Feeling Funky by Amanda Southern

Hi Everyone

This weeks make came about as I was sorting out my craftroom. I am rather partial to plastic storage boxes and organising all my stash into these said plastic storage boxes. I am very OCD about this and all the boxes need to match, neat straight lines when they are all stacked on their shelves which also match (I think that's the retailer coming out in me, my day job). It's even worse if I find a new box that I think is better than what I currently have as I end up changing them all, this is one of those such occasions. I was moving my collection of That's Crafty! Bits & Pieces greyboard sheets to their new box and I came across the Funky Flower collection, which were one of the first in the range that That's Crafty! released, I had forgotten how fabulous these are and just had to use one for my make this week. 

Here's What I Did:

First thing was to make my background, I had yet to play with a recent purchase of this new stencil from Stencil Girl and I thought that it's modern look would work well with the funky flower that I had chosen to use. I took a piece of mixed media card and randomly blended on several of my favourite colours of Distress Ink using an ink blending tool, again these inks are something I haven't used for a while as we all seem to be using the Distress Oxides at the moment. Once the ink was dry on the card I lay on the stencil and stencilled through with That's Crafty! 3D Gloss Gel Medium. Don't do what I did when using this and stir it vigorously as it will add bubbles to it which you might notice in the finished piece, I tell myself that it adds to the look!!!! I left this several hours to dry naturally. Once it was fully dry I then blended black Distress ink all over the piece to block out any of the colour that surrounded the stencilled gel which adds as a resist. When the ink was dry I buffed up the gel to remove any traces of the Distress ink. It is really shiny with raised dimension that unfortunately you can't see well on the photo.

Next was to paint my greyboard funky flower. The pieces that I have painted black pop out so you can paint them seperately and then just glue them back in. I have used a couple of layers of both white and black Multi Surface Paint. The black round pieces I have added to the flower are the greyboard waste from another set. (you might not be surprise to learn that I keep all the waste in their very own plastic box!). When dry I gave the whole think a couple of coats of DecoArt gloss varnish. The black dots on the top of the flower have also got glossy accent added to them for even more depth and shine. 

I matted my background onto a piece of black card, and then added a wide white layer of card before matting again onto black card. I stamped the sentiment onto the card using a stamping platform to ensure that I got the sentiment perfectly straight. I then positioned the funky flower and glued to the card.

Here's What I Used:

Stencil Girl 6" x 6" Stencil - Modern Rocks & Leaves

That's Crafty! 3D Gloss Gel

Strathmore Mixed Media Card

Distress Inks - Picked Raspberry, Squeezed Lemonade, Carved Pumpkin, Mermaid Lagoon & Peacock Feathers

Ranger Round Blending Tool

That's Crafty! Bits & Pieces Greyboard - Funky Flowers #1 Large

That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paint - White & Black

DecoArt Gloss Varnish

Glossy Accents

That's Crafty! Stamps - Lynne's Affirmations Set 6

Versafine Clair Ink Pad - Nocturne

Stamping Platform - Tim Holtz 

That's Crafty! Multi Purpose Craft Glue

White Card

Black Card

Thanks for visiting and I will see you next Tuesday

Love

Amanda X