Guest Designer - Niki Hackler

We are fortunate to have a second Guest Designer for our 'Tis Near Halloween challenge.  Please say hello and give a big welcome to Niki Hackler of Pawsitively Creative.  Niki was the Design Team's favourite from the Read Any Good Books Lately challenge.

Hello y'all! Just a quick little introduction about myself. I am a Veterinary Technician for my paying job and a mixed media artist for fun. I enjoy making mini top hats and designs out of the norm. Halloween is the perfect time for my darker side to come out and I am so excited to share this design with you. It has been in my brain for years and now finally comes to fruition!

I have created a Vampire Hunting Kit and this is the outside of the kit. I made the "leather straps" out of fun foam, aluminum foil and an iron.

Everything in this Vampire Hunting Kit was altered, painted of handmade. The dissection tools were leftover from school, its the real deal.

Glass bottles from Tim Holtz, 7 Gypsies and the lab at my work were labeled with apothecary labels and distress inks. Each jar has something special inside.

Any good Hunting Kit needs a stake and this one was carved by my hands. The silver skull holds silver and holy water. The gold cauldron holds a shrunken vampire head, some of his blood and an all seeing eye.

Happy Halloween y'all and Carpe Diem! 

Hugz! ~Niki

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To get all the details on how Niki made her Vampire Hunting Kit. pop over to her blog. If you want to create something spooky for this challenge you have until October 24th at 11:55 pm EST and you can find the challenge HERE.

'Tis Near Halloween

Hello friends and visitors! It's Sara Emily here to announce our newest challenge here on the Frilly and Funkie blog. The theme for the challenge is " 'Tis Near Halloween". It's no secret. I.Love.Halloween. With Halloween just a few weeks away, I challenge you to create a vintage or shabby chic project with a Halloween theme. If Halloween isn't your thing, that's OK--just be sure to include orange, black and purple in your vintage or shabby chic project (These colors are not required if your theme is Halloween.) It would be a grave mistake to miss this challenge!

The team will choose their top four picks with the winner being invited to join us in a Guest DT spot here at Frilly and Funkie and the next three will receive badges to display on their blogs. 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. If you are entering through a public forum (such as Instagram) you'll need to include the words Frilly and Funkie Challenge. Also, please be sure to turn off your Word Verification so our Design Team can leave comments on your blogs. Make sure you follow these rules as unfortunately we have had to eliminate entrants from the prize draws in the past.

Now we have some spooky inspiration from our talented Funkie team:

Suzanne Czosek - Suzz's Stamping Spot 

 Sara Emily - sarascloset

Jenny Marples - Pushing The Right Buttons

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WEEK ONE

Now let's get started with the spooky inspiration from our talented Frilly team:

Kathy Clement - Kathy by Design

Cec Wintonyk - CW Creations

Autumn Clark - SewPaperPaint

Are you ready to get crafting? I hope that you'll join us and share your vintage or shabby chic Halloween inspired or orange/black/purple project with us. You have until midnight on Tuesday, October 24th to link up your project below. We cant wait to see what you make!

Crafty hugs!

Sara Emily

Challenge Winners - Show Us Your Stamps

Hi everyone! Today we announce our latest Frilly and Funkie winners but first, a big thank you to everyone who entered the 'Show Us Your Stamps' challenge. The Design Team loved looking at all the amazing projects featuring stamping when picking our overall winner.

This time we chose #22 Susanne with her incredible Halloween card. We loved the way layers of stamping combined here with the die cuts to such fabulous effect. Congratulations Susanne on being our favourite and winning the opportunity to be a Guest Designer here at Frilly and Funkie for a future challenge. You will be contacted shortly with all the details.

And now for the three winners of our Frilly and Funkie Top 3 Badges for this challenge; the choices in numerical order are... #3 Drea Slee, #21 Shelly Hickox and #26 Alison Bomber! Please email Linda at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com for the codes for the Top 3 badges so that you can display them proudly on your blog.

And finally we have a randomly chosen lucky winner for the $25 gift certificate to The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Our congratulations this time go to #31 Karen Bearse! Please email Linda at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com for the gift certificate details.

A big thank you again from the Frilly and Funkie team to everyone who took part in this challenge and congratulations to all our winners. The current challenge, 'Tis Near Halloween' runs through Tuesday, October 10th. We hope to see you entering this time around so that you too can be in with a chance to win. And don't forget to check out the inspiration from the Funkie side of the Design Team which will be shared on Wednesday, October 24th.

Have a great week everyone!

Friday Focus - 15% off Filigree Metals and Charms

Happy Friday folks!  Autumn here with the latest edition of Friday Focus. For the next two weeks we're focusing on our exquisite collection of Filigree Metals and Charms. The entire range will be on sale for an additional 15% off. You can find them HERE in the Funkie Junkie Boutique.

I thought it would be fun to show you ways to alter your filigree embellishments.  I worked out this Christmas card design and decided to cut some of the Snowflake Filigree Metals in half to balance my design and stretch my stash.  You can use your Tim Holtz Tonic Studios Snips or a pair of jewelry wire cutters to do this.

My first thought was to allow the metal to show through for a very rustic look.  I accomplished this by giving the piece a light coat of Picket Fence Distress Paint, then gluing on Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter.  I absolutely loved this result and am sharing to give you alternate ideas.  In the end I embossed over my glittered pieces because I didn't have enough contrast with my blue Postage Stamp Frame panel.

To emboss your metals, simply rub the surface with a Versamark pad and then apply embossing powder.  The result is a beautiful faux enamel finish.

You can see how the glitter showed through in the larger embossed snowflakes.  I was really pleased with this added texture.  These pieces are quite dimensional too, much more so than a paper die cut.

I repeated the glitter effect on my Vintage Tidings Peace die.  I had to mount it onto stained chipboard to give it the heft of the embossed snowflakes.

The embossed charm is such a fun touch.  I attached it to silver cord and adhered to my loopy bow.  I'm imagining embossing other filigree metals and charms in a variety of colors, such as the new range by Wendy Vecchi.  

I thought I would throw in a couple of extra projects in which I've used the beautiful filigree charms.  These have not been altered.  They are truly so beautiful on their own!  This handmade journal features the beautiful 4 Piece Antiqued Bronze Filigree Pieces.

I tucked it in my layers of embellishments at the top and bottom.  See the color variation that comes naturally with the metal?

My Wild and Free Mini Album Tutorial features our 6 Piece Bronze Leaf Embellishments, which worked beautifully with the Prima paper collection.  It reminded me of the feathers printed on several of the designs.

I hope you've enjoyed this spotlight into our beautiful Filigree Metals and Charms collection and will take a moment to visit the Funkie Junkie Boutique and examine the range in full.  Thanks for visiting this Friday, Autumn

$23.95 Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Rubber Stamps - Dots & Floral	Tim Holtz Postage Stamp Frame Sizzix Alterations Movers and Shapers Die	Antiqued Bronze Snowflake Charms - Set of 5	Snowflake Filigree Metals for Scrapbooking and Mixed Media
Ranger Embossing Powder - White	VersaMark Watermark Ink Stamp Pad	Tim Holtz Distress Glitter Clear Rock Candy	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Paint - Picket Fence
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad - Chipped Sapphire	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain - Chipped Sapphire	Seam Binding	4 Piece Antiqued Bronze Filigree Pieces
6 Piece Bronze Leaf Embellishments	Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 3PK - Vintage Tidings by Tim Holtz

Guest Designer Jane Royston

It is time welcome a new Guest Designer to Frilly and Funkie.  Say hello to Jane Royston of Isle of Crafty Creations who was the Design Team's favourite from the A Little Rusty challenge.

Hi, my name is Jane Royston and I live on the Isle of Wight in the UK with my husband and 3 children. I originally trained and worked as a primary teacher but after having my last child left to be a full time mum and also used the opportunity to develop my crafting. From starting with card making my main love is now mixed media and I have been lucky enough to join some fab design teams in the past couple of years so I now have a proper excuse to create away! I love all things painty, inky and textured, but almost always use stamping as well as it is still my favourite technique of all.

For my guest designer project I decided to use both the spooky theme and the colours of Halloween! 

My altered art board is a witches lair and the background was created using a mixture of substrates, metal charms and crackle paste.

Finished off with some stamping to create my witches potions!  I wanted the wording to not be too Halloween specific so added some stickers that I felt go with the theme.

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For more details on how Jane created her witches lair pop on over to her blog, Isle of Crafty Creations. The current challenge, 'Tis Near Halloween, runs until October 24th at 11:55 pm EST so you have lots of time to make a spooky Halloween project and share it with us. To find the challenge, simple click HERE.

Saturday Step by Step - Haunted for Life

Hello friends and welcome, Zoe here and I'm delighted to be hosting this Saturday step by step. I have been having so much fun with the new Tim Holtz seasonal line. With the current challenge "show us your stamps," and Halloween just a few weeks away, I thought I would make a Halloween card. Here's how...

Step 1: Take a piece of distress watercolour cardstock, ink up the background stamp using a DIY distress ink pad, (mine is made up on weathered wood, iced spruce, bundled sage, frayed burlap and gathered twigs distress ink).

Step 2: Lightly mist the stamp with water and stamp onto the distress watercolour cardstock using the Tim Holtz stamp platform. Remove cardstock and dry with a heat tool.

Step 3: Trim the background to 3.5 x 5.25 inches.

Step 4: Blend antique linen distress ink into the background and edge with walnut stain distress ink. Dry with a heat tool.

Step 5: Using a distress sprayer, spray large drops of water onto the background and dry with a heat tool.

 Step 6: Once completely dry, blend in some more antique linen distresss ink to tone down the bleached spots, (you can skip this step if you prefer).

Step 7: Ink up the cobweb background stamp with hickory smoke distress archival ink from the Tim Holtz designer ink palette. Stamp over the top of the skulls damask background using the stamp platform for perfect placement.

Step 8: Ink up the haunted mansion stamp with black soot distress archival ink, again using the Tim Holtz designer ink palette and stamp using the stamp platform.

Step 9: Continue inking and stamping until you have an image you're happy with.

Step 10: Working quickly, before the distress archival ink dries, cover the stamped image with clear embossing powder. Gently tap off excess and melt with a heat tool.

Step 11: Carefully paint the windows and lantern with fossilized amber distress paint using a water brush. I removed the water so I could use the brush dry and not dilute the paint.

Step 12: Layer the backgroundas follows:
Base Card 4.5 x 6.25 inches.
Halloween paper stash 4.25 x 6 inches edged with walnut stain distress ink.
Kraft Core Metallic 4 x 5.75 inches sanded and blended with walnut stain distress ink.
Kraft Core Nostalgic 3.75 x 5.5 inches sanded and blended with walnut stain distress ink.

Step 13: Stitch around the edge of the card, add a word sticker and attach to the background with idea-ology fasteners.

I hope you have enjoyed the step by step. Be sure to pop over and take a look at the current Show Us Your Stamps challenge.

Have a great weekend.

Zoe

Tim Holtz Stamp Platform by Tonic Studios	Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Rubber Stamps - Haunted House	Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Rubber Stamps - Skulls and Cobwebs	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Watercolor Cardstock	Ranger Designer Palette - Tim Holtz AMP47704 (February Pre-Order)
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Mini Stash Halloween	Tim Holtz ideaology Metallic Kraft Stock TH93586	(February Pre-order) Tim Holtz Idea-ology 8 x 8 Classic Kraft Stock	Tim Holtz Idea-ology Clipping Sticker Halloween	Tim Holtz Idea-ology Long Fasteners
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress It Yourself Pad	Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad - Antique Linen	Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad - Walnut Stain	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Paint - Fossilized Amber	Ranger Embossing Powder - Clear
Ranger Tim Holtz Weathered Wood Distress Ink Reinker	Ranger Tim Holtz Seasonal Distress Ink Reinker - Iced Spruce	Ranger Tim Holtz Bundled Sage Distress Ink Reinker	Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink Reinker Frayed Burlap	Ranger Tim Holtz Seasonal Distress Ink Reinker - Gathered Twigs
Tim Holtz Water Brush, Detailer Brush Nib	Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Sprayer	Ranger Inkssentials Mister Bottle	Tim Holtz Ranger Idea-ology Sanding Grip	Ranger Heat It Craft Tool