Welcome to today's Guest Designer - Lucyna

Today we welcome Lucyna (aka Lula) from U Luli as our Guest Designer. Amelia was chosen by the DT as the winner of the 'Stencil Mania!' challenge. Let's move on to hear from Lucyna and see what she has made for the current challenge 'Happy, Happy, Happy!!!'

I am thrilled to have been invited to guest design for Frilly and Funky. Thanks bunches Ladies for this opportunity!

A little about me:
My name is Lucyna Marynowska, aka Lula. I come from the north of Poland. Fifty-six, part time working wife, mum of two grown up boys and a happy grandma. I started my crafting journey 3 years ago as a card maker and immediately became an addicted paper-lover. My latest craze is playing with mixed medias and altering things. I love challenges to spark my creativity and I love making crafty friends all over the world!

This is my take on the theme: Happy! Happy! Happy!
I loved doing this wall hanging for three reasons:
1) the metal frame with a gecko was handmade by my son and given to me as a gift
2) metal parts and mixed media are my fav things to work with
3) love nature and wild animals seems to be so happy to me

I primed the thick piece of cardboard with heavy gesso. Then applied texture paste through the stencil. Next it was time to attach the frame with extra heavy gel medium. Time for the best part! I hoard lots of broken jewelry and the gecko received a large amount. Another wash of gesso was given. I have used various paints and inks to colour the whole piece. Sprayed some mists and then rubbed on some metallic gilding wax. I decided to do some stamping and heat embossing to add some interest to the background. The lettering is an altered chipboard. I hope you like my gecko!

I'm sure you'll all agree that Lucyna's altered art piece is amazing!!! Isn't it wonderful that she has been able to start with something hand made by her own son too! Make sure you hop on over to Lucyna's blog HERE to see lots more of her fantastic artwork.

No doubt this has provided you with even more inspiration for the current challenge, 'Happy, Happy, Happy!!!' You'll need to enter it to be in with a chance to join us as a Guest Designer for a future challenge, so what are you waiting for... get happy!!!

And just a quick reminder that this coming Saturday May 23rd DT member Nicole has a fabulous Saturday Step by Step in store for you so make sure you join us for that!

Friday Focus - Filigree Metal

Editor's Note; It's Georgie's turn to bring you a brilliant Friday Focus today but before we hear from her we've got some fantastic news! You may have noticed from the banner above that there is a 'Stock Up For Summer Sale' running through to Memorial Day, May 25th 2015, at The Funkie Junkie Boutique!!! That's 10 whole days to get 10% off everything you order (exclusions - bundles, pre-orders, Lindy's Stamp Gang)!!!

Now, over to Georgie...

Hello and welcome :) Today I’m focusing on Filigree Metal and boy there is so much you can do with these little beauties. For the purposes of this post I went into scientist mode :)

Metal Filigree And Distress Paint

I used Picket Fence Distress Paint on the metal to complement the shabby chic pattern of Maja Design’s gorgeous papers. To get a nice covering, I poured a tiny amount of paint out on to my craft sheet and used a sponge to lightly dab the metal, that way you can keep any gorgeous pattern that is engraved on the metal. I found two coats was enough, to give a vintage feel. However, if you want a more opaque covering three coats would do the trick. Distress Paint is just ideal for this because of it’s amazing ability to stick to metal, and just think of the potential colour combinations!!

Metal Filigree And Embossing Powder

Warning - It gets hot!! :)

Okay, I have to admit - this... was... FUN!! Watching that gorgeous sparkly shimmer of different colours melt and blend with each other… definitely a mad scientist moment, he he. Just as you would with paper, apply clear embossing ink, then tip a little of the powder over, tap off the excess and heat with your gun. Voila, so easy, right? You can apply more colours and keep going over until you get the shade you love. 

For this box I used Lindy’s Stamp Gang Embossing Powders from the Autumn Leaves Collection. The green sprays for the box came from Lindy's Autumn Leaves and Nantucket Pearls.

Metal Filigree And Sprays

For this one, I just went for it with Lindy’s sprays, Magicals and Distress Sprays. I really did let the paint demon out to see what they could handle!

I love how the butterfly turned out, the paint would pool in certain areas and dry to create this gorgeous dappled effect. For this piece I used Distress Sprays in Picket Fence, Tumbled Glass and Broken China. 

The underneath piece was were given a light coat of gesso and some texture paste, and the paint just held to this so easily. The top pieces were just sprayed as the box was being sprayed. I was half expecting the paint to just slide off but it didn’t completely, it reacted in the same way as the Distress Spray, but had a slightly more transparent property to it. The beauty of this is that you still get to see that gorgeous bronze tone coming through in areas and gives a more vintage feel to the metal.

Thanks for visiting my 'science experiments' today :) and hopefully this will have inspired you to add more metal to your projects. Metal filigree is so versatile, I showcased it here purely in boxes for experimenting with different types of mediums, but these amazing pieces look great in mixed media art works, scrapbook pages, as well as accents in cards.

Hugs,
Georgie xx

All these goodies can be found at The Funkie Junkie Boutique;

4 Piece Bronze Tone Butterfly Set Filigree Metals for Scrapbooking and Mixed Media	Mega Metals Value Set - 18 Piece Filigree Metals	Maja Design Scrapbook Paper - Vintage Autumn Basics	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Paint - Picket Fence	KAISERCRAFT Pearls - Self Adhesive - Pearl
Ranger Tim Holtz Mini Distress Ink Pad - Tea Dye	Ranger Inkssentials Mini Ink Blending Tool - With 4 Blending Foams	Ranger Inkssentials Mini Ink Blending Tool Replacement Foam	Ranger Inkssentials Non-Stick Craft Sheet	Lindy′s Stamp Gang - Autumn Leaves Embossing Powders
Lindy′s Stamp Gang Starburst- Starburst Autumn Leaves Set	Lindy′s Stamp Gang Magicals - Nantucket Pearls Set	KAISERCRAFT Wooden Flourishes - Keys	Dina Wakley Media Mediums - White Gesso	Ranger Texture Paste
Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Tumbled Glass	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Broken China	Ranger Tim Holtz Mini Distress Ink Pad - Chipped Sapphire	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Paint - Black Soot

Snap, Crackle, Crackle!

Hello Everyone! Pamellia here hosting our next challenge here at Frilly and Funkie and I have chosen the theme Snap, Crackle, Crackle! I would like to see some cracks on your creations! You can use crackle paint, crackle paste, crackle glaze, crackle accents, an old cracked image, a piece of cracked UTEE, a cracked pattern from a stencil or stamp, you can even doodle on your crackle design! Anything goes, as long as is cracks me up!!

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 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.

And here is some wonderful inspiration from the Funkie Team;

Nicole Wright - Canadian Nickel Scrap'n

Jenny Marples - Pushing The Right Buttons

Sue Carrington - Stamping Sue Style 

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

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WEEK ONE

And here is some beautiful inspiration from the Frilly Team;

Pamellia - My Little Craft Things

Cec Wintonyk - CW Card Creations

Georgie - Little Blue Craft Box

Linda Coughlin - The Funkie Junkie

OK everyone, now it's your turn! We can't wait to see what you come up with!

Hugs, Pamellia :)

Challenge Winners - Stencil Mania!

Welcome to the beginning of a new week. Where is this year disappearing to?! It's time to announce the winners of the 'Stencil Mania!' challenge. Thank you to every one who took the time to enter with some incredible creations. It was great to see more new players too this time. The Design Team had lots of favourites to choose from and as ever deciding on just one winner was really hard, but in the end we voted for #4 Lula.

We loved the way the stencilling has been used on this card to such great effect and the wonderfully balanced design. It also serves as a fantastic showcase for the use of crackle paint too, ideal for our current challenge! Congratulations Lula on being our favourite for the 'Stencil Mania' 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 this time go to #5 Maxine D.

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 (Lula) and for the gift certificate details (Maxine).

Our current challenge, 'Snap, Crackle, Crackle!', runs through Tuesday, May 19th. We hope to see you entering this time around so that you too can be in with a chance to win. And please make sure you follow our rules; 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 everyone!

Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Gracie!

Today we are giving a warm welcome to Gracie of Graciellie Design. Gracie was chosen by the DT as the winner of the Springtime Die Cuts challenge. So let's move on to hear from Gracie.

Hello! I'm Gracie. I'm the mom of a sweet 3 year old boy and the wife of a loving and supporting husband; online, I am an avid crafter and blogger. My background goes from being a musician to studying Laws and Business Management, but I have always been creative so it was no surprise that I was drawn to papercrafting soon after I graduated from my second major. I discovered papercrafting formally through cardmaking around 2010 and little by little it became my passion, but I have collected pretty papers, stickers and more since I was in Pre-school. Since I opened my blog I've felt even more captivated by this craft and I've discovered that I also enjoy working with alternative projects that give me freedom to experiment with different techniques. My style goes from clean and layered to shabby chic and vintage, and I tend to create classic and feminine projects. My blog has allowed me to connect with other artists and it has given me so many opportunities that I'm thankful for. Currently I'm part of various design teams that I enjoy to work with very much. Today I feel delighted and grateful to be able to join Frilly & Funky as a guest designer... Thanks!

I added handmade flowers around two die cut hearts and embellished them with ribbon, pearls, pearl string, gauze, a vintage button and a word bead. I colored my flowers with Distress Ink spray in Spun Sugar, Perfect Pearls Mists in Biscotti and Distress ink in Old Paper.

I adhered it all on a beautiful floral patterned paper that I previously applied with Dreamweaver crackle embossing paste, Distress Paint in Antique Linen and Dylusions White Linen Ink Spray.

I'm sure you'll agree that Gracie's card is beautiful and has provided even more inspiration for the current challenge 'Snap, Crackle, Crackle'. And if you wan to see more of her beautiful card and even get a video tutorial on creating your own handmade flowers hop on over to her blog HERE.

If you would like to join us as a future Guest Designer all you need to do is join in with our current challenge!

Saturday Step by Step - Stencils and Crackle and Journals, oh my!

Hi everyone and welcome to a (delayed) Saturday Step by Step with me, Jenny, as your host. This should have been with you last week, but deadlines piled up to breaking point it seemed sensible to take more time and give you a tutorial of the standard you deserve. So here goes...

Having resisted for a long time I've finally been bitten by the journalling bug!!! My great friend Brenda Brown has been encouraging everyone to give it a try (see her current link HERE) and when I discovered an old academic diary it seemed like the perfect place to start. I decorated the cover for a spotlight at Our Creative Corner way back in 2012 (see the post HERE) and didn't want to get rid when the year finished. So, I opened it to the centre (a less scary place to start) stuck a couple of the adjoining pages together to create a thicker surface, and...

(click on the photos for a closer look)

Start with some strips of old book paper and a coat or two of white gesso. Then add a layer of Picket Fence Distress Paint.

Add a medium layer of Rock Candy Crackle Paint.

Stencil White Embossing Paste on through the Tim Holtz Wildflower Layering Stencil (an uneven layer is good).

When dry drip lines of Alcohol Ink down the pages, then add some Alcohol Blending Solution and tip the book to make it run.

Continue to add complimentary colours in lines until the pages are covered.

To make the foliage stand out add Snow Cap Ink over the stencilled areas (you could also use Picket Fence Distress Paint/Stain for this). The colours will come through a little as it dries so the results won't be as stark.

Reapply the Picket Fence Distress Paint to the edges to create a border.

Add some definition and depth by using a Frayed Burlap Distress Marker along one side of each stem, blending out the lines with a detailer nib water brush. You can see I added die cut flowers at this stage too.

Finally add buttons to the centre of your flowers, brush them with a little Forest Moss Distress Ink, add some botanical Idea-Ology rub ons and stamp one of the sentiments from the Tim Holtz Life Quotes set.

Here are some close ups...

If you've not tried journalling why start now? You can try things out, you've got a portable way of showing others what you can do (without storage issues) you have a record of techniques tried for easy future reference, and if a page goes wrong you can cover it up with a coat of paint and start again! Go on, I dare you...

Whatever you're getting up to this weekend, have a great one and take care of yourselves.
Jenny xxx