You Can't Make an Omelette....

without breaking eggs?!!! Hmmm, a few nearly got broken this morning when my Broadband connection died! Still, enough of all that, it's back and so am I. Welcome one and all to a long overdue post from yours truly. I am going to delight you with my DT piece for this fortnight's Frilly and Funkie challenge - 'Easter/Spring Gifts But Not in a Basket'. Well it is definitely NOT spring around here so I went with Easter.

Egg cups (ok, they're mugs) - my version. Hopefully these mugs will last a little longer than the contents (plague of locusts and all that). And now a 'how to' explanation...

I started with plain ceramic mugs and stencilled gold Ferro texture paste onto the surface (it is tricky to apply through a mask on a round surface but a little perseverance produces an effective result).

I love to heat texture paste to make it bubble up as to me there is something more appealing about the slightly more raised/rounded edges.

Laura came to the rescue with my eggy decorations, having kindly sent me a large stash of mixed serviettes to experiment with. Laura and her equally talented daughter have created a fantastic video HERE to demonstrate how to apply serviettes to different surfaces.

I kept it simple on these mugs because a 'clean' look was in order - paint, ink, crackle, wax etc. await future attempts:)

With these applied/dried it was time to focus on embellishments. The little bottles were filled with various gold and iridescent beads, with the cork lids glued firmly in place with Glossy Accents to stop them escaping.

The little labels on the bottles are gold embossed vellum, again attached with Glossy Accents. The larger label were cut with one of my new Sizzix Thinlits dies from antique gold card and stamped with black Archival ink.

I was excited with the potential for the keys dies (also Thinlits) and had in my head the idea of using Tim's shrink plastic/Melt Pot technique. However it lost some of the detail of the key shapes so I went with peeling all of that off (hmm... ) and used the normal heat embossing method with plain gold powder over the now shrunken keys. 

They have been embossed on both sides make sure you do this quickly and leave them to cool for a while to prevent the reverse embossing from re-melting.

Some jute and seam binding tied the whole lot together to complete the mugs. Let's hope the recipients take the time to admire the containers before scoffing the contents! (I'm sure they will:) though what will then go into them is anyone's guess!!

As there are some very definite shiny elements and a little stamping in these I am entering them into Hels Sheridan's milestone 250th Sunday Stamper challenge - Shiny Happy People.

Now, some of you may have noticed I've been MIA over the past few days (a distinct lack of visiting/commenting, etc.) This is because I have been otherwise occupied helping Linda Coughlin, the Funkie Junkie herself, to set up a new Facebook page for The Funkie Junkie Boutique (had to do a new separate one for moi-self into the bargain which will need some work doing to it at some point). For those of you who are social media savvy types it is another great way to access info about the Frilly and Funkie challenges and the special offers/new products at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. I'm gonna shamelessly go for the sympathy vote and ask you please to 'Like' the new FJB page (if you want to of course) and let us know what you think of it. All suggestions gratefully received at this stage (did I really want to say that?!)

So having kept you here long enough I shall away to get some more stuff done with a promise that normal service re. visiting/commenting will be resumed shortly. In the meantime don't forget to have a look at the outstanding samples created by my teamies over at Frilly and Funkie, and take care all of you (including those of you who have been so badly affected by the adverse weather conditions). Huge hugs, Jenny xxx

Ranger Inkssentials Glossy Accents

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Corked Vials

Rayon Seam Binding

Ranger Inkssentials Shrink Plastic

Ivory/White Jute Twine

Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black