Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Colours of Autumn

Hello and welcome back to week #2 of our 'Colours of Autumn' challenge.  Thanks so much to all of you who have shared your inspired creations with us. If you haven't played along so far, we hope you will. There is still one more week for you to link up your entry. And to provide even more inspiration, our Funkie team has their terrific takes on this challenge theme.

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

Rebecca Deeprose ~ PaperPrimrose


Jenny (Buttons) - Pushing The Right Buttons 

Trace - inkypinkycraft

Sue Carrington - Stamping Sue Style

**** WEEK ONE ****

Hello, it's Sue here and it's my turn to host the challenge for the next 2 weeks. Before we get in to that, there's also some news to share about a small change we're making here at Frilly and Funkie. As you know we always have 2 winners for each challenge, one chosen at random and one chosen by the Design Team. From this challenge we will be inviting the winner chosen by the Design Team to be a Guest Designer for one challenge! So, now there's even more reason for you to join in!

Now onto the challenge, I love the colours of Autumn they are so rich and warm. The colours of the leaves are gorgeous, the golds, reds and rusts are just beautiful! The challenge is for you to create a project using these wonderful colours with a small twist, you must include some leaves on your project.

Create your new project, link it below and you could be chosen as our winner and the next Guest Designer. There is also the chance to win a $25 shopping spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique for one winner chosen at random! Remember the new rule going forward, you can now combine our challenge with up to 10 challenges in total (including this one) to qualify.

As ever the Frilly side of the team have created some stunning projects to share with you to get you started!

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

Rebecca Deeprose ~ PaperPrimrose

Cec Wintonyk - CW Card Creations


Whether you are a Frilly or a Funkie crafter we hope you will join us for this challenge because we would love to see what you create. You may upload your project at any time. If you are using a public forum, please use keyword F&F. Don't forget to provide a link back to our challenge in your post and please, please, please be sure to turn off your Word Verification so our design team can leave comments on your blogs. 

Monday, October 7, 2013

Challenge Winners for 'Eat, drink and be merry!'

Welcome to the Frilly and Funkie challenge blog for the start of a new week, and the day has arrived to announce the winners of the 'Eat, drink and be merry!' challenge. We would like to thank you all of those who took the time to enter. There were lots of amazing entries and it was very, very close, but the team voted for the wonderful entry by #14 Linda.



We loved the clever design and beautiful finish to this piece. Congratulations Linda on being our favourite for the 'Eat, drink and be merry!' challenge and winning the opportunity to be a Guest Designer here at Frilly and Funkie for a challenge.

And Random.org has chosen a winner for our $25 gift certificate to The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Our congratulations go to #2 Leona.


A huge thanks from the Frilly and Funkie team to everyone who took part in this challenge and congratulations again to our winners. Please email Linda at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com for the codes for the winner's badge and to give us your email address for the Guest Designer details (Linda) and for the gift certificate details (Leona).

Our current challenge is 'Colours of Autumn', running through Tuesday, October 15th and we hope to see you entering this time around. And a reminder, our challenge rules have changed so you can now enter up to 10 challenges including ours, and a maximum of 3 entries per person to our challenge.

Have a great week!

Sunday, October 6, 2013

New Winter Distress Paints and a Give Away

What an exciting week awaits us... with the eagerly awaited start of Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 102 course almost upon us, Ranger have just launched the new Winter Distress Paint colours. Pre-orders are now being placed at The Funkie Junkie Boutique at a discounted price of $22.50 (that's $7.50 less than the list price). You can find the rest of the Distress Paint range HERE too.
To celebrate we are having a give away! To be in with the chance to win a complete set of the new Winter Distress Paints (that's all six of them) you just need to do the following:
  • leave a comment on this post.
  • follow the Frilly and Funkie challenge blog.
  • add a link to this post on your blog sidebar using this badge. Please add the badge by copying and pasting the code below into an HTML/Java Script gadget on your sidebar.  The code will automatically add the badge and a link back to this post.

<center><a title="The Funkie Junkie" href=" http://frillyandfunkie.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-winter-distress-paints-and-give-away.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" src=" http://i469.photobucket.com/albums/rr60/lindacoughlin32/DPBadge2.jpg" /></a></center>

  • and for another/alternative entry you need to Like The Funkie Junkie Boutique Facebook page (for those of you who don't have blogs, for example).
And now, by way of a taster, here are a couple of pieces using Distress Paints and some of the colours from the new Winter collection;

Jenny (Buttons) - Pushing The Right Buttons

If you want to see more of these hop over to Jenny's blog, but DON'T GO BEFORE you become a follower, leave a comment and grab a badge for your sidebar for your chance to win. And remember, this will remain open to October 14th so there's plenty of time for you all to enter and share the news. Good luck everyone!!!

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Saturday StepXStep

Double click any image for close up.
Hello and happy Saturday! Thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you are having a wonderful autumn weekend! Linda here with our Saturday StepXStep column where we show you how we made a project. For my project, I decided I wanted to play with the new translucent embossing paste by Wendy Vecchi. I saw a post on Wendy's blog where she stamped into the embossing paste. I had just finished a tag that I had shared on my own blog where I stamped into hot embossing powder so I was intrigued with her technique and wanted to give it a try. What I learned was that it is MUCH easier to stamp into hot melted embossing powder than it is to stamp into the translucent embossing paste. Let me walk you through what I did and what I learned.
First I decided what part of the tag would have the translucent embossing paste applied.  I like to apply it with a credit card rather than a palette knife, but whatever you choose to spread it with is up to you.  
 First lesson:  do not spread the paste too thick - it takes FOREVER to dry and if it is too thick, it doesn't take the stamp well - the stamped impression won't be crisp, but rather blurred and smooshed.  
Let the embossing paste dry for about an hour before you stamp into it.  Confession:  this is actually my third try - luckily the jumbo non-branded tags sold in the boutique are relatively inexpensive. 
Once the embossing paste starts to firm up, you can stamp into it.  On her blog, Wendy suggested misting the stamp to keep it from sticking to the paste.  I chose to use black ink for my stamping.  I inked the stamp and then inked it with Versamark so it wouldn't stick. I keep an old Versamark pad around to do that with because the pad turns black from the ink.  

Because I used a small stamp, I had to stamp it repeatedly down the length of the tag.  I didn't wash the stamp each time.  Rather, I used a paper towel to clean off the tiny bits of paste that stuck to the stamp.  Wendy suggests using an old toothbrush to clean out the embossing paste from the small crevices in the stamp.  After finishing stamping, I gave the stamp a good cleaning with a toothbrush to make sure no embossing paste was left on the stamp.  
Once the tag was thoroughly dried (I tried to hurry it up with my heat tool but that didn't work great), I painted it with Spiced Marmalade and Antique Bronze distress paint.  
Now that I have my surface prepared, it's time to embellish.  I started with Wendy's Three Flourishes stencil where I stenciled it in three sizes in areas where I had not applied the embossing paste.  I inked the stencil with Jet Black archival ink with a cosmetic sponge.  
I wipe my stencils clean after each use with a paper towel and stamp cleaning liquid, but most of the ink/stain stays on the stencil. The ink will come off if you scrub really hard, but I don't think that intense of cleaning is necessary. I just accept that they will be stained and clean off anything I think could contaminate a future project.
I stamped the rosettes onto white CS with Jet Black archival ink.  This is one of the new Wend Vecchi background stamps (- it's on order but not in yet.)  It made a wonderful pattern on the rosette. Then I sponged it with Peeled Paint and edged it with Frayed Burlap.  
More Wendy stamping - this time on a tag cut from white card stock with an older Sizzix tag die.  The tag was then sponged with Peeled Paint.  
I wanted something to top off the tag and give a little pizazz.  I settled on these metal Foliage pieces from Tim Holtz and altered them by painting them black with Onyx Vintaj Patina Paint.  The Vintaj Patina Paint paint works great.  I use it a lot for altering metal.  And if you rinse your brush immediately, it rinses right out.  Tiny green crystals finished it off.  
That about wraps it up.  I started to make something with an autumn feel to it, but it came out more Halloween-ish, so I decided to give it a tad more Halloween feel with a little spider stamp atop the smaller rosette, crawling toward the "be brave" sentiment - LOL, I HATE spiders and have to be brave around them!

Thanks again for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Hugs,
Linda


Supply list - all available at The Funkie Junkie Boutique where Tim Holtz/Ranger and Wendy Vecchi products are always 20% below MSRP!


Friday, October 4, 2013

Friday Focus

Hi everyone. This week for Frilly and Funkie's Friday Focus I thought I would share some of my playtime with a Tim Holtz Texture Fades embossing folder and a piece of Foil Adhesive Sheet. I created a simple, but rich background for a card. There's a wide range of Tim Holtz Texture Fades to choose from at The Funkie Junkie Boutique, and from today (for one week only) there's an extra 15% discount on the already low prices.
As a dedicated ‘frilly’ crafter, I had no desire to produce the dramatic, metallic embossing finishes that I’ve seen. Typically, black, browns and strong metallic colors are used to highlight embossing, but I love soft, vintage looks. I began with a piece of adhesive backed foil. One of the first things I discovered is that while transferring the adhesive foil sheet to the destination, the embossing and the finishing were damaged, so I now place the foil onto a neutral color of card stock that will later be mounted onto the project…
RebeccaDeeprose F&F,fri.focus-2
It doesn’t need to be perfectly flat, since it will go through a die cut machine. I use a Sizzix ‘Big Shot’ and to emboss, I open the first tab and place my clear plate onto the base, followed by the foil sandwiched between the embossing folder and followed by the second clear plate. It’s then ready to run through the machine. Check on-line for the best way to use your own machine if you don’t know the sequence for embossing…
RebeccaDeeprose F&Ffir.focus-3
The Texture Fades folders produce deeply embossed patterns…
RebeccaDeeprose F&Ffri.focus-4
I covered the entire foil with a coat of distress paint. I had a bottle of  ’antique linen’ in my crafting suitcase, that arrived at home just before I left on this trip and I’m so glad that I had it! I’m a convert to distress paints… you’ll see one of the reasons why….
RebeccaDeeprose F&Ffri.focus-5
When the paint was nearly dry, I used a soft rag to gently wipe off the paint. It immediately appeared as a sort of antiqued platinum. I wanted more layers…
RebeccaDeeprose F&Ffri.focus-6
Using a makeup sponge, I daubed and wiped pigment inks onto the surface. First I used an aqua and then a medium lavender and small bits of lilac. The next layer was antique gold (a greenish gold) gilding wax onto the raised surfaces and into some of the larger spaces that are recessed. I used a piece of paper towel to apply it and worked some of it in with my fingertips…
RebeccaDeeprose F&Ffri.focus-7
If you look at the ‘T’ and ‘h’ above, you can see how the distress paint has resisted some of the ink and wax.  It makes it very simple to achieve a distressed or vintage look…
RebeccaDeeprose F&Ffri.focus-8
As you may know, I’m creating while on a barge on the Leeds Liverpool canal in England and in addition to working with a suitcase of supplies, I am limited to a point and shoot camera and daylight! While there was sun yesterday, today has been grey and rainy. I hope you can see enough of the detail to get a sense of this technique. Try color combos that appeal to you and don’t be afraid to experiment!! I plan on playing with more colors and types of ink when I’m back in my craft room again.

In the meantime remember to take a look at the Tim Holtz Texture Fades at The Funkie Junkie Boutique, including the new ones from this summer's CHA, especially as they are discounted for a week.
((hugs)) from North Yorkshire in the U.K.,
Rebecca