Blossoming Card for That's Crafty! and more

Hello, I'm here slightly late with the details of my post over at That's Crafty! Blog last Friday which is because on Friday and Saturday I had an issue on my blog which was caused by the photo host of my blog background layout and I ended up with a huge grey watermark straight across the page.
This was eventually sorted out yesterday evening by my tech help (my brilliant elder daughter) so if you did notice it, you'll know why I hated it!

Here's the card from my post which I hope you like.

I hope you've had a good weekend and that you have a good week ahead.

Fliss xx

All Floral at That's Crafty! Blog

Hello! Rather a windy and dull day today with just a tiny peek of sunshine but so cold it definitely doesn't feel like June - I actually had to wear my winter coat out today although I only had a short sleeved frock under it :D
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with another of the samples that I made for the last Hochanda shows and this week I'm sharing a many layered card with stencilling and stamping. If you'd like to see how I created it please do hop over HERE

Have a great weekend and see you soon.

Fliss xx

Affirmations ATCs and more

Hello, it's been a very wet, cold and dismal day here and it's very hard to believe it's actually June when it seems more like April!
I have something rather cheery to share as I've been joining in with the challenges over at Mixed Media Learning Zone and the final one is affirmations. I've made a trio with my own affirmations and I hope you like them.

I've also got a card to share as it was my niece Lucy's birthday on Saturday and I made her a simple card with a floral theme and my favourite birthday sentiment (a Hero Arts stamp I've had for ages).

Have a great week and see you soon.

Fliss xx

Arty Card and Other News

Hello on a rather wet and dismal Friday. Hope you're all ok and I'm wondering where the summer has gone after the last few sunny days!
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with a rather arty card which is one of the samples I made for the last Hochanda shows That's Crafty! had in May. It features a lot of layered stencilling and stamping and you can find all the details over at the blog by clicking HERE if you'd like to see how it came about.

On another note, I've been joining in with the challenge by Mixed Media Learning Zone on their Facebook group with the prize of a place on their Summer Wellspring School and I've done the first 2 which are below. The first was monochrome in just black and white and the second finger painting and my love of colour has come out to play for that one.

I still have to do the 3rd one which is affirmations so will post that when I get it done as I've really enjoyed stretching my creativity which has been a bit tired lately with life getting in the way.

Have a great weekend and see you soon.
Fliss xx

Gone Totally Floral!

Hello on a rather dull Friday. I hope you've all had a good week. I've been busy with accounting stuff although managed to squeeze in a bit of crafting which I'll share soon.
In the meantime, I have the perfect card to share on a dull day which is my post for this week over at That's Crafty! Blog where you'll find all the details on how I created this. The card showcases one of Melina's gorgeous new flower collection stamps which I've turned into a poppy as there's nothing that says summer to me more than a field of poppies - in fact, if you read on you'll see my desktop photo which I love so much I can't change it.

Here's my desktop photo

I also forgot to post my That's Crafty! make for last week so here they are - a trio of floral artist trading cards.

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

Fliss xx

Brighten Up Your Life for That's Crafty!

Hello! Still trying to get back to blogging again and hopefully will now manage a bit more as my poor blog is now seeming rather rusty lol!

I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with another of the journal spreads that I created for the last Hochanda shows. It's very bright and cheery and just what I need as today is dull and grey after the last few sunny and warm days.

If you'd like to see how I created these pages, please click HERE to be whisked over.

If you missed my earlier posts over at That's Crafty! Blog, here are a couple more of my journal creations which can be found there.

This is my front cover making use of the texture paste and the amazing new acrylic liquid wax which I used to embed Lynne's new and gorgeous leaf stamp which was heat embossed with rusty powder. Please click HERE to see how I created this.

These are my first shared pages which use Lynne's gorgeous new mark making stamps in a rather different way. Click HERE to see how it was done.

Hopefully I should now be able to get back into the swing of things a bit better and will hopefully be round soon too.

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

Tempus Fugit Yet Again!

Hello everyone, sorry to have been missing for so long, I've not had much time for blogging yet again with my ongoing family issues and also quite a lot of DT work as That's Crafty! had a One Day Special on 11th and 12th March and 2 more shows on 22nd March. As well as that, I've had a lot of work on the accounting side preparing for the HMRC making tax digital requirements as regards VAT - eek!
Below you'll find my sneak peek of my That's Crafty! Blog tutorial up today and underneath that, some of the makes I've not shared here yet.

Here are some more makes

Hope you enjoyed these and I have quite a lot more that I'll be sharing over the coming weeks.

There will be another post today too as I finally managed to finish a mixed media piece of artwork that I've been working on sporadically over the last couple of weeks.

Sorry it's been so long and will be round very soon.
Fliss xx

Long Time, No See!

Hello everyone, finally managed to get here after a month's break from blogging! January passed in a whirl of accounting work, making samples and family stuff including probate and inheritance tax forms and doing quite a lot of things for my father in law which meant blogging went out of the window for a while.
I thought I would put a few pics on here so that you can see what I've been up to craft wise, little though it actually is!

These are some of the artist trading coin samples that made an appearance on Hochanda last week on what turned out to be very successful shows.

I'm hoping that this month will be better and that I can do more crafting and blogging in spite of still having to do quite a lot for my father in law.

Fliss xx

Where Flowers Bloom for That's Crafty!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a really lovely Christmas and maybe got some lovely crafty goodies as presents - in my case this was some rather fab stitching and embroidery books as one of my resolutions is to go back to my sewing roots which have taken a back seat over the last few years.
I'm over at That's Crafty! Blog today with my first post of the year which is a simple art journal page as I've been rather short on time due to a lot of family stuff going on over the festive season.

Have a great weekend and see you soon.

Fliss xx

Fred's Fishy Christmas

Hello! Hope you're all ready for the big day. I'm nearly there at last with just the wrapping left and a couple of stocking fillers to buy - yippee!
I didn't say here but last Friday we had yet more drama as my poor father in law suffered a mild stroke late in the evening and ended up back in hospital. Luckily he has recovered quickly and we'll be collecting him late this afternoon to bring him home. A great relief as we were not sure he would be home for Christmas.
I have my last post of this year over at That's Crafty! Blog today and Donna's cute Fred has come out to play with 2 rather cheeky looking mice. From the expression on his face, he looks as if he's been up to no good.

Have a great day and a lovely weekend and see you 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