got there yet! These were made with the stamps I got when I attended the IndigoBlu weekend in Brighton last November/December and I've only just managed to get them inked up!

The tag uses up quite a few bits from my scraps box that were all in shades of spring green, some stencilled and some ink spray overflow and so on. I stamped the dog rose spray and coloured it with flat matte sprays, using rose, basil and saffron then cut it out. I brushed 3D gloss gel over the top after shaping the flowers and leaves with a large embossing ball tool.

I added some die cut pieces created with pink and dark green card and a Kaisercraft grungy lattice die together with a scrap of green dyed old crochet lace and the text from another IndigoBlu set which was stamped on an ink spray overflow scrap in shades of pink and green.

The card contains the stamped image I originally intended for the tag but turned out too pale - it was stamped with VersaFine Clair Shady Lane ink and coloured with Zig markers. I tried out lots of different backgrounds from my box but this one seemed to work the best. It's just another overflow piece that has flat matte sprays on in rose, lilac, aqua, bluebell and a tiny bit of walnut. The text is from the same stamp set and is on a further scrap of overflow paper.

I hope you like these and there will be more to follow once I finish them off!

Stay safe and see you soon.

Fliss xx

Floral Tag for That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, a slightly late post today to let you know that I have my usual Friday tutorial up over at That's Crafty! Blog and this week I'm sharing a mixed media tag that I created for the January Hochanda shows.
It features some of the gorgeous new doodle stamps designed by Melina and topped off with one of her lovely floral images.
Here's a sneak peek to hopefully tempt you to hop over.

As you can see, I seem to be in the bright image on a darker background phase although I know I'll revert to my usual bright and cheery style very soon.

Hope you've had a good week and that you have a lovely weekend.
See you soon.
Fliss xx

A Bit of Bling for That's Crafty!

Hello on a somewhat dull and dreary Friday. A quick post to let you know that I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a mixed media piece of artwork with a bit of bling from the amazing That's Crafty! 3D holographic gel medium and some bright and cheery flowers.
Here's a sneak peek to tempt you to hop over if you'd like to see the whole project.

You can just see the bling in the background and hope you like the bright flowers as I wanted a strong contrast to the darker background which was an experiment on MDF with the flat matte ink sprays.

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

Fliss xx

A Bit of Mixed Media for That's Crafty!

Hello! Hope you've all had a good week and managed to fit in some crafting as I did (in between accounts and VAT!). I'll have some more things to share over the weekend I'm hoping as I have several things in progress at the moment.
In the meantime, I have a post today over at That's Crafty! blog which is another of the samples I created for the last Hochanda shows which featured some new and gorgeous background stamps and masks designed by the ever talented Melina.

Here's just a sneak peek and you'll have to pop over to the blog if you'd like to see the whole thing which has a bit of bling in the form of the gorgeous That's Crafty! holographic texture paste which I really love.

Have a great weekend and see you soon.

Fliss xx

Blue Tulips!

Hello on a rather blustery Friday! It seems more like October than September and the poor trees are shedding leaves when they're still green.
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a mixed media plaque on a floral theme with a bit of artistic license as my tulips are blue!
Here's a sneak peek and you'll find the whole project over at the blog on this link

Have a great day and a lovely weekend and will be over for a long overdue visit this weekend.

Fliss xx

Catching Up!

Hello, I hope you're all well and sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I've been very busy again with accounting and VAT work, making samples for Hochanda shows (One Day Special last month and shows last week) plus still doing things for my father in law whose progress is quite slow. He comes to us every Sunday for lunch and I still do his shopping and various other stuff too.
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a rather frosty mixed media collage which I created for the shows last week - these were part of Hochanda's 12 Days of Christmas - and it was very odd making Christmas cards in a heatwave I can say!
This one is more wintery than festive and a tiny bit steampunk as if you look closely at the snowflake, you'll see the quirky spanner heads.

I also forgot to share the post for last week and this one is more than a bit steampunk, featuring the same bird and if you read that post plus this one, you'll see where the snowflake appeared on both.

I won't be around next week as on Monday quite early we're off on our travels, going to our long awaited holiday in Norway a very long way down a fjord and I'm starting to get rather excited!

See you when I get back.
Fliss xx

Floral Bouquet Mixed Media Collage

Hello again, I've finally finished a mixed media piece of artwork started a couple of weeks ago which is on a floral theme and I hope you like the results.

The finished piece is above and there are pics below showing how it all came together with a short bit of what I did to get the effects.

My substrate for this is one of the MDF uprights by That's Crafty! and I love the shaped top of this one. I first gave the surface a coat of gesso then scraped on both texture paste and sand texture paste. I followed this with texture paste through the 7 x 7 allsorts stencil, mostly just down the central area. I then mixed gritty bitz with texture paste and scraped this on roughly in the corners and a little down the centre. I left it to dry thoroughly.

I then went to town with ink sprays, using sage and blackberry flat matte sprays, followed by lilac and lime lustre sprays. When dry, I brushed on a small amount of rose gold metallic multi surface paint and interference lilac. I glued the top to the base and then treated the base in the same way with the texture pastes, gritty bitz and sprays. I painted all the edges rose gold. There are close-ups below of the top and base.

For my floral bouquet, I stamped the rose image from the textures collection stamp set 3 on cartridge paper with VersaFine Imperial Purple ink, stamping 6 times. I coloured the flowers with sprays and markers and when dry, cut out 3 whole flowers and 3 centres then sprizted the back with water (so the front colour didn't run) and crumpled them up, pulling them out and gluing them together to make lovely 3D shabby roses.

I stamped the leaf from the same set on ink spray overflow paper (happily green) with VersaFine Spanish Moss ink and heat embossed them with clear powder. I also stamped one of the flowers from the flowers collection set 2 several times with the purple ink and again heat embossed. This particular one is rather like lavender so I coloured it as such and cut them out.

I assembled my bouquet as you see, adding the elements with silicone glue for dimension and finished off with my chosen text from my fanciful flowers set 2 which I separated out into pieces like plant tags after stamping on lilac spray overflow paper with the purple ink.

I'd like to enter this in the current Craft Stamper Take Make It Challenge for April as I finished my bouquet at just the right time!

Back again soon.
Fliss xx

Anything Goes Challenge Reminder

Hello! Sorry again for being mia but I've had big issues with Blogger over the last few days and couldn't leave comments on anyone's blogs for some unknown (to me anyway!) reason. The problem was solved a bit earlier by my techno helper and it related to cookies being blocked which Blogger didn't like so if you have the same thing happen, all you need to do is go to your Google profile and make Blogger an exception from cookie blocking.
We're now midway through our December challenge at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog where Anything Goes this month.
I've a bit of festive home decor to share involving no stamping at all, very unusual for me.

My substrate is my favourite topped torn notebook MDF upright, very handy with its' own stand and I first gave it a coat of white gesso.
I then used the lovely poinsettia tree stencil with texture paste to make my focal point. Once this was dry, I added some snowflakes which come handily on the same stencil, again using texture paste.
I brushed gold and silver metallic multi surface paints roughly over the panel and when the paint was dry, painted the tree with red and green multi surface paints and the snowflakes white.
I diluted some gold paint with water to make a glaze and brushed this over the surface of the tree. This gives a lovely shimmer to catch the light.
I added a row of Tim Holtz seasonal stickers across the base, choosing the black and gold for a strong contrast.
I painted the base with the gold and silver mix, then glued the top panel in place with That's Crafty! multi purpose craft adhesive to finish.
Here are a few close-ups for a better view:

I hope you can enter as this has to be the easiest theme ever and there are some great prizes to be won too, plus you can enter wherever in the world you are.

Hope your Christmas preparations are going well and better than mine!

Fliss xx

A Christmas Tree Wreath for That's Crafty!

Hello! I'm still playing catch up as I have very little time for blogging at the moment and hope you'll bear with me until life gets back to normal (or near normal) hopefully very soon.
I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog today and this week I have the follow on from last week to share as I've created something else from the papers I made, this time a mixed media Christmas wreath.

You'll find all the details over at the blog as always and I'd love it if you hopped over for a visit.

Have a great weekend and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Dream Tag for That's Crafty!

Hello! A rather late post today after another exceedingly busy week to let you know that I have my usual Friday post over at That's Crafty! Blog where I'm sharing a mixed media tag with a large blooming flower embellishment.

You'll find all the details over the blog as usual if you'd like to see how I created it.

I'm still involved in doing a lot of stuff on behalf of my in laws which is why I still don't have much time for blogging. Hopefully the end is soon in sight as my father in law is now at the rehabilitation centre and is being helped with his walking.

Have a great weekend.
Fliss xx

Going Floral at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello everyone on a rather blustery day, it seems like Autumn has arrived at last as it's definitely that sort of weather today.
Apologies for not visiting much lately, I'm in the middle of the rather daunting task of sorting out my mother in law's clothes on behalf of my father in law and it's taking ages as she has a lot of very lovely and classy items which I'm reluctant to just give to the local charity shops as they're worth quite a lot. I'm trying to find second hand clothing shops that would be interested at the moment so we could get more for them and donate it to a charity we choose.

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a floral mixed media chunkie which I hope you'll like if you hop over to see how it came about.

I've been playing with the texture pastes again as I love these for mixed media.

Have a great weekend and will visit as soon as I can find some spare time.
Fliss xx

Dragonfly Collage and Hochanda News

Hello! I hope you've all had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend as I am. I have one of my samples for today's Hochanda show which if you're reading this before 12 noon you can watch!

Here's a sneak peek of my dragonfly collage which I hope you'll hop over to That's Crafty! Blog to see the whole photo of and of course, how I created it.

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

Fliss xx

Quoth The Raven

Hello! Welcome to my inspiration for our new challenge this month over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog where, being October, we have the theme of Spookalicious and would like to see your creepy or Halloween artwork.
My mixed media panel was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and came about because when rummaging through my stencils, I came across my as yet unused raven stencil.

I chose a square MDF panel and covered this roughly with texture sand paste, leaving a few bits of the panel uncovered - mainly around the edges.
I sprayed the panel with Walnut, Blueberry and Blackberry flat matte sprays, giving it several coats and drying between each one.
Once the background was completely dry, I used the raven stencil with texture paste to create my main image. I let this dry well and then painted it with Black multi surface paint by placing the stencil back on top and applying the paint with a sponge.
I then removed the stencil and painted in between the sections as well to form a complete image. I then added some highlights to the bird with Metallic Blue and Silver multi surface paints. I went around the edges with Red shimmer paint and also painted his eye.
I trimmed a greyboard tree so that it would fit on the side and covered it with texture paste, scraping in a knarled bark pattern with a cocktail stick. When it was dry, I painted it with black multi surface paint and charcoal shimmer paint, treating several greyboard leaves in the same way. I glued these on the left hand side of my collage.
I stamped the skulls (actually the skull and crossbones image from Donna's Claire stamp set) on mixed media paper with black pigment ink and clear embossed them. I coloured them a little with my Zig pens and then heat embossed them further with Vintage Beeswax Baked Texture embossing powder. I also used this on a Tim Holtz quote chip.
I created a spooky moon in the top right hand corner with texture paste using a circle stencil and coloured this with a mix of multi surface and shimmer paints.

I hope you can join us for some great prizes.

Thank you to everyone who left kind comments on my last post. My father in law is now recovering well and is awaiting transfer to an NHS centre for physiotherapy care.

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

Forever Autumn Part 2

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a good week with some sunshine as we've had (at least until yesterday when the remains of hurricane whatever made it rather windy!).
My parents in law are slowly recovering and my mother in law has been eating since late Friday much to our relief. We don't know when either of them will be able to leave hospital, we just have to wait and see what happens.
I have my midway inspiration for our Forever Autumn challenge over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog to share today and unusually for me, no stamping is involved!!!

My substrate for this creation is a pair of the new circular greyboard shapes from the last Hochanda show which I've layered up.
I first covered them with texture sand paste applied with a palette knife rather roughly I admit. Once it was dry, I used the gorgeous leaf stencil (TC7002) with texture paste to add leaves around the outside of the larger circle and all over the smaller one - it's necessary to wait for some of the leaves to dry before adding more.
When everything was dry I got to work with some of the flat matte sprays using saffron, orange and tomato followed by a touch of basil and some gold lustre spray. As you'll see, the spray behaves differently on the texture paste where it is absorbed more to the sand texture paste where it dries almost gone.

This is before the sprays had dried completely and the end result is much softer as the ink is fully absorbed.
I added some dabbing with antique gold metallic paint on the larger circle and copper on the smaller one and made the edges pop with black multi surface paint.
I glued the circles together and finished off with the stencilled nature text (TC7036) which I did with potting soil Archival ink on a scrap of spray overflow paper.

If you haven't yet entered, do give it a go as there are some great prizes up for grabs.

Have a great day.
Fliss xx