The daughter of a Penzance dentist, Phyllis was a childhood friend of Phil Whiting (Mornie) and fellow child model for Laura KNIGHT and Alfred James MUNNINGS, becoming an artist and craftworker herself in later years. During WWI she worked as one of the 'girls' that Munnings employed to carry out war work and supply horses to the military.

She married a Russian antiquarian bookseller (Boris de Chroustchoff), and they lived in London near his shop in Bloomsbury. Some of their circle of friends also had connections with Cornwall, including the writer D H Lawrence and the composer Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine). There is no evidence of this artist showing her work locally, or working here in a specific context, but her son however, in a recent Flagstaff article, noted: 'At Lamorna, she had developed an interest in making silver jewellery and enamelware, probably inspired by the work of her friend Ella Louise NAPER and started to produce her own enamelware boxes in bright colours. She became a craftswoman in her own right working in silver and enamel. She sold her work through Sybil Dunlop, a Scottish jeweller with a shop in London's Kensington Church Street.'

Her exhibit in the Falmouth Group Show of women artists was a series of boxes decorated with silver and enamel (c1921-30), from a private collection. These can also be seen in the Flagstaff article, along with paintings by Laura Knight featuring Phyllis.