Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Brenda!

Today we are welcoming Brenda from Bumblebees and Butterflies as our Guest Designer. Brenda was the DT winner of the Valentines challenge.

So, without further ado let's see what Brenda has made for the current challenge, Stencils and Texture.

Hi, it's Brenda here (http://www.bumblebeesandbutterflies.com/) and I was super excited to be asked to be guest designer today after being chosen as the DT choice for Cec's challenge a few weeks ago. I love all things vintage and I seem to be going back to my roots of designing collage pieces, so I combined some Artistic Outpost stamps that I love, with stencils, paper scraps and metal trinkets to create this textured collage piece for a collage journal I am keeping.

I create lots of layers to build different textures and this started with torn pieces of book and music papers and some die-cut borders followed by a coat of gesso to unify it all. I prepared the two main images by stamping and lightly painting the lady and I dipped the sentiment in distress inks to give it a more aged look finishing by edging with walnut stain distress ink.

I had a clear idea of the composition in my head and started to build the blocked background using patterned paper strips again edging each piece with walnut stain. It is at this point I also add some torn tissue tape and texture paste through a couple of different masks.

When the paste dried I chose a different mask and blended distress ink through it, then added some walnut crystal ink and let it drip down the page and around the raised texture, I also splatted some of the ink over the whole area.

I added the focal Artistic Outpost images and added more tapes and some lace where needed and I tucked in two halves of a ticket on either side. Finally I gathered metal trinkets together and lightly painted them with gesso, adhered them into place and brushed over Treasure Gold Whitefire. I stamped and added chatty words and a glass dome to finish it off.

Thanks for having me here at Frilly and Funkie and I hope you'll have some fun with your stencils and textures, perhaps even create a collage. Hugs, Brenda

I'm sure you will agree Brenda's project is fabulous! Loads of inspiration here too for you to join in with the current challenge, 'Stencils and texture'.

If you would like a chance to be Guest Designer all you need to do is join in!