Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Susi !

Today we are welcoming Susi of Froebelsternchen as our Guest Designer. Susi was chosen by the DT as the winner of the 'Words, words, words' challenge. Let's move on to hear from Susi and see her beautiful project.

 

Hi, I'm Susi (aka froebelsternchen) living in the North of Austria. Very proud to be invited as a guest designer here at Frilly and Funkie. I started my journey in Mixed Media Wonderland in 2003 with rubber stamping. Since this time I've become addicted to Mixed Media Art. My main focus - Art Journaling - gives me the freedom and all kinds of possibilities, playing and breaking the rules, in fact making my own. I love the complexity and depth of the backgrounds you can achieve in a multi-layered piece of art. I enjoy visiting other people's blogs, thus diving into foreign worlds of imagination and creativity. You can find me at; http://froebelsternchen.blogspot.co.at/

I don't think I have a particular style, I am quite eclectic and I love using different layers and textures. I enjoy living in the countryside after leaving Vienna three years ago. Where I live, here in the North of Austria, nature is really pure, this is the main character of the "Waldviertel" - so a botanical theme tends to show up in my work quite a lot. I love birds - especially owls, trees, flowers and all animals. I don't really plan my projects beforehand, I just tend to go with how I am feeling or thinking at the time. I decided to make a Mixed Media Canvas out of an empty cereal box for the 'For All Our Fathers' theme.

Since I have a very young "Papa" (as I call my Dad) he turned 70 this spring and I am crazy 50 right now, I always see him more as an older brother or friend, so I decided to create a very funky project for him.

I started by collaging the cereal box with old book pages , DIY painted papers, parts of doilies and plaster bandages - painted over all with white Gesso and acrylics. The Dad from 1962 is a black & white out-print on my laser-printer (if you use an out-print of an inject printer you may seal before coloring with a coat of matte medium or Modge Podge, otherwise the image will smear).

I over-painted the image with a coat of yellow acrylic and also some blue and green washes of acrylic paint and white gesso and a hint of red for his cheeks. It was then cut out and glued to my canvas. Outlined with a thin permanent black pigment - liner.

After stamping some accents with acrylics I glued different sentiments and motifs from Stamper's Anonymous stamped on white tissue on the canvas. Sealed with two coats of fixative my canvas is ready for Papa!

I'm sure you'll all agree that Susi's project is fabulous! If you would like to join us as a Guest Designer then all you need to do to be in with a chance is join in with the current challenge 'For all our Fathers'.

For All Our Fathers...

Hi everyone. Jenny here with week two of our latest Frilly and Funkie challenge, 'For all our Fathers'. With Father's Day fast approaching now's the time to make something for the special men in our lives. Then share those vintage projects with us to be in with a chance of winning a Guest DT spot here at Frilly and Funkie or a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique!

To enter you must create a new project, link it below and make sure you add a link in your post back to this challenge. You can combine our challenge with up to 10 challenges (including this one) to be in with a chance of winning. Also, please be sure to turn off your Word Verification so our Design Team can leave you comments.

So now for the projects created by the Funkie side of the Design Team. You can click on the pictures for a zoomed view of each and click on the link to each designer's blog to find out more about their samples;

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

Sue Carrington - Stamping Sue Style

Jenny - Pushing The Right Buttons

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WEEK ONE

Hi everyone. Jenny here as your host for this fortnight's Frilly and Funkie challenge. I'd like to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who participated in Nancy's 'Vintage Seaside' challenge. We had some super entries and will be letting you know who the winners are next Monday, June 9th.

And now for the latest challenge, 'For all our Fathers'. With Father's Day fast approaching now's the time to make something for the special men in our lives. Then share those vintage projects with us to be in with a chance of winning a Guest DT spot here at Frilly and Funkie or a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique!

To enter you must create a new project, link it below and make sure you add a link in your post back to this challenge. You can combine our challenge with up to 10 challenges (including this one) to be in with a chance of winning. Also, please be sure to turn off your Word Verification so our Design Team can leave you comments.

Time to unveil the projects created by the Frilly side of the Design Team. You can click on the pictures for a zoomed view of each and click on the link to each designer's blog to find out more about their samples;

Cec Wintonyk - CW Card Creations

Nancy Dynes ~ Tattered Treasures   

Rebecca Deeprose ~ Paper Primrose

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

Now it's your turn to share your vintage projects using the links below. Remember to follow those all important guidelines to make sure you are in with a chance of winning. The Funkie side of the Design Team will be back to show you their projects.

For now, take care of yourselves,

Jenny xxx

Challenge Winners - Vintage Seaside

Welcome to the Frilly and Funkie challenge blog and the start of a new week. It's 'time' to announce the winners of the 'Vintage Seaside' challenge. We would like to thank you all of those who took the time to enter. There were some beautiful vintage entries for this one and the Design Team ran close when deciding who should be named our winner. In the end the team voted for this fantastic entry by #15 Claire (Claire's Crafty Creations).

Take a closer look at this layered card - Claire has stamped, coloured and fussy cut all of this by hand! Even those fabulous fluffy clouds have been hand painted using Pan Pastels. Congratulations Claire on being our favourite for the 'Vintage Seaside' challenge and winning the opportunity to be a Guest Designer here at Frilly and Funkie for a future challenge.

And Random.org has chosen a winner for our $25 gift certificate to The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Our congratulations go to #11 Katy.

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 (Claire) and for the gift certificate details (Katy).

Our current challenge, 'For All Our Fathers', runs through Tuesday, June 17th. We hope to see you entering this time around so that you too can be in with a chance to win. And remember, you can enter up to 10 challenges including ours, and a maximum of 3 entries per person to our challenge. Please remember to link back to our challenge in your entry and mention in your post that you are entering this Frilly and Funkie challenge.

Have a great week!

Saturday Step X Step - No. 1 Dad

Hi there, it is Cec here and today I am presenting the Saturday Step X Step.  I am going to show you this Father's Day card that I made for my husband and for the current challenge here at Frilly and Funkie.

Before I do it's time to pass on some more news about future scheduling arrangements here at Frilly and Funkie. As previously mentioned, the Friday Focus slot has now moved to a fortnightly rota. Well the same thing is happening to the Saturday Step by Step. So in future you'll get three posts a week from the team; the weekly challenge post, a Guest Designer slot and a Saturday step by step one week, and a challenge winners spotlight, the next challenge post, and a Friday Focus the next week. In this way the team can continue to ensure you get to see the highest quality work, informative tutorials and plenty of time to shop for those discounted items at The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Now back to my Father's Day card...

When I posted this card on Wednesday, I mentioned that I asked my husband to remind me what his first car was and he said it was a 1959 American Motors Rambler - black with a white top.  Well I decided to use that as a the focal point for my card. 

I went searching the internet to see if I could find a car like his and this is the car but in the wrong colour.  I found this photo on a site called Car Gurus.  Since I really wanted something more vintage looking and with the colour as it was on his car, I decided to alter the photo.

To get from the coloured photo to the stamp-like image first I opened the coloured image in Photoshop.  I took the Lasso tool and carefully drew around the car getting as close as I could to the edge of the car.  Then I copied the resulting image to a new canvas.  I closed the original photo without saving the changes.

Next I took the Eraser tool and erased any remaining background.  Once that was done, I clicked on Image, Mode and changed it to Greyscale.  When asked if I wanted to discard the colour information, I said yes.

Next I clicked on Filter, then Sketch and finally Graphic Pen.  Once there, I played with the sliders until I liked the result.  Once this was done, I noticed that the tires and the antenna didn't quite look right so I used the Brush tool and the colour black and/or the Eraser tool to clean them up a bit - they do not need to be perfect.  TIP:  If you want a Sepia tone to your image, do that before you apply the Filter.

The image was saved as a Photoshop .psd file and then again as.jpg file so I could take it into Word, resize it and print it.

I didn't take a photo of this step, but once I printed and cut my image panel to the size I wanted, I inked it all over with Pumice Stone Distress Ink, then randomly added a bit of Bundled Sage DI and some Black Soot DI to the edges before I distressed the edges with my scissors and set it aside until I was ready to add it to the card.

The card blank is some scrap card stock and then I added two layers of paper from the Maja Design Autumn Basics paper pad.  Since I was covering up most of the piece underneath I didn't want to waste any of it so I cut a big square out of the middle of it and I can use it another time.  Both panels were distressed around the edges with my scissors before they were mounted to the card blank.

The next step was to take some cream jute ribbon and dye it using some Black Soot DI.  I just patted the ink pad onto my kraft sheet, spritzed it with water and dragged the ribbon through it until it picked up the colour.  I had to repeat this a couple times to get the ribbon dyed.  Once the ribbon was dry, I cut the ends and added it to my background papers.

Next I made the embossed panel.  I used a piece of grey card stock from my scrap bin and embossed it with the Tim Holtz Gears Texture Fade.  Then I inked it with Pumice Stone and Bundled Sage DI.  I was amazed at how closely this combination matched the Maja Design paper I chose.

I wanted to use this great Prima button but didn't like the colour with this project so I decided to alter it.  It ended up working out even though I accidentally grabbed the wrong ink.  I had intended to coat it with Black Soot DI but covered it with Jet Black Archival Ink.  I tried taking off the colour with Rubbing Alcohol but it wouldn't come off so I got out a nail file and sanded it off and I quite liked that result.  I then added a wee bit of Bundled Sage DI and a loopy bow from burlap string at the back.

The DAD letter circles were made on my computer, cut out with a circle punch and then inked with the same Distress Inks that I have used previously.  I added those under the altered button and then added my image panel next.

The last step was to alter some gears and add them to the card.  The gears started life as a bronze colour but I gave them a little coat of black craft paint and then mixed some Pewter Perfect Pearl powder with some Gum Arabic and painted them again to get a shiny grey finish.

I hope this inspires you to make a vintage or shabby chic Father's Day card for some fellow in your life and enter it in our current challenge 'For All Our Fathers'.

The following products used in the creation of this project came from The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Friday Focus - Tim Holtz Stamps

Hello and welcome to today's Friday Focus! It's Sue here and as you will have seen from the title today I have the pleasure of focussing on Tim Holtz's stamps. I decided to create something that was all about the stamping and I have to say I had a great time too!

Newsflash - Last time we let you know that we would be extending the time given to each Friday Focus discount to a whole fortnight. Well, for scheduling reasons (and for one time only) the Friday Focus 15% discount will be applied to all Tim Holtz stamp sets for the next 3 WEEKS!!! And remember, as all Tim Holtz items are already sold at a discounted rate at The Funkie Junkie Boutique those prices will never be lower. Check out the Friday Focus tab at The Boutique to grab those bargains.

And now to my project...

I started by die cutting 5 arches using Tim's Arch Frame die from white card.

I then put some Distress Stains (the colours I used are at the bottom of this post) on my craft sheet and spritzed it with water and 'swooshed' the card through it. I am never disappointed with the effects of the Distress products they always create really cool results!

I then got a out a selection of Tim's stencils and using Gathered Twigs Distress Ink I stencilled over each piece. I used the cap from my water spray and black acrylic paint to create the circles, and the black dashes are created using a silicone wedge tool dipped in black acrylic paint.

Then I started to stamp! On the first panel I used the large flourish from the Fabulous Flourishes set with black acrylic paint. The border is from the Classics #3 set and is stamped with black Archival ink. The sentiment is from the Merchantile set and is mounted on foam pads.

Panel number 2 has also been stamped with the flourish and paint, I've also used the butterflies from the Papillon set and the honeycomb stamp from the Mixed Media set. The hot air balloon is a rub on from the Remnant set and I've used Chit Chat stickers for the words.

Panel number 3 (my favourite one!) has again been stamped with the flourish and the honeycomb. I've also used the alphabet stamp from the Merchantile set and the key from the Classics #3 set. The bottle and hand are from the Merchantile set too and have been cut out and mounted on foam pads and I've added a couple of Chit Chat stickers.

On panel number 4 I've used the flourish, the alphabet and the honeycomb stamp. The Fleur de Lys is cut using the Mini Fleur die and I've stamped on it with the alphabet stamp using Gathered Twigs Distress Ink and added a number brad to the centre. The diamonds are a rub on and the main text is from the Merchantile set and again I've added a couple of Chit Chat stickers.

For the last panel I've used the stars from the Merchantile set, the clock from the Curiosities set and the background text from the Classics #4 set. The crown is die cut using the Mini Crown die and I've given it the same treatment as the Fleur de Lys. To finish I've added the Chit Chat stickers.

This is the final project, I die cut 5 more arches from thick card board and stuck them to the back of each panel sandwiching some seam binding between the pieces to attach them all together.

I hope you've enjoyed today's Friday Focus on Tim's stamps and remember, with that extra 15% discount off for the next 3 weeks there has never been a better time to stock up! Find them all at The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Sue
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