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

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

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

Blossoming Tag for That's Crafty!

Hello everyone, hope you're all enjoying the current sunny weather if you have that as we have down here. Not that I've seen that much of it as I've had a lot of stuff to do, some rather exciting and some not! Lots of family stuff going on here due to my in laws both still being in hospital which has resulted in us all pulling together to deal with their house etc etc.
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with my usual Friday post which this week is a layered up mixed media tag (I ended up with very blue fingers making this too) which I hope you like. Here's a sneak peek to tempt you.

I hope you have a lovely day and a great weekend and will see you soon with some rather exciting news about happenings at That's Crafty! towers.

Fliss xx

Mixed Media Tag at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello! I hope you're managing to keep cool in the never ending heatwave we seem to have at the moment and I have to say the last few days have been the worst - thought I was going to melt a couple of times! Rain is due but I suspect we won't get it here as the sky has no clouds although that could change and this would be an occasion that I wouldn't complain about it!

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with my usual Friday post which this week is a nature themed mixed media tag which I hope you like. Here's a sneak peek and you'll find all the details over at the blog with the full tag and the how to's.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.

Fliss xx

Midway Inspiration for That's Crafty! March Challenge

Hello, I'm back again to share my midway inspiration for our March challenge at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog, our theme this month being Spring Into Action and boy, has it taken a long time to appear! Snow in March is definitely not my idea of Spring!
I've created a mixed media art panel as my offering featuring, of course, some of my new stamps as how could I not!

If it's still freezing cold where you are, hopefully this will bring you a little warmth.

You might be surprised to learn that my artwork above actually has another piece of artwork underneath. I created it a couple of years ago and it had faded a lot so I decided to use it as the base for this. I glued crinkled tissue paper over the top with DecoArt Matte Medium and once it was dry, used the spirals stencil with texture paste to add a pattern on the left side.
If you look closely, you can just see the original artwork underneath!

The next step was to add some lime and mustard multi surface paints to a couple of spritzer bottles, diluting them with water and then spritzing them on, with lime on the patterned side and mustard on the other, allowing the colours to run down and re-applying in between blasting with my heat gun to give a distressed look.

I then chose one of my floral images and stamped this on the right side together with the flourish image using Versamark ink and heat embossing with fine white embossing powder. I painted the images with diluted multi surface paints in shades of orange, yellow and green.

I stamped more floral images and leaf sprigs on gelli print and brayer paint wipe papers from my bits box, stamping enough to layer up the flowers. Once they were glued together, I scrunched the flowers a little for a shabby chic effect.

I glued the flowers and leaves in a spray and finished off with a painted white/greyboard plaque from the matches sets for my stamps, stamped with one of the quotes.

TIP: I quite often use my Tim Holtz stamping platform to stamp my flowers due to the amount of detail and although they stamp very well using an acrylic block, I find that if I'm stamping on painted paper with a slightly uneven surface, the platform really helps to achieve a clean image first time.

If you haven't yet entered, the challenge is now open to everyone, wherever you live and there are prizes for the top 3 too so what are you waiting for!

Have a great week.
Fliss xx

Tangled for That's Crafty!

Hello all on a lovely sunny but chilly day. Just a very quick post to let you know that I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today sharing a panel that was inspired to take a sort of fairytale turn as I created a wood nymph out of the gorgeous Lana stencil that premiered on the One Day Special That's Crafty! did (a sell out!) last December.

You can see the shimmer on this sneak peek that doesn't really show that much on my That's Crafty! post although I used quite a bit of gold and bronze metallic paints on there along with gorgeous gold shimmer paint.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.

Fliss xx