Going Round in Circles!

Hello and welcome! It's Sue here and I'm your host for the current challenge. Including circles in my projects is one of my favourite things to do, so for this challenge I want to see circles, lots of circles, not just one! Stencilled, stamped or even a circular project such as a wreath!

The team will choose their top four picks with the winner being invited to join us in a Guest DT spot here at Frilly and Funkie and the next three will receive badges to display on their blogs. Everyone who enters and follows the rules will be entered into the draw to have the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

The guidelines for entering are simple; create a new vintage or shabby chic project following the challenge theme, link it below to your post (not just your blog) and also include a link back to this challenge in your post. You can combine our challenge with up to 10 challenges (including this one) to be in with a chance of winning. Make sure you follow these rules as unfortunately we have had to eliminate entrants from the prize draws in the past when they have entered too many other challenges. If you are entering through a public forum please use keyword F&F. Also, please be sure to turn off your Word Verification so our Design Team can leave comments on your blogs.

Here are the fabulous creations from the Funkie side of the team!

Suzanne Czosek - Suzz's Stamping Spot 

Jenny Marples - Pushing The Right Buttons

Sue Carrington - Stamping Sue Style

Zoe Hillman - iGirlZoe

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WEEK ONE

Here are the wonderful creations from the Frilly side of the team!

Kathy Clement - Kathy by Design

Cec Wintonyk - CW Card Creations

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

Now it's your turn to share those circles here at Frilly and Funkie! Enter your projects below and remember to come back tomorrow to see what our latest Guest Designer has created. And of course next week there will be more inspiration from the Funkie side of the Design Team.

Sue

Saturday Step x Step - Altered Book

Hello and welcome to today's Step x Step ! It's Sue here and today I'm sharing a project that includes some experimentation with the Prima Sculpture Medium. I have been intrigued by the recent popularity of creating projects which include using products that make fabric go hard, so thought this would be a good opportunity to have a dabble !

I have one or two notebooks that I've decorated in the past and they are now in need of a new lease of life, so I started by removing the cover from this little book.

To neaten everything up I covered the book with some Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap and coated it with Glue 'n' Seal. Not knowing what I was going to do next it's always wise to coat paper like this as it protects it from the moisture of paints etc.

 The Sculpture Medum takes a while to dry and I needed the fabric set hard so the next job was to soak some Petaloo Burlap flowers in the medium.

I made different size, wire circles by wrapping the wire around my fingers then pushing the still wet flowers into them so they would dry in this shape.

The fabric I've used is a light gauze and I've soaked it in the Sculpture Medium then positioned it on the front of the book, poured on a little more and sprinkled Art Stones and Mini Art Stones over it.

I pushed the flowers out of their wire circles and glued them into place, I also decided that the wire circles looked useful so used them too !

Once everything was dry I gave it a coat of Prima Art Alchemny Light Patina acrylic paint.

While the Light Patina was still I wet I used Lime Peel, blending it around the edges of the fabric.

Now to start adding some depth, Deep Waters is a beautiful deep blue and using it while the previous layers are still wet lets it blend in beautifully.

I used Blackberry to add even more depth, this colour is perfect for shadows as it's not as definite as using black.

Time to soften everything and Silver is a great colour for this, I just brushed it lightly over the texture.

I paid particular attention to the Art Stones and centres of the larger flowers while using the Silver.

I debated whether or not to add some words but I rather liked the finished project without.

From this angle you can see how the fabric has shaped itself.

Just for completeness here's a shot of the back cover which I've painted with the same acrylic paints and used my finger to blend them together with a drop of water.

I hope you've enjoyed today's step x step, the Sculpture Medium is definitely something that I will be doing alot more with !

Let the Words do the Talking

Hello! It's Sue here and I'm your host for the current challenge. I love to include meaningful sayings on my projects, sayings that speak to me and inspire me to do the things I do. What I would love to see on your projects for this challenge are the words and sayings that mean a lot to you and inspire you.

The winner will earn the chance of a Guest DT spot here at Frilly and Funkie, and everyone who enters and follows the rules will go into the draw for the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. And there are Top 3 Badges for three further outstanding entries, chosen by the Design Team.

The guidelines for entering are simple: create a new vintage or shabby chic project following the challenge theme, link it below to your post (not just your blog) and also include a link back to this challenge in your post. You can combine our challenge with up to 10 challenges (including this one) to be in with a chance of winning. If you are entering through a public forum please use keyword F&F. Also, please be sure to turn off your Word Verification so our Design Team can leave comments on your blogs.

To start you off the Funkie side of the team - including a return the wonderful Linda Coughlin! - have some fantastic projects to inspire you! (Click on each image for a closer look);

Suzanne Czosek - Suzz Stamping Spot

Jenny Marples - Pushing The Right Buttons

Sue Carrington - Stamping Sue Style

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

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WEEK ONE

And from last week the Frilly side of the team have some fantastic projects to inspire you! (Click on each image for a closer look);

Pamellia Johnson - My Little Craft Things

Cec Wintonyk - CW Card Creations

Kathy Clement~ Kathy by Design

Nancy Dynes - Tattered Treasures

Now it's your turn to share the words and sayings that mean so much to you here at Frilly and Funkie! Enter your projects below and remember to come back tomorrow to see what our latest Guest Designer has created. And of course next week there will be more inspiration from the Funkie side of the Design Team.

Sue

Saturday Step x Step - Frilly card

Hello and welcome to today's step x step ! It's Sue here and as promised I'm back to show you how my Frilly project came together for the current Opposites Attract challenge. Now as my life with the Frilly and Funkie team started on the Frilly this wasn't too hard but I did have to exercise some restraint with the acrylic paint !

I've had the Wallflower stack of paper for ages and not used it so this was the perfect opportunity to dip in to it. I cut three pieces each slightly smaller than each other so that they would mat and layer up. I then distressed the edges and zipped around them with my sewing machine. 

 Using a Prima stencil and some Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste I spread it over the paper. I decided to leave it white to keep the colours delicate.

When I think Frilly, flowers are the first thing that come to mind. I've not made any roses for absolutely ages so I decided to make a trio from some more paper from the Wallflower stash. To shabby them up a little I rubbed some Tree Branch Archival ink over the edges.

Swirls are also something that  I associate with the Frilly side and to add a little texture I used Wendy Vecchi's Crackle Paste. When it was dry I rubbed some Tree Branch Archival ink around the edges but left the swirl mainly white.

 I used the same Prima stencil with more Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste on this little MDF dress form.

I painted the dress form using Art Alchemy acrylic paints, then decided that the colours were way too bright to be Frilly so I rubbed white acrylic paint over it to knock the colour back and also rubbed brown acrylic paint over the raised areas of the embossing paste. 

I also dug out some little white paper roses and wrapped the wires around a small paint brush and rubbed Tree Branch Archival ink over the flowers. 

The stick pins started life as pearls and I've changed their colour using Espresso Alcohol ink. The little butterfly is by Petaloo and I've used more Tree Branch Archival ink to shabby it up.

To finish off I slotted in some twine twirls and loops in between the roses. 

Just one last photo to share the dimension on this card, I shall definitely need to make a box for this one !

I hope you've enjoyed today's step x step, you still have time to explore your opposite side with us !

Friday Focus - Metal Embellishments

Hello and welcome to today's Friday Focus! It's Sue here and the product under the spotlight today is metal embellishments. As an added bonus Linda is including an extra 15% discount to metal embellishments at The Funkie Junkie Boutique!

I do love to include metal embellishments in my projects as well as sheet metal. I gathered lots of embellishments on my table then got started!

I picked this frame up last year and thought the little sections would be perfect for metal embellishments.

I painted the frame and sectioned piece with Gesso not really sure where I was headed at this point.

I then started to glue metal embellishments onto the frame, Linda has so many wonderful items in The Funkie Junkie Boutique! I cut some lengths of Tim Holtz ball chain and glued it along the edges of the frame. Once eveything had dried and the embellishments were secure I painted the whole thing black with black Gesso. After this had dried I then lightly brushed white Gesso over the embellishments and the frame. 

I then grabbed some Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays and spritzed them over the frame. Then to add a little more highlighting I've used some gold acrylic paint.

Now to sort out the inside of the frame. I didn't paint this black instead I dry brushed around the edges with black acrylic paint then spritzed it with Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays. As these sprays are permanent when dry it's easy to layer on top of them.

I had a scrap piece of aluminium sheet metal on my desk so I ran it through my Big Shot using the Tim Holtz embossing folder. Then using Cut 'n' Dry foam I dabbed black acrylic paint over it.

I spritzed the piece with Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays which have aged the metal beautifully.

Here is the finished piece and as you can see I added a metal embellishment to most of the little compartments. Once you get started on a project like this you start to get creative with how you can use the embellishments.

Layering up pieces and seeing what will fit inside recesses, like the little bottle cap on the metal flower and the number brad inside the little bottle cap. Also using a little eyelet screw to let the heart charm hang loose in it's recess.

Collaging metal pieces always creates lots of interest and when they're all painted come together to create impressive features on your work. Finally a sentiment from one of the many fabulous choices by Wendy Vecchi !

I hope you've enjoyed my project using lots of metal embellishments!

Sue
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