Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Nikki!

It's time to welcome today's Guest Designer, Nikki Acton of Addicted to Art! Nikki was the DT winner of the Winter Wishes challenge and was therefore invited to join us as a Guest Designer. Let's move on to hear from Nikki!

Hi everyone I am Nikki from Addicted to Art – it is a pleasure to be asked to be a guest at Frilly and Funkie. I live in Hampshire, England. I am currently not working but my past careers have been in Sales and Marketing and the charity sector. I have a cat called Frankie who, despite being slightly strange, is great company. I am afraid she is a bit of a one person cat and is terribly unfriendly to visitors which can be a little embarrassing! I enjoy crafting with others and love attending workshops and crops with friends. I am also fairly active playing badminton, running and going to the gym. I have been crafting and blogging for just over a year. However I have done different forms of art over the years from watercolour painting (badly) to very contemporary, conceptual art (sound and video). Discovering the freedom of mixed media, journaling and card making has completely got me hooked now and I can’t imagine life without it. I suspect I was definitely more of a Funkie than a Frilly last year but I seem to have embraced the frilliness a little more recently and was pleased to see the theme for this challenge.

I decided to make a little wall hanging and took a piece of hardboard measuring 20x10x0.5cm. I made sure I added a hanging device to the back and covered in gesso. I used paper artsy chalk paints on the wood and added some background stamping in archival. I stamped a wonderful lace stamp on some card and carefully ripped to fit my base and then added  some ink. I took some mesh and coated with Gesso and then Distress Paint to give it a variegated colour.

My flowers are made using Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. I prepare my cardstock in advance by wetting and scrunching it up and leaving to dry. I then lightly ink over it – as the paper has been screwed up this highlights the lovely, subtle texture. Once complete I die cut various sizes and added a little more ink to the edges before creating my large flower and some smaller ones.

Some of my leaves were created in a similar way using the Garden Greens die and the individual ones were pre made and just inked by me. I added some lace, some pearl string and seam binding. Finally, I stamped one of Tim Holtz ‘Simple Sayings’ and carefully curled the card for added dimension on the project.

Wow Nikki, your project is stunning, thank you for sharing it with us ! I'm sure you'll agree that this has provided even more inspiration for the current challenge 'Winter Blooms'.