This is a unique challenge blog where we are inspired by and focus on the Vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn and steampunk genres and encompass the talent, flair, expertise and ideas of many artists that we are inspired by. We welcome all types of projects - cards, journaling, assemblage, layouts, albums, atcs, altered art in fact whatever you want to share (as long as it is in good taste).

Showing posts with label #32. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #32. Show all posts

Friday, 25 September 2015

Welcome Annette to AVJ and new Creative Guide call

Happy Friday everyone. It's week 4 of our September schedule which means lots of inspiration and a magnificent tutorial from our Guest Creative Guide - I'll let her introduce herself and what she is sharing today.


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Hello everyone, it's Annette Green from Melbourne, Florida, USA. I'm proud and honored to be your Guest Creative Guide today here at A Vintage Journey.

My creative journey began when I was very little when I realized I had a talent for drawing. I entered contest after contest and actually won quite a few! Although I graduated college with a degree in the business side of Advertising, I quickly adapted to graphic design instead, and spent 15 years doing so. When my daughter was born, I stayed home full time to be a mom and began scrapbooking, quilting, cross-stitching and stamping. I loved it all! Over time, I have evolved into a full time paper crafter, designer and instructor and love every single day that I get out of bed in the morning because I'm doing what I love!

I first heard about this Tim Holtz guy way back when he created his first series of his 12 Tags of Christmas. I was totally and completely in love with his style! His products are some of my all-time favorites. I absolutely love all things vintage and distressed, so his products really speak to me. I incorporate so much of his line into everything I make. To see more of my creations, please visit my blog aptly named Annette's Creative Journey.

For the current Home Sweet Home challenge theme, I chose to create a welcome frame/home decor piece for the table in our foyer. Something for everyone to see when they enter my home. Fall is my favorite time of year, so I gave it a warm, Autumn feel.



My creation started with this thrift store frame I found for less than a dollar.


I took out the glass and cleaned it well, then painted the frame with two coats of white gesso.


Once the gesso was completely dry, I painted two coats of the new Ground Espresso Distress Paint. I made sure to leave streaks so it resembled wood and had a distressed feel. Once the paint was dry, I sealed it with a coat of Glue & Seal.


For the background in my frame, I cut a 4 1/4" x 11" piece or Ranger Mixed Media Cardstock and used Tim's Distress Ink Blending/Spritz & Flick technique to blend warm earthly colors like Forest Moss, Fired Brick, Fossilized Amber and Rusty Hinge.


In addition to the Spritz & Flick, I misted some water onto the large stamp in the Papillon set (CMS106) by Stampers Anonymous and stamped it onto the Distress background, letting the water do its magic. Once this was heat set and completely dry, I added a few spritzes of Perfect Pearls Perfect Copper Mist.


With the glass for the frame now clean, I stamped the leaves from the Falling Leaves set (CMS097) with Timber Brown Staz-On ink and set that aside to dry.




With Forest Moss Distress Paint, I painted the Letterpress letters spelling out Welcome, having to cheat a bit for the first E, using the ampersand. I did two coats of paint for this too.


Next, I die cut Kraft Core cardstock pieces from the Tattered Pinecone and Tattered Leaves dies, and gave each piece a light sanding.



I used Tim's Faux Tea Roses technique to create small distressed flowers and starting assembling my frame, using hot glue.


I veined my leaves, inked them, and spritzed with more Perfect Pearls Mist, using various colors like Perfect Copper, Heirloom Gold, and Forever Green.


I wish you could see this detail in person. The stamped leaves seem to float above the background layer. The photo just doesn't do it justice.


Here's another look at my finished Fall Welcome Frame, which is now sitting on my foyer table. Thanks for taking the time to follow my tutorial. I hope you've enjoyed it. And thanks for having me here today!

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This is utterly delightful Annette and we are so pleased you have shared this wonderful frame with us. The stamped flowers on the glass look stunning over the inked background - such a great idea. Thank you for taking the time to create such a special project to share with everyone.

One more week left folks to join in the current challenge 'Home Sweet Home' and a new challenge beginning next Friday at midnight (BST). We look forward to seeing you here again.

For anyone who may be interested we are looking for
  two new Creative Guides 
to join our talented team. If you would like more information and details please email me at brenda_brown25@hotmail.com by Monday 5th October. Many thanks.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda and the AVJ Creative Guides. xxx



Friday, 21 August 2015

Pinworthy Inspiration Day

Hi everyone and welcome to the third Friday in our monthly schedule where we invite recent Pinworthies to share a project on this month's theme. This month we are joined by three ladies who were pinworthies in May for our Spring Colours challenge. We welcome back Joan, Amanda and Mayoori to share their projects for 'Things with Wings'.

Hi, My name is Joan and I am honoured to be asked to be guest designer here at A Vintage Journey. I live in a village in North Yorkshire with my husband and two cats. I've been a crafter one way or another most of my life. I'm primarily a card maker but do dabble in other types of art and have recently started to try a little mixed media. I bought my first rubber stamps over twenty years ago and it is very rare for me to create anything that doesn't incorporate stamping. 

For my DT piece I have kept it pretty simple using two favourite sets of stamps and the lovely new distress ink colours.

I started by randomly stamping the background stamp over my piece of card and embossing in white. I added colour with mermaid lagoon and cracked pistachio distress inks and then some random stamping with the distress inks and the butterflies in black archival.

I stamped and fussy cut the flowers and coloured with abandoned amber and brushed corduroy DI's.
The butterflies were stamped on some distressed ink coloured card and cut out.
Finally I die cut and coloured the Bigz butterfly and embossed it, added some treasure gold in aquamarine to it and the other butterflies and mounted the piece onto some black card . 
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Hi Everyone 
I'm Amanda also known in the blog world as Ink-A-Pink and it is such a thrill and honour to have been invited here today at AVJ as a Guest designer. Thank you so much to ALL the very talented Creative Guides for giving me this wonderful opportunity to share some of my creativity with you all. I have to keep pinching myself that this is for real and not a dream- I mean little ol' me - Guest Designer - who would have thought it! 
Speaking of little ol' me, here I am young and innocent ....................

..............So a bit about me (bare with me I'm not too good at talking about myself). I'm a Yorkshire girl born n bred living in England's Steel City, Sheffield. From a very young age I have always had a keen interest in anything Arty or Creative whether it be in the 'doing' or the 'viewing'. I have hand painted T-shirts, knitted, sewed, made cards, painted in watercolours and pencil sketched, mainly people, over the years and though I occasionally still let my pencil take a walk along the page or let the paint flow freely from the brush I now spend most of my time crafting making either cards, journal pages or mixed media projects. I began devoting alot more of my time to crafting in 2011 and have only been blogging since February 2015 so despite having an arty background I feel my creative journey is only just beginning as I have so much more learning and playing to do! To quote Picasso - 'Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life' - and for me this is never truer! 

Time now to share a little of my creativity. When I knew the challenge theme this month was 'Things with Wings' chosen by the uber talented Creative guide Anne my first thoughts were of Tim Holtz's beautiful butterfly stamp in the Perspective stamp set so I stuck with my initial thoughts and altered a canvas using mainly Tim Holtz products, making the butterfly the focal image.

With Brave Wings She Flies
I used the wrinkle free distress technique on my back ground panel and Tim Holtz Distress Inks. I love this technique as it allows for a gradual build up of colour and creates really interesting and unique results. 
I added detail to the panel using Tim Holtz stamps and stencils- I was spoilt for choice! I also stamped some random circles using a bottle top dipped in acrylic paint and lightly spritzed the background with perfect pearls before double mounting onto white and black card stock . 
For my focal image -the butterfly and its ‘base’, I stamped and embossed the butterfly twice and added colour, highlights and a touch of gilding wax to the wings. After shaping both butterflies to give dimension I adhered them together by their bodies .

I coiled a length of silver wire to form a circle and twisted it around itself to fasten tight and inked up a length of chicken wire using black alcohol ink.
The canvas I covered with Menagerie Tissue Wrap lightened with acrylic paint, scuffed with archival ink adhered Tim Holtz tissue tape to the left hand side and bottom edge and mounted onto black card stock .
I then brought all the elements together and added the finishing touches - a deep blue gem and ideology pen nib to embellish the butterfly,some remnant rubs, a few hex nuts, metal letter beads spelling the word ‘Fly’ to the background panel and a small talk sticker 'With brave wings she flies’ to the canvas! 

And here it is my Guest Designer altered canvas
I do hope you like my altered canvas and if you wish to see more you are very welcome to pop by my blog ink-a-pink.blogspot.co.uk.
Just before I go I would like offer my thanks again to all the lovely AVJ ladies for this opportunity and for making me feel so welcome . 
You have made little ol' me so very very happy! 
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Mayoori
Hello A Vintage Journey friends.
I am Mayoori and live in beautiful Seattle city with my 2 loving teenage daughters and very supportive husband. I have been scrapbooking since 3 years, trying all the styles, learning from fellow crafters. Since few months I have been trying mixed media projects and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I am really excited to be part of A Vintage journey. It's an honour to be a guest designer on this prestigious blog.

Today I am sharing a layout. This is my younger daughter who tried to do a flip while jumping in the lake.
Here are some close up photos:

 
 
 
I have used Tim Holtz ruler stencil, rub ons, ranger ink pads. Please visit my blog for a step by step
photo process -
http://butterfliesnbuttons.blogspot.com/2015/08/fly-spread-your-wings.html
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Wow - inspiring creations ladies with lot's of wonderful techniques too. Thank you all for your time creating these for us.

If you would like to enter our current challenge at A Vintage Journey you can find it HERE.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend with lots of happy crafting.

Nikki and the Creative Guides
xxx

Friday, 7 August 2015

Things With Wings

Hello to our A Vintage Journey travellers, Anne (Redanne) here with a brand 
new challenge for August - Things With Wings!

Tim Holtz has designed the most wonderful butterfly, dragonfly and bird
stamps, dies and papers.  We would like to see you create a project using 
one (or more if you wish) butterfly, dragonfly or bird.

Our challenge is monthly and our very generous sponsor, Country View Crafts 
offer one randomly selected winner a £20 voucher to spend in their 
fabulous on-line shop.

Just a gentle reminder, we are a Tim Holtz inspired challenge and when we 
choose our Top 3 we need to see Tim's influence in your project and if you 
describe that influence then so much the better!  You do not have to use
 Tim's products and you can make any kind of project you wish, but 
please do follow our rules which you can check out here.

Our wonderful Creative Guides have been busy making some 
 projects to inspire you to join in.

I absolutely adore Tim's Perspective Butterfly stamp and some of the latest colours of Distress Ink, Blueprint Sketch (with a wonderful lavender hue) and Cracked Pistachio and of course, the new Correspondence papers.  You can see more detail over on my blog.

I have always loved the large butterfly from the Papillon Stamp Set, so I decided to make a trio of ATCs using Faded Jeans and Broken China Distress Inks and Sprays. I am just loving these little Correspondence Stamps and large Chit Chat stickers which are all just the perfect size for these little pieces of art. Please do join me on my blog if you would like to know more.

         Julie
I love the elegance of wings on my craft projects be it from a Butterly, Bird or a Cherub for the perfect finishing touch. Please pop over HERE to my blog Juliz Design Post to see my tutorial and techniques used on my Butterfly.

What a wonderful challenge theme Anne has picked.......especially as I so love Tim's butterflies, dragonflies and birds dies/papers. For my project I chose to go with butterflies, applying perfect pearls to their gorgeous embossed wings. I just love the way the PP twinkles in the light. 
Take care and have fun with the challenge theme xx

From the moment I saw this Bird Silhouette die I fell in love... so Anne's Things With Wings theme was a wonderful chance to get him out to play for the first time.  I've used one of my favourite stencils and some texture paste to create a simple burlap canvas to show him off.  He's even perched on a real twig!  Come over to Words and Pictures if you'd like to see all the details.

Anne's Things With Wings Challenge was just the thing I needed to push me to finally color up a Bird Crazy bird!  I layered her to a stenciled brick Cabinet die over a burlap panel that was covered in Crackle Paste and Distress Spray Stains.  Please fly over to my blog if you'd like to see more photos and details! 

I took the opportunity to use Anne's great challenge theme to make my hubbie's birthday card. He loves watching and feeding the birds so Tim's new die is perfect. Find out on my blog how I used the new micro glaze to achieve the mottled effects and make him look more realistic.

A card from me today using the Butterfly Duo Bigz die, an attempted Tim technique and distress paints and inks. Hop over to Addicted to Art for more details.


Loving birds as I do I just had to use Tim's bird die for my make - that's my inspiration. You can see the details here.  Chris xxx


Are you feeling inspired?  We hope so and we are so looking forward to seeing all your projects for our Things With Wings challenge!