Warren 2nd Attempt

Good morning everyone, as my post with Craftwork Cards gorgeous Warren stamp has failed to reappear following Blogger's Friday 13th problems despite the promises to restore all the deleted posts, I'm doing my post again as I know how annoying it is to click on a challenge entry and get 'blog post not found' which is what happens due to my missing post of Thursday.
Enough whinging anyway and here it is:

I won't say much here except that the background panels use my Distress Ink Grunge Background Technique (tutorial link on side bar) with Mustard Seed, Scattered Straw, Crushed Olive, Victorian Velvet and Worn Lipstick Distress inks and the Inkadinkado Garden Delight stamp set.
The cute bunny is one of Craftwork Cards limited edition Warren stamps which I was lucky to get some of and was coloured with Promarkers and Zig Art & Graphic markers.
The punched flower strip is inked with Vintage Photo Distress ink and I've added buttons and a blingy butterfly sticker to finish.

Challenges for my card:
Moving Along With The Times - At least 2 Bs (Bunny, Butterfly, Button, Bling, Brown and Blue)
Papercraft Star - Inspiration Photo + Die Cut or Stamped Image, Metal Element or Button & 2DPs
Papertake Weekly - Fancy A Punch
Stamptacular Sunday - Sketch

Sorry for all the inconvenience and thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Lets Ink It Up Challenge 15 - Sentiment Only + 3D Flower

Good afternoon all on a lovely sunny day and a great start to the weekend. It's great to be blogging again after being deprived on Friday 13th which it really was from a crafter's point of view.
We have a new challenge for you over at Let's Ink It Up and this time we would like to see your projects with the sentiment as the focus and a 3D flower which you can create however you like.
You might need your sunglasses for my card as it's very bright and sunny:

I decided on an easel style card as the sentiment I chose is quite large and I felt my usual favoured square card would be too small when I added my planned flower.
I made the background papers using my Distress Ink Grunge Background Technique (there's a tutorial link on my side bar if you'd like to see how to make this really quick paper). The yellow one uses Distress inks with Mustard Seed, Scattered Straw and Crushed Olive. I stamped the grasses from the Inkadinkado Garden Delight set wih Crushed Olive and one of the flowers with Barn Door.
The red paper uses Barn Door and Spiced Marmalade with the same grasses stamped with Barn Door. I used a linen card for these papers for extra textured effect.
I stuck the papers to an easel style card blank I made (using corded card which makes the folding really easy) and then added strips of deep green card and some olive green floral strips made with a Martha Stewart double edge punch.
I stamped my sentiment (from Paper Artsy Hot Pick Extra 04 - Sentiments) on white card and cut it out with a Go Kreate die. I stamped on the grasses using Whispers Mossy Stone ink for some texture.
I added 2 mats, one linen card inked with Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door and Fired Brick Distress inks and one olive green card.
Finally, I made my 3D poppy using one of the Nestabilities Blossom dies to cut out several layers of red crepe paper. I fastened the layers together with a tiny brad and scrunched them up, pulling the layers into a frilly poppy shape. The centre is made from a circle of card with black pearls glued to it.

We have a great sponsor for the challenge in Kreativ Hobby. Here's a little about the company:

We are a Norwegian rubber stamp producer – with more than 1000 different designs. In our webshop you will find all our rubber stamps under the category "STEMPLER". All prices are in Norwegian Kroner. We ship worldwide and all information regarding international shipping is on our website

The prize is 4 unmounted stamped to the value of $35 or NOK200
You have until 31 May to enter and good luck!

My card is for the following challenges:
Everybody Art Challenge - Flowers
Oldie But A Goodie - Say It With Flowers
Simon Says Stamp And Show - Anything Goes
The Stampman - Poppies
Sentimental Sundays - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking.
Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Challenge - Menu Choice

Good morning everyone,  a rather late post here as it disappeared in the problems of yesterday. We have a new challenge for you over at Polka Doodles. Your hostess this week Is Colette and she's given a menu for you to choose from:

Turquoise or Pink

A Fairy Or A Butterfly

Ribbon Or Lace

Pearls Or Crystals

I chose turquoise, a fairy. ribbon and pearls for my card

I decided to use my favourite Flutterby Fairy, Gracie, and stamped her and her wings with Memento black ink, coloured them with Promarkers and cut them out.

I found the perfect size log for her to sit on, on the new A Double Sprinkle Of Kraft CD which has lots of useful elements to make up a scene. I coloured the log with Promarkers and cut it out as a square. I added Gracie with foam tape.

The backing paper on the card is from the Sundae Of Seasons CD and I added faux stitching with a brown fine liner. The border strip is from the Sugar Birdies Collectors Edition and I added ribbon before sticking on the image panel.

I finished off with a ribbon bow and some felt flowers and added pearls to the image panel.

You have until 12 noon on Sunday 22 May to enter and good luck! We have exciting things coming up in the next couple of weeks too so keep an eye out for some news.

My card is for the following challenges:

Crafty Creations - Anything Goes

Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking.

Fliss xx

Blogger Problems

Hello everyone, this is just a quick post to say that Blogger's horrendous problems since yesterday evening have resulted in my challenge card post of yesterday for Papertake Weekly, Papercraft Star and Moving Along With The Times being temporarily (I hope!!!) deleted and Blogger say that they're in the process of restoring all the missing posts and comments dating from Wednesday 11 May.

My Polka Doodles scheduled post for this morning has also vanished (but has just reappeared - hooray!) so I'll re-post tomorrow if the problem hasn't been resolved by then.

Thanks for your understanding and commiserations to anyone else in the same boat.
Fliss xx

Luscious Leftovers Tutorial

Hello everyone, I'm here with the promised tutorial which is all about making certain leftovers look luscious, or at least I think so.
You may want to get a cuppa before you read this as it's rather a long post.

Before I start, here's a card to show what I've done with one of my borders:

If you like making square cards as I do and make your own to save money, this sight might be familiar:

As I had quite a collection of these, I decided to turn them into borders to use on my cards as each one will cut into 2 sections which fit perfectly on a square card. Here are the ideas I've come up with so far:

Punched and Glittered Border

This one was a piece of white linen card and I punched the butterfly with a Papermania punch. I then put a piece of paper under the wings to mask off the rest of the card and inked them with lilac ink. I added pearls to the centre.  I then stuck pieces of thin double sided tape on the long edges and covered with lilac fine glitter.

Glittered Border

This is really simple and started out as a strip of dusky pink hammered card. I covered it with Versamark ink and embossed it with crystal powder.

Punched and Embossed Border

Apologies for the pic here as my scanner chopped off part of the scalloped edges. I simply punched both the long edges with a Martha Stewart border punch and then used a Cuttlebug embossing border to dry emboss the centre.

Stamped Border

This one uses layered stamping just round the edges with Memento inks and I then added pigment ink over the top, lightly brushing on direct from the ink cube (the ink pad was quite dry and I recommend sponging if the ink pad is quite wet to avoid lines). I stamped a sentiment on one side in the same pink ink.

Pearlised Embossed Border

This one uses a favourite technique of mine. I embossed the card with the Cuttlebug Victoria folder then sponged Victorian Velvet and Crushed Olive Distress inks on the debossed areas. I then swiped a Brillance Galaxy Gold ink over the raised areas for a lovely pearly finish which doesn't show up that well in the pic.

Punched and Layered Border

This one uses the Martha Stewart hydrangea border punch and 2 contrasting colours of card. I layered these up and then added a small strip of the purple card embossed with a Cuttlebug border.

Stamped Distress Ink Border

For this one, I stamped a flourish design in Victorian Velvet and Crushed Olive Distress ink, layering the stamping for a shabby look. I then sponged Shabby Shutters DI over the top.

Distress Ink Grunge Technique Border

I've turned this one the other way up so that you can see how easy it is to make strips of decorated papers to form a card (one using this will follow tomorrow). I've used my Distress Ink Grunge Background Technique and you'll find a link to that tutorial on my side bar. I used my trusty Inkadinkado Garden Delight stamp set and Distress inks in Crushed Olive, Mustard Seed and Shabby Shutters.

Finally I have another card to share which uses another of the borders you'll see above. I hope you find this useful and over the coming week there will be more cards using the rest of the borders when I get some time to make them up.

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Celebrating Cake

Hello everyone, hope you've got a gorgeous sunny day too. I'm taking a coffee break at the moment in the middle of some accounts work to show you a card I have which fits several challenges.

I don't know about you but at the moment my favourite type of cake just has to be cupcakes and I've got my eye on a beautiful cake stand I saw in M & S whilst we were on Jersey a couple of weeks ago. I really love making these cakes as well as eating them and a pretty stand will make them look even better I think.
My cake stand on the card is by Polka Doodles and I stamped it with Memento Rich Cocoa ink and coloured it with Promarkers. I cut it out with an oval cutter and inked the edges then added a lemon yellow mat.
The background consists of lots of layers of papers from the All Around & Everywhere CD (I adore the one with the bunting which is so trendy at the moment) and the strawberry border and strawberries are from the Candy Doodles CD.

Challenges for my card:
Craft Your Passion - Use Checks, Plaids or Gingham
Kaboodle Doodles - Lots of Layers
Moving Along With The Times - Have Some Cake

Thanks for looking and I'll be back tomorrow with a tutorial as it's ages since I last did one.
Fliss xx

Late Late Late!

Hello folks and I hope you're all having a lovely weekend. I've finally managed to finish off this afternoon something I started a couple of months ago and then put aside as I had too many other things to do at the time (no pun intended here!)
When I saw the challenge over at Drunken Stampers this week is to use playing cards, it gave me the much needed push to assemble my piece of artwork and add the finishing touches.
It started off life as a rather interesting piece of packaging which I saved for recycling because of the shape:

And here's how it turned out when I altered it:

I covered it with some paper from the Polka Doodles Wonderland CD, choosing a black and white one and then altering it with Fired Brick Distress ink. I went round the edges with a gold Krylon pen.
I then added a couple of heart shapes cut from more papers on the CD and inked round the edges with Vintage Photo Distress ink together with some of the gorgeous vintage playing cards very kindly shared by Traci at Scraps Of Whimsy and I'm really sorry it took me so long to do something with these.
I then stamped the white rabbit from the Polka Doodles Wonderland stamp set and coloured him with Promarkers. I stamped a clock from Paper Artsy Clocks 1 plate and embossed with gold detail powder then coloured with Distress inks and cut the images out.
I finished off with text stamped with the Hero Arts Pixie letters sets and Vintage Photo ink.

Challenges for my altered artwork:
Drunken Stampers - Use A Playing Card
The Altered Alice - Time

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

One For The Birds

I'm back from the hairdressers and my hair is somewhat shorter but as it grows as if it had fertiliser put on it, I'm sure it it won't be long before I recognise myself again!
I have a little piece of artwork to show you that you might have seen on Create and Craft on Monday if you caught the 3pm show that Nikky did. I actually managed to get some free time to watch and was glad I did as it gave me quite a buzz to see this.

I made this little bird house with Easter in mind as I put some little eggs inside. I used the bird house pattern from the Polka Doodles Candy Doodles CD and printed this out on the back of some of the gorgeous textured kraft papers from the A Double Sprinkle Of Kraft CD.
I made the house up from the easy to follow instructions and added a border round the bottom using one of the border strips punched with the Martha Stewart Hydrangea border punch. I added a bid and some butterflies to embellish the little house and finished off with a garden twine hanger and one of the pretty Winnie labels.
I added the eggs inside tied up in yellow cellophane.

My bird house is for the following challenges:
Charisma Cardz Challenges - No Cards Allowed
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
The Stamping Boutique - Winged Things

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Challenge - Easel Card

Good morning everyone on a glorious sunny day after the grey skies we had most of yesterday. I'm hoping this post pops up too as I have an early hairdressing appointment and will be there at 9am when this is due to go live.
This week at Polka Doodles we have quite an easy challenge for you as D'Anne who's hosting her first challenge would like to see an easel style card. The theme is up to you.
I've chosen the new A Double Sprinkle Of Kraft for mine as I really love the CD and all those gorgeous kraft papers Nikky designed. If you caught Nikky on TV earlier this week, you will have seen the fabulous textures on the papers which look just stunning.

I've used one of the lovely Winnie images designed by Sharon Armstrong, in this case pre-coloured as I was short of time. I made the frame for the image using some leftover strips of one of the kraft papers which I trimmed by hand to a slightly curved shape and assembled on the background paper before sticking the image on. It just goes to show how useful some of those leftover bits can be as I used the final piece to make a mat for the sentiment.
I assembled the card as you see, adding one of the gorgeous sentiments, a butterfly and a layered flower. I used some toning rosebuds to make the easel stand.
You have until 12 noon on Sunday 15 May to enter and good luck!

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Vintage Fashion

Hello everyone, hope you've got better weather than we have as today is definitely not the sunny south! It's cold and grey again after the gorgeous weather of last week.
I have a card to show you that is another from the class I taught a couple of weeks ago as my mojo has temporarily (I hope!!!) gone walkabout due to work and stuff. The technique is the same as my bird cage card a couple of posts back which I'm really excited to say made the Top 3 of Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday Birds & Butterflies challenge so thanks to Barb and the girls for this.
Here's my card:

I've used the gorgeous Crafty Individuals CI-285 vintage millinery stamp that I bought recently combined with the sewing images from Creative Expressions Vintage Sewing set by Sam Poole. The reels of thread and stitching were stamped with VersaFine Imperial Purple and the button with Spanish Moss. The millinery image was also stamped with the Imperial Purple.
I inked over the sewing borders with VersaColor Bisque, Split Pea and Topaz. The millinery image was inked with Bisque and Old Rose and the ladies and part of the text coloured with Zig Art & Graphic twin markers (these are the only colours I have but more are on my wish list as they're fabulous!).
I trimmed the inside border with pinking scissors and added an inner piece of burgundy card to accent the trimmed front edge of the card.

Challenges for my card:
Fab 'n' Funky - Put Those Papers Away
Paper Play - Show Us Your Style (vintage and getting inky!)
Sweet Stamps - Olden Days Or Vintage
Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes
Try It On Tuesday - Something Older Than 6 Months + Something New (my new is the millinery stamp and my old the sewing stamp set)

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Challenge - Colour Theme

Hello everyone on the day of the Royal Wedding and I'm hoping this post pops up on time as I'll still be in bed having returned from our break in Jersey around 3am.
It's Friday and time for a new challenge over at Polka Doodles. Your hostess this week is Enfys and she's chosen a colour theme of Blue, Aqua and Purple.
I had a bit of a struggle with this as our printer has thrown a wobbly and keeps printing things out the wrong colour. I had to rummage in my stash of Polka Doodles bits and managed to find a few pieces in the right colours but had to improvise as you'll see.

As I only had bits and pieces, I decided on a striped background using papers from the Sundae of Seasons CD apart from the purple floral one which is from All Around & Everywhere.
I arranged the strips in a repeat pattern on an 8 x 8 card blank.
The background is quite busy so I opted for simple additions. These being a central border of pale blue with a sentiment border from the Not For Girls CD. I added a butterfly from the Inkadinkado Garden Delights clear stamp set, stamped with VersaFine Imperial Purple ink and coloured with an Amethyst Promarker. I cut the image out and set it on a circular mat of pale blue card embossed with the Quickutz Retro Diamonds folder on a further scalloped mat of purple card.

You have until 12 noon on Sunday 8 May to enter and good luck!

I'm also entering my card in the following challenges:
CCEE Stampers - Add A Butterfly
Make It Monday - Anything Goes
Moving Along With The Times - Anything Goes
The Stamping Boutique - Winged Things

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Blossom Time

Well, I'm back again with my second post for the day which is still very sunny and warm so I thought I'd show you this before setting off for a walk along the seafront.
The card is one of the samples from a class I taught on Monday and I decided to put it on here as it fits several challenges.

The class involved making cards with a cut away front around a stamped images with a further piece of the decorated paper added to the inside of the card.
For this one I stamped the bird cage from the new Papermania set in VersaFine Vintage Sepia ink a third of the way in from the right hand edge of a white 14.5cm square card blank.
I stamped the flowers from the Kanban Peacock set in Memento Lilac Posies and Bamboo Leaves around the card and on a strip of leftover white card. I sponged on Split Pea and Orchid VersaColor inks.
I then stamped a bird from the Papermania set in the sepia ink, coloured it with various Promarkers and cut it out. Serendipity then struck as whilst I was making the card, my younger daughter who was doing some baking interrupted me and I dropped the card blank on top of an open ink pad! Disaster was averted by cutting off the front part of the card, trimming down the side of the cage as intended and sticking the piece on a pink card blank. The other decorated strip was punched with a Martha Stewart border and stuck to the inside of the card blank.
I finished off with some tiny butterflies punched from inked paper and stamped a sentiment from the Papermania set on the cage.

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:
Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday - Birds/Butterflies
Paper Pretties - Pink, Green and Neutral
Paper Shelter - Nature Inspired
Paper Play - Easter or Spring

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Challenge - 3 Patterned Papers

Good morning everyone on a gorgeous bright and sunny Good Friday and wishing you all a very Happy Easter.
It's time for a new challenge over at Polka Doodles and your hostess this week is Tracie. She would like to see your creations using 3 different patterned papers.
I've taken this opportunity to show you my favourite of the samples I made for Nikky with the new A Double Sprinkle of Kraft CD. In fact, I liked this one so much, it was really hard to part with it!

I made another unusual shaped easel card for this one simply by adding an oval shape instead of the usual square which was the shape of the base.
I covered the base of the card with some of the very pretty kraft floral paper and then the easel section, trimming the top edge with scallop scissors.
I cut out an oval shape from green floral paper and fixed this in the centre of the easel. I added one of the cute girls from the CD and sat her on a log as the CD has quite a lot of elements that are made for scene setting. All images were coloured with Promarkers. I added a touch of glitter pen for some sparkle.
I added a strip of the green floral paper matted on kraft brown and pink spotted paper to the base (this is my third pattern in case you were wondering where it was!).
I finished off with a greeting on a mat of the same kraft paper, some pretty butterflies and a vintage button from my stash as the stopper.

You have until 12 noon on Sunday 1 May to enter and good luck!

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes
Ladybug Crafts Ink TLT Challenge - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Show Us Your Stitching With Let's Ink It Up

Hello folks and hope you're all having a good start to the weekend. It's time for a new challenge over at Let's Ink It Up and the theme this time is Stitching which can be Faux or Real, the choice is yours.
I've taken the opportunity to make a piece of artwork showing my maternal grandparents on their wedding day way back in 1916. I always think that the vintage sepia photos are so beautiful and I hope you like what I did with mine.

I started off with a piece of recycling packaging, trimming the side edges with scallop scissors and then painting with chocolate brown acrylic paint. I then stamped on some flowers from the Clearly Inspired Stencil Flowers clear stamp set in Vintage Photo Distress ink. This dried a little lighter than I was expecting but does give a subtle textured effect.
I then tore the edges of a piece of vintage music score, inked it with Old Paper Distress ink, added a flourish design with a stencil free with Simply Homemade magazine and Tattered Rose Distress ink then added faux stitching round the edges using a paper pricker and a brown fine pen.
I then made some fabric look decorated papers using the same stamp set and some Zig markers applied direct to the stamp on green, pink and ecru card. As you see, the colour changes slightly depending on the base card colour. I trimmed the edges with pinking scissors.
Next, I made some flowers with lace, satin and velvet ribbon by running a line of stitches along one long edge and drawing the stitches up to make a circle. I added vintage buttons and altered paper flowers to the centres.
I finished off as you see with altered metal photo corners (alcohol inked to match the other embellishments), lace, braid and pearls, plus some Prima leaves and a gold scrap butterfly. I made a frame for my photo using a tag shape hand cut and stamped and rows of pearls. An altered button was added to the top.

We have a great sponsor for the challenge in Stamping Scrapping who are very kindly offering a set of the stamps for their custom Spellbinders dies to the winner.

You can check out the fabulous online store HERE

The challenge runs until 30 April and with the Easter holiday coming up you might have a bit of spare time to get an entry done. The only thing you need to remember is that no digis are allowed, only rubber and clear stamps as Let's Ink It Up is all about getting inky.

Good luck!
Fliss xx

I'm entering my project in the following challenges:
Fabulous Friday - Handmade/Homemade Embellishment
Truly Scrumptious - Vintage
Delicious Doodles - All Stitched Up
There's Magic In The Air - Fabric & Stitching

Polka Doodles Challenge - Tie The Knot

Morning folks on a rather grey and somewhat cold day. Where did the Spring go? It's Friday yet again so it's time for another challenge over at Polka Doodles. The theme this week has been chosen by teamie Emma and she would like to see a card or project to celebrate a marriage.
For my card, I decided on a neutral colour scheme combined with a slightly unusual shaped easel which I think is really classy.

I chose to base the card on the gorgeous rose collection from the Love and Cherish CD as it comes in several lovely colours and I love the classic cream and beige combination. I added some of the lovely shabby vintage paper from the All Around and Everywhere CD which co-ordinates perfectly with the rose paper I chose.
I started off with a traditional square shape easel and rounded off all the corners. I covered this with papers also rounded on the corners. I then added a circle instead of the usual square and as I don't yet own the large scalloped circle die that is on my wish list, I trimmed my circle with scallop scissors (a fair amount of cursing resulted but I managed to make the scallops meet in the end!)
I added a sentiment from the new A Double Sprinkle Of Kraft CD and finished off with some punched flowers made from paper leftovers and edged with a bronze glitter gel pen (an Ultimate Glitter pen by American Crafts and really blingy) and some glittered flourishes (Sissix die) Some pearls add to the look.

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:
Creative Craft World - Love and Marriage
Scrapbook Sisters - Wedding or Anniversary
Pixie Dust Studio - Say It Out Loud (include a sentiment)


You have until 12 noon on Easter Sunday to enter and good luck.
Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Easter Bunnies

Good afternoon everyone on another lovely, sunny day which makes a great start to the week. I'm very pleased to say that the internet is now working properly again so I will be catching up with everyone over the next few days (it will take a little longer than usual as my girls are home for Easter and I'm sure you all know what that means!).

Before I show you my card, can I give a little reminder that the current Let's Ink It Up challenge is Easter projects and you still have a few days left to get your entries in. As always, no digis are allowed as the challenge blog is all about getting inky. So if you've made any Easter creations using rubber or clear stamps, we'd love to see them and you would be in with a chance of winning a fabulous prize from our sponsor, Scrappit. If you hop over to the challenge blog , click HERE to be transported, all the details are available.

Now for my card which is an Easter one, of course!

I couldn't resist these cute vintage bunnies when they popped up over at the Vintage Feedsacks site as my mother in law adores rabbits in common with our whole family and I knew they would be perfect for an Easter card.
I've used the sketch from Moving Along With The Times:

The background papers are stamped using the Inkadinkado Garden Delight set using Memento Grape Jelly and Bamboo Leaves dye inks. The effect was achieved by stamping once then stamping again before re-inking to create a misty shadow look which gives a very pretty patterned paper.
I added 2 pieces to my card blank and then added some checked knotted ribbon to follow the sketch. I added the bunnies on a mat made from a scrap of flourish stamped paper from my bits box.
I made the greeting panel using a copper plant label (very cheap for a pack of 20 at Wilkinsons), punching on a second hole and adding knotted ribbon. The greeting was stamped on lemon card using the grape ink and my Hero Arts Pixie alphabet letters. I then over stamped with some flowers using Memento Pear Tart ink. Some Prima flowers with pearl centres finish off the card.

My card is for these challenges:
Creative Craft World - Easter
Creative Inspirations - Easter
Craft Your Passion - 2 By 2
Moving Along With The Times - Sketch
Paper Cutz - Bunny, Lamb, Chicks or Easter Eggs

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Challenge - Sketch Theme

Good morning folks, don't know where the last week went as it's Friday again and my girls will both be home from uni for the Easter holidays this weekend.
It's time for another challenge at Polka Doodles and your hostess is Dee who's provided a lovely sketch to follow.

This isn't as hard as you might think as it can be twisted about a bit and if you need some inspiration, just pop over to the challenge blog to see quite a few takes on it.
Here's mine:

I've chosen to use an image together with papers and a border from the brand new CD, A Double Sprinkle of Kraft, which is the result of a collaboration between Nikky and Sharon Armstrong whose name you may recognise as a magazine contributor amongst other things.
I printed out the sweet image and coloured the little girl and butterfly with various Promarkers. I cut out a rectangular shape and added the image to a mat of plain pink paper.
I followed the sketch as you can see using one of the gorgeous kraft papers (I love this particular one for its vintage, chintzy look) and a striped paper for contrast. I used one of the pretty scalloped borders as well and then added a sentiment from the Sugar Birdies Collectors Edition CD to finish.

Challenges for my card:
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes + Something New
Paper Playtime - Anything Goes

You have until 12 noon on Sunday 17 April to enter and good luck!
Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

April Showers

Hello everyone, no showers here on an absolutely beautiful day that really does feel like Spring at last.

First of all, many apologies for not visiting you all and leaving comments over the past week or so. This will unfortunately continue for a little while as we have mega problems with our internet at the moment. Our service provider recently upgraded their system to what should be a much faster broadband speed but it's had the opposite effect on ours and we've been told we have to buy a new router to correct the problem.
As it takes around 10 minutes for a blog to load up and nearly the same to get to the comments, I haven't been able to do very much (without wanting to throw the computer out of the window anyway!!!). Hopefully this will be resolved soon.
Strangely enough, it hasn't affected the ability to post on here or upload photos so with that in mind, I have a couple of cards to share for various challenges.

The above card uses the photo inspiration from the current challenge over at The Paper Variety and happily fits another couple as well.
The stamp is by Papermania and was stamped with VersaFine Sepia ink and coloured with pencils. I cut the image out with a Go Kreate die and added a couple of toning mats.
The background paper and the border were stamped with a flourish from the Viva Decor My Paper World Floral clear stamp set using Scattered Straw and Wild Honey Distress inks.
I added a border punched with a Martha Stewart punch and a layered flower to finish with a computer generated sentiment.
Challenges for this card:
Crafty Creations - Rain Showers
Creative Card Crew - April Showers
The Paper Variety - Photo inspiration

The next card features Toby Tumble by Cuddly Buddly which I succumbed to at the Brighton Stitches show as the whole family loves bunnies. It uses the colour inspiration from Stampin' Royalty.

I stamped the image with VersaFine Smokey Gray ink and coloured with a mix of pencils, Promarkers and Zig pens. I cut it out with a Nestabilities die.
The background papers and border were made as for the showers card using Scattered Straw, Shabby Shutters and Victorian Velvet Distress inks on toning card. The border was punched with a Martha Stewart punch.  Paper roses add the finishing touch.
Challenges for this card:
For Fun Challenges - Bunny
Simon Says Stamp - Spring Colours/Easter
Stampin' Royalty - Colour Challenge

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Challenge - No Printed Backing Papers

Good morning all, it's Friday so it's time for a new challenge over at Polka Doodles. Your hostess this week is teamie Ruth and she's chosen the theme - No Printed Backing Papers. You can either make your own or go clean and simple. Pop over to the challenge blog for some inspiration from the Design Team as everyone has done something different and there are some really inventive creations on show.

You can probably guess that I decided to make my own using -what a surprise- stamps! I wanted a slightly vintage feel to my card and here's the end result:

I've again used my current favourite stamp set, the brand new Polka Doodles Wonderland set, as I'm so enjoying finding more ways to use it.
I made my backing paper with the checkered stamp, stamping in Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass, Victorian Velvet and Milled Lavender Distress inks. I stamped again without re-inking in some places for a shabby, grungy look.
I stamped Alice with VersaFine Imperial Purple ink and coloured her with various shades of Promarkers. I then stamped a row of toadstools with VersaFine Olympia Green ink and coloured with a mix of Promarkers and Zig markers. I then cut along the top of the strip around the mushroom heads for added effect.
I added mats to the Alice image and cut round the green one with pinking scissors. I did the same to a strip under the toadstool border.
I finished off with the curiouser sentiment stamped in the purple ink on white card, coloured with a toning Promarker and cut out with a Nestabilities scallop die. I added a plain green circle behind.

You have until 12 noon on Sunday 10 April to enter and good luck!
Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx