Mirror, Mirror

Hello everyone, hope you're having a better day than me today as I've just spent ages in the bank after a rather awkward experience earlier trying to pay for something with my debit card unsuccessfully which seemed crazy when I knew there was money in the account.
It all started yesterday evening with a strange phone call I had from a man who said he was phoning from my bank about my debit card. I was very suspicious as there have been phone scams on the go lately, and eventually rang off as I was not satisfied the call was genuine.
I went to my bank branch and was told there was a flag against my debit card and I then spent a long time on the phone with the fraud department. It appears that a load of card details including mine were discovered on a police raid with the result that a stop has been put on my card and I now have to have a new one.
I'm hoping I don't need to use a debit card before the new one comes as the whole thing as well as being rather scary is a right pain! I shall be breaking out the chocolate shortly having got this lot off my chest!!!

And now for the actual reason for this post which is a card I have to show you:

I'm sure you can now see the reason for my title as I think it does look a bit like an ornate mirror frame.
I embossed the Cuttlebug frame on white card, rubbed embossing ink over the raised areas and embossed with gold detail powder. I then sponged on Victorian Velvet Distress Ink. I stamped the little girl (Crafty Individuals) and coloured her with various Distress inks then cut the image down to fit in the centre of the frame.
I embossed a piece of cream card with a Sissix folder and swiped Galaxy Gold Brilliance ink over the raised areas. Some of the ink went on the bits in between adding to the shabby look.
The other piece of decorated paper is a scrap from my bits box which was a rose spray stamped and embossed in gold and then Victorian Velvet sponged on.
To finish the card I added lace and gold braid and a flower altered with Victorian Velvet and Crushed Olive inks. A tiny suede look flower and pearl finish off the flower embellishment.

My card is for the following challenges:
Stamptacular Sunday - You've Been Framed
Paper Play - Shabby Chic/Vintage

Thanks for looking (and putting up with my rant!)
Fliss x

Time For Tea

Hello everyone, hope you've been having a good weekend. It's been cold here but it is at least sunny! Before I tell you about the card I have here to show you, I'd just like to say a quick hello to some lovely new followers Sharon, Suzanne, Sue and Marianne. It's lovely to see you all.
I've had a very busy weekend catching up on all sorts of things I should have done but didn't after a nightmare couple of weeks of work so my entry for this challenge is only just finished in time. It's for Gingersnap Creations GC85 Chestnut Theme Challenge - Hot Beverages and what else could I choose but my favourite tipple, tea.
I've made a mixed media collage style card to celebrate my love of this particular beverage which was inspired by the gorgeous Willow pattern china often used in England to serve the tea.

I chose a favourite colour combination of beige and sepia to go with the blue shades. The vintage style background paper is from Polka Doodles All Around & Everywhere CD. I stamped a strip of blue card with the teapot and cup and saucer from a See Ds vintage cling set with Majestic Blue VersaFine ink.
I made a cup shaped template and cut out a cup from white card which I stamped with part of the design from Magenta's CSET15 Musical in the same blue ink. I inked a little round the edges with brown ink.
The image of the woman is from Art Freebies blog run by June  and I cut her out then inked the edges with brown. I found a vintage clock face on the internet too and some clock hands which I altered by embossing with Ranger Ancient Gold.
The finishing touch is the text which I stamped with Hero Arts letters and Vintage Sepia VersaFine ink on a scrap of the background paper.
I'm also entering the card into Stamptacular Sunday's new challenge 96 - Whateva

Thanks for looking,
Fliss x
I'm now off to prepare our Sunday tea, a family tradition not to be missed with scones, muffins, crumpets, cake and so on.

Harlequin Flower

Hello everyone, hope you're all having a good weekend. I'm very inky fingered here having been experimenting with Tim Holtz's fabulous Alcohol Ink Agate on Grunge technique from page 53 of his Compendium of Curiosities which is the subject of this week's challenge at Linda Ledbetter's Studio L3.
My creation turned out a little different to my original plan as I couldn't find my grunge board (a really big tidy up is on the cards I think!) and used instead some harlequin patterned grunge board squares that I did come across in my search. The end result is a little more blingy than intended because the pattern on the grunge board caused the alcohol ink to behave in a different way.
Here it is!

I arranged my treated squares in a grid pattern to fit this week's challenge 77 at Stamptacular Sunday and glued them to a piece of silver embossed card rubbed with Royal Purple Stazon ink.
I inked a larger square of the same card with Olive Green Stazon ink and then stamped on Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz paisley with the purple ink.
I cut out some metal flowers with the Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Florals die and coloured these with alcohol inks. I stamped the paisley design on the larger flower petals. I added a brass charm in the centre.
That's it from me until next week as I'm off to Ally Pally to the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show tomorrow and have a very early start!