One For The Boys

Good morning folks and hoping that you all had a lovely weekend. Monday is here again (where is the year going!) so it's time for a new challenge over at Make My Monday. This week the challenge is to make One For The Boys so it's a great time to get ahead with those cards for the men in your life, something I'm doing as we have quite a few birthdays coming up over the next couple of months.
My creation is a rather quirky as I couldn't resist inking up my steampunk owl, having got into steampunk mode last week. Here's what I made and hope you like it.

I stamped the owl image (Stampendous)
with black ink, stamping just the head and hat and the bow tie section again so that I could decoupage him. I coloured him with a variety of Promarkers and cut the elements out, assembling the pieces with foam tape.
I then made a rather experimental background with a Tim Holtz texture fade embossing folder. I used a piece of card slightly larger than the folder and inked just the embossed section all over with Wild Honey Distress ink. Then instead of swiping ink over the raised areas as I would normally do, I pressed the ink pad directly on them. This does produce lines but you really do have to go with the flow as you'll see from the pic below that they end up being part of the design and giving a very grungy look. I used Stormy Sky, Barn Door and Vintage Photo. I think those stripes give a very cool effect!

The Design Team have made some really lovely cards for your inspiration so do hop over for a look and I do hope you'll enter.

Have a great day.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Glitter n Sparkle Challenge - Male Cards
Scrappy Frogs - Try Something New (see my background above)
Dutch Dare Card Challenges - Winged Things

Fashionably Late!

Hello everyone, I'm here slightly later than planned with my DT project for Fashionable Stamping Challenges as I couldn't take a pic yesterday as the light was too bad and today we had too much sunshine would you believe! My usual photography spot was bathed in sunshine most of the day and it was actually 8 degrees too, so much better then the minus temperatures lately.
Brenda and Joanna have come up with the theme for this fortnight and with Valentine's Day just around the corner, what else could it be but Show Some Love.
I've made a little wall hanging piece for my project, using the adorable little cupid in window stamp by Lost Coast Designs again as he's such a perfect image for love themed creations.

I cut a heart shape out of recycled greyboard and painted it with light green and pink acrylic paints, then used a flourish stencil to add flourishes in olive green.
I stamped the cupid image with Memories black ink on white card, coloured the image with Promarkers and then cut it out to leave a narrow border which I went round with a grey Promarker.
I then stamped some of the flowers from Crafty Individuals Elements stamp set CI - 206 Flower Heads with brown ink and coloured these with Promarkers and cut them out. I shaped the flowers with a large embossing ball tool.
To assemble my little piece of artwork, I stamped the lovely text from Paper Artsy Hot Pick HPXT04 with black at the top and swiped with some white ink to soften the effect. I added the image panel and flowers as you see with a foam tape. I added a touch of glitter to the edges of the flowers for some sparkle and finished off with a hanger made from pink Broderie Anglaise cotton ribbon.

The Design Team have an amazing collection of artwork on the catwalk this fortnight and we have a lovely Guest Designer too, Chris of Imagination and Inspiration Are Wonderful Things so do pop over for a look.

Hoping that you've had a lovely weekend.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some Challenges for my little heart hanger:
Creative Inspirations Paint - Anything Goes
My Time To Craft - Things With Wings
Little Miss Muffet Challenges - Hearts and Flowers
Crafts and Me Challenges - Vintage
Gingerloft Challenge - Love Is In The Air

Steampunk Card Toppers For That's Crafty

Hello folks, I'm here today to give you a very sneaky peek of my project for the That's Crafty Blog and if you'd like to see it in all it's glory (says she, tongue in cheek!!!), you'll need to hop over and this week there are quite a lot of pics over there as I made not one but four things and five if you count the card made with one of the skinny style toppers.

Hopefully this has whetted your appetite of something which came about as I was reminiscing about Ready Steady Stamp, one of the first challenges I can remember doing when I started my blog and I came across an image from one of the challenges where we had to make a skinny or three, something I had never heard of then.
If you'd like to see the challenge project I made then please click HERE.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

Nature In Winter

Hello everyone and especially my lovely new followers, so great to see you here. Hope you're all surviving the white stuff and the big freeze. We lost our snow yesterday when we had a lot of sleet which we were actually quite grateful for as we were assaulted in the morning by the really nasty pong which the French were responsible for! Luckily after a couple of hours, the sleet came and got rid of it.
I'm here this evening to share a card with you that I managed to finish off today having a spare hour and rather than do the hoovering, I decided to craft! The card features an experimental background that will be a tutorial soon when I can take pics of the steps as it involves layering.
Here's the finished result and sorry about the pic quality, the light is really bad and I've struggled to make it look like it should.

The image is a really cute little pine marten by the lovely Teri of Delicious Doodles and is one of her gorgeous sketch style images which are my favourites. I printed the image out and coloured him with a mix of Prisma pencils and Promarkers. I then clear embossed the image before trimming the panel and adding it to a mat of textured dark copper card.
The background paper  is a piece of thick watercolour paper and my technique uses under and over stamping, white embossing, Distress Stains and Liquid Pearls (this is why a tutorial is necessary!) It's not difficult once you know how.
I finished off with a computer generated sentiment on a mat of the copper card. A simple design as I didn't want to swamp the gorgeous image.

More crafting now beckons so bye for now.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Delicious Doodles Challenges - Winter Themed Makes
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes
Cards Und More - Ice and Snow

Unusually For Me - CAS!

Good morning everyone and hope you all had a good weekend not too affected by all that white stuff of which we had quite a lot down here on the South coast.
A special welcome too to my newest follower Kym, so lovely to see you here and looking forward to getting to know you.
Today sees a new challenge over at Make My Monday and this week your hostess with the mostest is Jacqueline who has chosen CAS and a Sketch (you'll find this under my cards) and I have to admit to rather a lot of head scratching as those of you that know me well will know that CAS isn't me!!!
It was definitely a challenge but I ended up with not one card but two, both the same but very different, if you get my drift!
Here they are:

Do you see what I mean about different?
The first one came about because whilst looking for something else (this happens to me a lot!), I came across my Judikins Klimt cube so I stamped them with black ink and trimmed them to squares then added them to a mat of black card. I finished off with a butterfly which is one of my zentangle style doodles.
The second one uses some of the lovely cottage images from Crafty Individuals CI - 263 which were stamped with black ink and coloured with Prisma pencils. I then cut them out and added them to a mat stamped with one of the free images that Jean and Malcolm of Crafty Individuals are so generous with. I finished this one off with a B Line Designs butterfly coloured with Prisma pencils and Promarkers.

The Design Team have made some fabulous inspiration for you if you fancy having a go at this one and I hope you will.
Have a great day.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my cards:
Card Makin' Mamas - Clean and Simple
Simply Create Too - Anything Goes

If In Doubt - Try Shoes!

Hello again everyone, this is my second post today and if you'd like to see my other creation, please scroll down!
As it's Friday, we have a new challenge for you over at Polka Doodles and this week I chose the theme which is a real favourite of mine:

Stitching (Real or Faux) And Lace

I've made a rather cute card using elements all from the latest Cherryblossom Lane CD. Hope you like it.

I cut a piece of the green stitched paper to fit my card blank and pierced holes at the top and bottom with a pokey tool and added faux stitching with a bright pink gel pen.

I printed out the sweet pre-coloured image (I'm still up to my eyes in book-keeping work - roll on February!) and added this to the card with some pretty lace.

I added the sentiment on an inked mat and embellished with a matching butterfly. Finito!

Hoping that you have a great day and a lovely weekend.

Hugs, Fliss xx

The Design Process for That's Crafty

Hello folks, a quick post from me to share a sneak peek of the project that I have over at the That's Crafty Blog today which is actually my younger daughter's birthday card.
She's 22 today and those of you that have been followers for a while will know that she's studying for a degree in Fashion Design at Kingston University. She's now in her final year and soon has to commence making her final collection so I had to have the image stamp that I've used on her card as soon as I saw it - it's by B Line Designs and is called The Design Process - how perfect is that!!!

You'll find a photo of the complete card with all the instructions on how to make it over at That's Crafty.
Hope to see you there!
Hugs, Fliss xx

Frilly and Fancy

Hello everyone, I'm here today with a somewhat frilly and fancy offering for the current Make My Monday challenge's mid week motivation and I hope you like it.
Here's a pic of the materials I used to make the card which consists of a couple of pieces of stamped, decorated paper from my scraps box (it's my New Year resolution to use up more of these) together with a couple of die cuts using white card.

As you can see, I've stamped a lovely Gibson lady on the round die cut (Marianne Design) with Archival coffee ink (she's by Flonzcraft)
I cut the pink floral paper to fit behind the lovely trellis (Cheery Lynn) then embossed the trellis with the Cuttlebug textile folder and inked it up with blue before attaching it to the pink paper.
I then die cut some flowers with a Nestabilities carnation set and cut out a flourish by Cheery Lynn from the blue paper.
I inked around the edges of the round image panel with blue and pink inks, embossed the right hand edge of my card blank with the textile folder, added some glitter and a metal brad to the flower and finished off with a computer generated die cut sentiment also inked around the edge.
Here's the finished card:

Can you see what I mean about frilly now?!

Have a great day.
Hugs,
Fliss xx

A Song In My Heart

Hello everyone, hoping you're surviving the snow if you have it - ours yesterday only lasted an hour before almost disappearing as the ground was too warm for it to settle properly.
I'm here today to share a canvas with you that is my inspiration over at Polka Doodles Meets Studio 12  and will show you that the gorgeous little robin from the Studio 12 Picknix Collection 2 - Gingerbread Twist CD isn't just for Christmas lol.
I've gotten very inky and painty here and still have green fingers (not from gardening you understand!) and hope you like what I've created.

To begin with, I painted my 20cm square canvas with a shade of acrylic paint called Early Spring Green - can you tell what I'm longing for?! I then used a chicken wire stencil to apply green gold and olive green acrylic paints. As this looked a little darker than I wanted, I added a light wash of the spring green watered down to soften the effect.
I then printed out one of the fern digital stamps from the Heavenly Garden section of the Picknix Collection 1 CD on to some vintage music score. I coloured the fern with Crushed Olive and Mowed Lawn Distress inks using a cosmetic sponge and cut them out when dry.
I then tore up some of the scraps of leftover music score and glued this to the canvas before sponging on a little of the Crushed Olive to blend the paper in. I glued the fern fronds on top.
To finish, I added the cute little robin using my favourite trick of adding foam tape near the top of the image and double sided tape at the base which gives a very realistic look to the little chap. I added some computer generated text inked with the Crushed Olive and a small heart trimmed from the leftover music score coloured with Barn Door Distress ink.

Don't forget that there's 15% off at the Polka Doodles Online Shop at the moment so now's the time to stock up on those wish list goodies!
Have a great day.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Snow!!!

Good morning folks, Monday is here again and it's snowing!!! You'll have to excuse my excitement but living as I do on the South Coast of England we don't see the white stuff very often!
Anyway, enough of that as it's time for a new challenge over at Make My Monday and this week is the turn of your truly to choose the theme so I decided to go for a real favourite of mine - Die Cuts And/Or Punches so you could use either or both on your creations.
My inspiration here has just one die cut and you'll have to wait for my mid week motivation post on Wednesday for something a little more frilly and fancy lol

I decided on one of my favourite colour combinations, lilac and green, and raided my scraps box for some hand decorated paper to use - happily I found a couple perfect for my card.
The first one uses a rose stamp which was inked with purple and green then stamped just twice on white card. I had sponged on some lighter green ink and I tore one edge for a distressed look.
The second panel was made by dragging a distressed stripe stamp inked up with lilac ink down a piece of white textured card. This produces quite a soft look.
I die cut a piece of lilac card with a Nestabilities blossom die and embossed it with a rose embossing folder then added some layered flowers and leaves.
I finished off with a stamped sentiment, stamped with purple ink on lilac card and hand trimmed.

I hope you like this challenge as much as you liked Suzi's last one as we had a record amount of entries which will make choosing a Top 3 so very difficult!.
Have a great day.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Allsorts - Dies And Punches
Divas By Design - Anything Goes

Trains, Planes and Automobiles

Hello folks, hoping you're all managing to have a good weekend. It's been very dismal and wet here with very strong winds so not a good day for going out but perfect for crafting so I'm trying to get all my DT work sorted and done ahead of time instead of at the last minute!
A big hello to my new followers too and great to have you here but now on to the new challenge over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and the theme for the fortnight is

 Trains, Planes and Automobiles

I actually struggled with this a bit as the men in my family like the sea so I was stuck with using my trusty vintage car stamp again and have made a fairly simple, unfussy card with it which I hope you'll like.

I stamped the car with black Archival ink and coloured the image with a mix of Prismacolor pencils and Promarkers then die cut it with a Nestabilities label die and added it to a dark red mat. I punched holes at each side and added screw head brads and some tied twine.

I made an embossed background panel with the Cuttlebug cogs folder and inked with with Mustard Seed Distress ink then swiped the raised areas with Wild Honey.

I then made a stamped panel using a piece of card inked with the Mustard Seed and repeatedly stamped with a grid pattern and the Wild Honey.

I assembled the card as you see, adding some nail and screw brads and a greeting made with a Dymo machine and black tape.

Simples!

My fellow Fashionettes have made some awesome creations for your delight so do pop over for some real inspiration. We have a lovely sponsor in Marina of Cottage Crafts who will be giving our random winner a 7euro voucher for her online shop.

Have a lovely Sunday.

Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Just Us Girls - Technique(Double Embossing or Inked Dry Embossing)

Stampin' For The Weekend - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz - Birthday Cards

Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes

Adore For That's Crafty

Good morning folks, I'm so excited as today's the day I get to share my first project over at the That's Crafty blog and it's a rather romantic offering as I was totally unable to resist the brand new Lost Coast Designs Cupid in Window stamp. He's just adorable and stamps up like a dream too.
Here's a sneaky peek of my creation but you'll need to pop over to the blog if you'd like to see the full pic together with complete instructions on how I made it.

I'm a terrible tease I know but hopefully you're intrigued enough to hop over! You'll find loads of other gorgeous projects there too so if you're not yet following you really should give it a go as you won't be disappointed.

I'd like to thank Laura again here for inviting me to join the team as the opportunity to play and experiment has done me a power of good and given a very necessary boost to my creative spirit which has been on the wane a bit lately.

Have a lovely day and a great weekend.
Fliss xx

That's Crafty News!!!

Hello folks and a very warm welcome to my new followers, lovely to see you here. This is just a quick post as I've been bursting to share some very good news.
Last Thursday, when I was at my lowest point with my chest infection, I received a surprise email from the lovely Laura of the That's Crafty online shop (one of my favourite places to shop due to the massive variety of goodies on sale) asking if I'd like to join the Design Team - you can probably guess I said yes in about 2 seconds flat!!!

This really cheered me up and I'll be sharing my first project over on the That's Crafty blog on Friday. It's a work in progress at the moment as my day job has got a bit behind whilst I was ill and I now have whinging clients to deal with!
I'm still behind with my visiting and will really try and catch up with you all soon.
Fliss xx

Golden Peacock

Good morning folks, today's the day for the first Make My Monday challenge of 2013 and we have a bit of out with the old and in with the new as this year we decided to change from our monthly theme and take it in turns to choose the challenge themes each week instead.
This week, the hostess with the mostest is Suzi B and she would like to see your creations with

Dry Embossing

I'm sure you know how much I love texture so I really enjoyed making my inspiration for this challenge. My creation was inspired by an interior design magazine cover which featured some distressed frames with filigree ornaments including the most beautiful peacock. Cue rather a lot of gold embossing!

This was really hard to photograph and I had to get my hubby to do it in the end as my camera couldn't cope. The actual thing is rather better!

I stamped the peacock (from a Kanban set) 3 times with Versamark ink and embossed the images with gold detail powder. I cut out one whole image and parts of the others for a 3D effect and assembled the image with foam tape.

I embossed a scrap of decorated paper with a Papermania embossing folder and swiped the raised areas with a Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink pad. I added this to a mat of gold linen card and stuck the panel to a card blank.

I stamped the Hobby Art sentiment with Versamark ink and embossed with the gold powder then die cut with a Papermania die.

I'd like to say a huge thanks here for all your much appreciated good wishes and can say that I'm slowly getting there, still coughing but feeling a bit better every day so will hopefully be round to see you all very soon.

Hugs, Fliss xx

Polka Doodles Emma Canning Blog Hop!

Happy New Year everyone and I hope you've all had a better start to the year than me. I'm now suffering from my second chest infection in 6 weeks brought on by the cold my dear hubby gave me as a rather unwanted pressie on New Year's Eve!!!
Anyway, enough of my woes, it's Friday so it's time for a new challenge at Polka Doodles and this week is rather special as We're Hopping!
Emma Canning whose cute images are available in the Polka Doodles online shop, has given a really cute image, the challenge being to make a project with it and take part in our hop.

I printed the image out on to thick smooth cartridge paper and then coloured her with my treasured Aquamarkers. I die cut the image with a Papermania die and inked the edges with pink then added some pink pearls.
I covered my card blank with some green corded card from my stash and some very pretty floral paper. I then added a blossom border which I cut out to leave a narrow white border.
I finished off with a die cut, inked sentiment and a really sweet little bird. The paper and all elements are from the gorgeous new Cherry Blossom Lane CD.

You should have arrived here from Astrid's blog but if not just go back to the challenge blog where you'll find the full hop order listed.

Your next stop on the hop is the lovely

Karon 

You have until 12 noon on Sunday 13 January to enter the challenge and complete the hop - don't forget you need to do both to be in with a chance of winning a prize.

Happy hopping and good luck!

Fliss xx

Laughter - The Best Medicine

Hello folks, hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas and got lots of lovely crafting pressies (I did and will be trying out what I received very soon when I get a bit more spare time - one of my New Year hopes!).
Time has been a bit short with visitors, trying to sort out a mega damp problem caused by our cavity wall insulation (which has to be removed at a cost which practically made me faint with shock) and I have a house full of sick patients - my OH has a stinking cold, elder daughter an ear infection and younger one a sick bug and I'm hoping they all keep what they have to themselves!
I'm here today with my creation for our new challenge over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges which is Surprise Us! so anything goes. Our lovely Joanna also had the idea of a Secret Santa with each of us sending our creation to one of the other Fashionettes. Having this in mind, I decided to go with something inspirational and made a little wall hanging piece with one of my favourite stamps.

I love this image from Paper Bag Studios as she reminds me a bit of a lovely photo I have of my dear Mum laughing and it's very true that laughter is the best medicine. I stamped her on a piece of cream mountboard then added a mat of kraft card trimmed down one edge with a Martha Stewart punch.
The background paper came from my bits box and I thought it fit the retro image perfectly. It was made using Crushed Olive, Mustard Seed and Tumbled Glass Distress inks using my Grunge Background Technique (click on the tutorial page at the top if you'd like to see how to do this). I then stamped on it using various floral images with Barn Door and Broken China DIs and swiped on a little more of the red ink.
I added the paper to a chipboard page from a Papermania blank book (these make fabulous wall hanging artwork) and glued on the image panel together with some very pretty floral lace (bought ages ago from Art From The Heart).
I finished off with a Hampton Art butterfly stamped on pink card with deep rose pink ink and cut out. Twine was added at the top to form the hanging section.

I can't tell you who this is for yet but hope she likes it. The other Fashionettes have made some fabulous creations so do hop over to feast your eyes on the catwalk!
We'd love to see your entries although please don't forget that we're a stamping challenge (we're all addicted to this!) so your creation must include some stamping and no digital stamps are allowed.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2013.
See you next year.
Fliss xx

Some Challenges for my Wall Hanging
2 Sisters - Anything But A Card
Hiding In My Craft Room - Freestyle
Pause, Dream, Enjoy Challenges - Anything Goes
Stampin For The Weekend - Anything Goes

Christmas Wishes

Hello everyone, a very speedy post from me to wish all of my followers old and new a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2013.
Thank you all so much for all your lovely encouraging comments which I so appreciate. Sorry from me too for my lack of commenting lately which is due to being so busy lately and I'm still in the middle of Christmas preparations for the big day tomorrow - eek!

Hoping you all have a fabulous time over the festive season and will be back again with the next Fashionable Stamping Challenge.

Hugs, Fliss xx

Christmas Bingo

Good morning everyone, don't know about you but I'm still behind on the Christmas preparations as I've got quite a lot of work and house and family stuff to do as well and I shall be so glad to get it all out of the way. A bit bah humbug I know but it seems to get more stressful the older I get!!!
As it's Monday, we have the last December challenge for you over at Make My Monday as we're taking a break after this until 7th January. We're continuing with the Pot Pourri theme chosen by Caz and this week we're playing Christmas Bingo.
I have a slight confession here as my card below was made in rather a rush due to silly me not having realised it was supposed to be a Christmas card until I went to upload my non festive card yesterday afternoon. A rummage in my bits box produced enough bits to make the card which I hope you like.

I picked the Words, Lace and Distressing line and tore the edges of my background paper which I made earlier (very Blue Peter here lol) using a Papermania text stamp applied with an inked baby wipe and then sponged with Tattered Rose Distress ink.
The sweet image (Holly's Christmas by Stamp It) was stamped with Archival black and coloured with a mix of Promarkers and pencils then cut to a panel and matted on some green linen paper trimmed with deckle scissors.
I added some cream crochet lace over a border of red card trimmed with a Martha Stewart punch and finished off with a layered flower and punched holly.

Have a great week and a lovely Christmas.
Hugs, Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Crafty Mess Challenge - Vintage Christmas
One Stop Craft Challenge - Distressed Christmas
Brown Sugar Challenge - Red, Green and Cream

Late Again!

Or at least my DT post for today's new Fashionable Stamping Challenges is lol. This fortnight the theme is Mask It and you can use all sorts of masking techniques for this including actual masks, a masked stamped image, a stencil etc. etc. Don't forget that you must include some stamping too as we are a stamping challenge.
I decided on something a bit different for my inspiration this time as I've used a stencil of a large flourish shape that was free in a mag a while back but did something you might not expect with it. Read on to find out what I did!

I prepared my background paper first using a piece of card which I covered with Distress Stains in Victorian Velvet and Crushed Olive and spritzed with Glimmer Mists in Vintage Pink and Olive Vine.
Using the stencil, I applied embossing ink with the Ranger Emboss It Dabber which is brilliant for this sort of thing. I then sprinkled Fran-tage Shabby Pink Embossing Enamel on and heated to melt the powder. I sponged Victorian Velvet round the embossed flourish to make it really pop.
I then stamped the lovely lady (B Line Designs) on cream card with VersaFine Crimson Red ink and die cut the image into a circle. I embossed around the edges with the Cuttlebug roses folder. I coloured the lady with Promarkers and then added ink around the edges to highlight the embossed areas.
I assembled the card using some die cut doilies (Marianne Design) and some layered Prima hydrangea flowers which I glittered up a little and added pearls to.
To finish, I stamped the Hero Arts sentiment directly on the background paper at the base of the card.

Sorry for my lack of visiting lately, I will try and pop round before Christmas once I've got my unexpected workload out of the way!
Hope you have a good week.
Fliss xx

Some challenges for my card:
Addicted To Stamps And More! - Bingo (My line is Diagonal - Green, Free, Pearls)
Try It On Tuesday - Let's Get Inky

Drum Roll Please............

As I'm here with the 2 winners of my blog candy. Really sorry it couldn't be everyone but thank you all so much for entering and there will be more soon as I'm heading quite quickly towards 700 blog posts and will post some more then.

The winner from my new followers from the blog candy start point is:

Number 43 which is Rebecca of The Miss Haven 

and the winner of my followers from before the blog candy start point is:

Number 29 which is Claire of Hope Jacare

Congratulations ladies! Claire, I have your address and will send your candy off early next week. Rebecca, if you could email me with yours, I'll send it off at the same time. I don't know if they'll arrive in time for Christmas but fingers crossed!

Thanks again everyone and hope you're having a lovely weekend.
Hugs,
Fliss xx