Let Me Count the Ways–Frilly & Funkie

5 years ago

Hello! Welcome from snowy Colorado – although it’s not really that much snow but it was nice to see a little bit of wintery weather over the weekend and before winter starts to wane. It was a long, tough week at work and so I decided I just needed to be in my craft room this weekend. I managed to get caught up on putting some stuff in new containers and making sure my color swatch books were up-to-date. I started in on the latest Frilly and Funkie Challenge Let Me Count the Ways. The challenge requirement – something of threes. Sure, that sounds easy, but that was a bit of a tough one for me. Although I had fun trying! The challenge is, as always, sponsored by the lovely Linda at the Funkie Junkie Boutique.

This project is hard to describe for me – it turned out a bit steampunk but not. It’s a bit vintage-like but not. I’m not sure how I would classify it other than it’s “different.” As the challenge wanted us to do something in threes, I also challenged myself to use three things I haven’t used or use rarely and that turned out to be Yupo Paper (new), Distress Crayons (rarely), and Concentrated Watercolor (new). Granted, I used several other “new” things too but I wanted to use at least three.

The faceted heart die was also new but I didn’t count that because I always use die cuts. I really do like this die cut and I knew that I wanted to use it for something from the second I received it. I was bummed that I didn’t manage to use it for Valentine’s Day projects but I thought I might be able to come up with something. And, playing around with things to do on this project, I pulled the die cut out and when I die cut the heart it reminded me of a dress top. Maybe that’s a bit weird but I went with it. So, I started on a design for a dress. I die cut several faceted hearts out of Yupo paper and used alcohol ink for the colors. I also grabbed some foil adhesive and made the lower part of the dress. In order to make the skirt, I have a set of Julie Nutting stamps that are skirts. I snagged them a while back with the Bootiful girl stamp. I used both of those as my guides although Bootiful girl almost make it on to the canvas instead of the TH relative. I also tested out (for the first time) one of the 3D-embossing folders for the skirt.

In the past, I have not had good luck using Distress Crayons so this time I really made the effort to figure it out. I think I am getting the hang of it and I produced a background on this one that I really like. I like the neutrals because it gives just enough that I didn’t want to lose it by changing all of the colors of the gears. For this project I used some tissue tape, grit paste, a stencil, and stamp on the background. The concentrated watercolor came in at the end to fill in some of the “too much white” sections. I also decided to add to the background some of the TH remnant rubs. I don’t always have luck with the remnant rubs works so I took a chance at the end that I wasn’t going to muck it up with a half messed up remnant rub.

The steampunk side came when I started playing around with the gears and other metal pieces. And, for some reason, I gravitated toward the angel wings – using alcohol inks to change the metal color. And, then I started to put it all together. I love the Yupo paper effect with the alcohol inks but I also had great fun with all of the metal gears, tags, button, and bits of pieces to choose from for the rest of the canvas.

And, if you can’t find them, here are my threes: 3 small hearts, 3 white mélange, 3 of the small gears (same design), 3 of the screws that you need a wrench for, three bronze dome pieces, 3 words in title.

I hope everyone has a lovely week. Thank you for stopping by to check out today’s project. Please let me know what you think!

Here’s the stuff I used:

• Design Tape/Tissue Tape: Prima (Collector’s Notes); Tim Holtz Idea-ology (Symphony)
• Distress Marker: (Tea Dye and Gathered Twigs
• Distress Crayons: Victorian Velvet, Gathered Twigs, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo
• Prima: Concentrated Watercolor (Café)
• Archival Ink: Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil
• Prima Metal Embellishment: Finnabair Mechanicals Rustic Washers, Finnabair Mechanicals Mini Hardware, Prima Tiny Junkyard Findings
• TH Idea-ology: Hex Fasteners, Angelic, Nailheads, Gadget Gears, Sprocket Gears, Mini Gears, Word Chips, File Tabs, Remnant Rubs, Paper Dolls
• Foil: Sizzix Foil Adhesive (Copper);
• Die Cuts: Thin-lits Faceted Heart
• Embossing Folder: TH Sizzix 3D Embossing Folder (Foundry)
• Other Embellishments: Prima Art Ingredients Melange (Vintage); Funkie Junkie Mini Metal Gears, Gauze
• Adhesive: Dina Wakely Ultra Thick Gel Medium
• Tim Holtz Grit Paste
• Stamp: Carabelle Art Stamp Background Ecriture
• Adirondack Alcohol Inks: Rust, Gold Mixative, Terra Cotta, Teakwood, Cranberry
• Paper: Yupo Paper, Bazill
• Stencil: TH (Crossed)