Cattywampus at The Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge Blog

Hi everyone and welcome. It's time for another challenge over at the The Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog. Sara Emily is your host for this one and she has called it 'Cattywampus'. "Cattywampus is a funny sounding southern slag term I hear a lot around the house. According to the On Line Slang Dictionary it has several meanings including "appearing off center, diagonal from, crooked or not level, appearing askew, tilted or lopsided". Taking inspiration from any one of these definitions, include something cattywampus in your vintage or shabby chic project. Be sure to tell us what that cattywampus thing is; we might miss it!'"

As ever, the Design Team will choose their top four picks, with the winner being invited to join us in a Guest DT spot at The Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog and three additional outstanding entries will receive Top 3 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.

Now I'm the type of person who likes straight lines so to be honest the whole concept of making things deliberately wonky felt a little out of my comfort zone, but thankfully a 'mop up' gel plate print came to my rescue and led to this 'cattywampus' birthday card.

So let's see that print and find out how it drove the design of this card; here's the collection of prints I pulled out, including a couple of pieces of card from previous projects and the larger piece of paper that I'd used to pull off the leftover edge bits from my gel plate after one of many painty sessions using Dina Wakley Media Acrylic Paint. It was the wonky lines in shades of red, grey, gold and blue that got me thinking that this could be a perfect background since they are wonky. I chopped off about a third and began to build on it.

Here's a close up of those won

So what if you have a painted background but don't have any leftover edges to create those wonky lines I hear you cry? Well fear not, they are easily added manually using some of Pam Bray's wonderful Rock Candy Embossing Powder from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. I used an embossing pen to draw extra wonky lines onto the background and sprinkled over some of the 'Peppermint' colour, heat setting it to capture the sparkle and shine.

And to echo the gold colours in the background I repeated the process this time with the 'Butterscotch' variety, this time using thinner lines. I would suggest doing the thicker lines first because then when you come to heat the smaller ones you are spending less time potentially reheating the existing set powder and are therefore less likely to adversely affect it.

I wanted to add more layers to really build up the background so began by adding lines of hand stitching (use Wendy Vecchi's Poke & Stitch 'Rectangle Frames Stitching Template' to add regular spaced holes to stitch through if you are not ready to to at it freehand). And then I spotted that the hearts pattern on one of Wendy Vecchi's Washi Tape coordinated perfectly. By stamping a Happy Birthday sentiment from her 'Funky Flower Art' stamp set I was able to alter it to match the theme too. To balance the design I drew through one of Wendy's older stencils with a red pen a the top and bottom.

With the background complete and mounted on black card and the white, tall card blank attention turned to what should be used as a focal point. The person for whom this card is intended likes a glass or two of wine so I thought a couple of bottles would be a good plan. Remembering back to the plainer coordinating card prints shown at the beginning of this tutorial I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix Alterations Bigz Die 'Bottled Up' to cut a couple of bottle shapes.

The flat paint colours were in danger of being overpowered by the background so I applied embossing powder to each in order to emphasis the colour a little more; you'll see Seth Apter's Baked Velvet 'Aegean Sea' and Baked Texture 'Vintage Beeswax' in use here. I deliberately overheated it to make the surfaces more pitted and faded in areas ready for the next step.

I wiped a little 'Night' Acrylic Paint over the embossed surfaces of the bottles and before it had dried completely wiped away the excess, leaving the residue in the pitted marks.

With the bottles done and added to the card wonkily,  I looked through my scraps and found this die cut doily which was covered in Faded Jeans Distress Oxide Ink and Fractured Ice Embossing Powder from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. I also added more of the stamped Washi Tape onto a piece of card to act as the sentiment and glued antique bronze filigree corners above and below it over the bottles to finish the card.

Here's a couple of close ups of the finished card showing all of those textures and wonky details;

That's my take on the theme 'Cattywampus'. My incredibly talented team mates have also come up with their own cattywampus projects for this challenge so make sure you hop on over and check them out HERE. And remember to link up your own shabby chic or vintage projects to be in with a chance of winning one of the fabulous prizes that's up for grabs.

Thanks for visiting,
Jenny xxx

Products used to create this card are available from The Funkie Junkie Boutique and are listed/linked below.

Tim Holtz Sizzix Alterations Bigz Die - Bottled Up
Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 Stampers Anonymous Stamp Set - Funky Flower Art

Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 Poke & Stitch - Rectangle Frames Stitching Template
Wendy Vecchi MAKE ART Washi Assortment 2
Pam Bray Rock Candy Embossing Powders
Seth Apter Baked Velvet Mediterranean Set - Aegean Sea
Seth Apter Baked Texture - Vintage Beeswax
Emerald Creek Embossing Powder - Fractured Ice
Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink - Faded Jeans

Dina Wakley Media Paints

Antique Bronze Triangle Filigree Pieces - Set of 4