Guest Designer at Frilly and Funkie!!

Good morning folks, woooo hooo what an exciting day!! I was chuffed to bits to be the DT's choice for a guest designer spot over at the Frilly and Funkie Challenge, of course I jumped at the chance to play along with such a talented bunch of ladies. Anyway the challenge is to create a card or project that reflects the abundance of the harvest season and the gratitude we express at Thanksgiving. Hmmmm, I had to get my thinking cap on for this one and I decided to take inspiration from the harvest theme and the beauty of nature and here is my project .....

A couple of weeks ago I was busy decluttering ( I don't know about you but I'm always decluttering and the house is still full of clutter lol) and I came across a funny little handbag that was a free gift with some make up. It had been gathering dust for years and was looking very sad, I decided that I'd keep the clasp and as I was prying it off the bag I thought I'd keep the bag and add it to my huge pile of stuff waiting to be altered. Here's the before pic

I began by giving the outside a coat of gesso and then smothering it with a layer of Flitter Glu and Kroma Crackle before blasting it with my heat gun. I'm so loving this effect at the minute, I'm crackling everything in sight lol. Once it was dry I added some colour with my PanPastels and gave it a coat of Maimeri Glossy Gel Medium, it looks a bit like a dragons egg doesn't it?

For the inside I stamped two little scenes, the top one with stamps from Joanna Sheen and the bottom one using a Clarity Stamp, I coloured them with Graph'It markers and created a cloudy sky with some PanPastels. I layered the little scenes up over loads of tissue paper. Next It was time to add lots of leaves and other goodies. I die cut lots of leaves from kraft Glassine, coloured with Memento Inks in various shades of yellow, red, purple, green and orange. I crumpled all the leaves up for some texture. I added the leaves around the edges of the little scenes, adding some little berries, lots of raffia and some die cut flowers made from Crinoline Fabric. 

To finish off I added some gingham bows and some little rusty bells. 

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Artistic Inspirations: Fall colours

Cuttin and Stampin: Autumn harvest

Heck of a Challenge: Autumn colours

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: anything goes

Sweet Stampin: Woods, trees, leaves

There she goes: Leaves

Thanks to the lovely ladies at Frilly and Funkie for inviting me to join you for this challenge, its such an honour :-) and thanks to you for popping by today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx