Creative Cardmaking with Astrid

 Hello lovely visitors, it's Astrid here with our monthly cardmaking tutorial. Now, before I continue, it has to be said, I used to be a card maker, but in recent years probably the only time I make cards is for Christmas, so it really took me a while to decide what on earth I would do. Well, in the end, this turned into what I have called in my own mind, "A multi-layered mixed media card". The techniques I used could be used for many other projects, not just cards and indeed mine turned into the cover of a journal. So here goes:

Here first of all, is the finished card and below I will show you what steps I took to get there.

I started by taking an A 4 size piece of strong white card and covered it with random scraps of all sorts of vintage type papers from my stash, adhering them with mat medium, in order to create a kind of master board. I then covered that with a thin layer of gesso to blend it all together a bit.

I added a second layer of gesso and then in order to give it all some more depth and interest, I added some scraps of the top layer of paper serviettes, again randomly and using mat medium.

Another thin layer of gesso followed and then I roughly tore this background into several smaller pieces.

Now, which piece to choose to make a card? In the end I chose one of the pieces that were somewhat plain, in order the create some collage elements for the focal point of my card.

Here you can see the piece I chose, and below you can see what I ended up with after I added different collage elements to this background piece.

The girl with wings is from a collage sheet I created in collaboration with my blogfriend Marjie Kemper

If you are interested, you can get instructions of how to get it as a freebie by heading over to my blog. The other elements are just bits and pieces from my stash, - some washi, music paper, old book paper and a postage stamp.

Time to bring it all together into a card.

I created a backing piece by cutting a thin piece of card large enough for my focal piece to fit on, inked around the edges and added some subtle stencilling with my current favourite Tim Holtz stencil. I cut a card base from Kraft card, created some computer generated words and made a wax seal stamp as an additional embellishment, and voila, here is my finished card.

I'll finish by showing you a few close up photos still and hope you have enjoyed this little card project.

The butterfly girls, surrounded by some subtle shadows created with Distress Crayons. I always think it helps to create depth and integrate elements when adding images, when you add some shadowing like this.

Here you can see all the different paper layers, again blended together a bit with Distress Crayon. The colours I used were Tea Dye and Gathered Twigs.

And here the wax seal, mixing together different colours of to blend in with the rest of the project. The fern wax seal impression was highlighted with Treasure Gold White Fire.

Well, that's it for today, but, to be really honest, this project never really ended up as a card, but as the cover of one of my journals... if you want you can check it out on my blog, where you can also find the promised freebie with more butterfly girls.

As  October is a month with 5 Fridays, next week you can enjoy our Tag Friday projects, and of course there is also still some time left to join our Numbers challenge.

Thanks for your visit today, Astrid

Rustic Charm bag for a tag tutorial

Hello lovely visitors, this is Astrid, sharing a little tutorial with you on how to create a bag, or rather pocket (I just liked the fact that bag and tag rhyme), but really it's a pocket for a tag. Such a pocket has many uses, it can stand by itself, be part of a journal, become a gift holder, or be part of a gift for a penfriend, as my original for our rustic charm challenge was.
Here's a little reminder of what the original looked like:

The tutorial is for the pocket you see on the left.
Here goes:
1. I started with a piece of coffee dyed  A4 card, and with a pencil marked around the tag to determine the size, making sure to allow for plenty of space for tabs to glue and to sew around without making it too tight.

2. Cut to size as marked, then fold in about 3/4" from the bottom and the same from one side, then fold  in half and then cut to the shape following the steps as shown in the photos below. With these simple steps you can create pockets to any size without the need of expensive dies!

step 1  fold 3/4" from bottom and one side

step two cut away on one side up to the fold at the bottom

step 3 mitre the flaps as shown.What you see in the last two photos are the in- and outsides of your pocket.

3.  Cut a notch with a circle punch, you can also emboss either along one side as I did, or anywhere obviously, but do that before gluing it together and then sewing around it if you like that effect. I did the embossing as an after thought to match it with my tag, and it worked, but it would be better I think to do it before.

4. Time to decorate. I chose matching colours to go with my tag in a mix of normal and oxide Distress Inks.Using both blending tools and just spritzing and dipping.

5. To go with the theme of the challenge I chose to embellish with some flower die cuts, also coloured with Oxide Inks, as shown below, and one of the Tim Holtz charms plus a few other bits and pieces..

6. I cut the flowers from kraft card, which can be coloured beautifully with Oxide Inks. I found the best way was to squoosh them on the white Tim craft mat, spritz with water and then use a refillable water brush.

And here the finished pocket, with the tag tucked inside.

 I'll put a few more close up photos below, but as you can see I also added some lace,  an element cut with one of the Tim Holtz 3D Cut and Emboss folders, some computer generated words and the charm I mentioned with some paper glued behind.

Well, that's it, a pretty simple project, but fun to do and it has many uses, which is always a good thing in my book.

On my own blog there are a few more examples of what you can do with little bags like this, and there are also some freebies you can use to decorate if you like such things.

Thank you for visiting and if you have not done so yet, there is still plenty of time to join in our Rustic Charm challenge, we would love to see what you come up with for that.

Happy crafting and stay safe!

Astrid xxx

Rustic Charm

Hello everyone and welcome! Happy June to you all and I hope you get to enjoy lots of Sunshine, even if you happen to live in the Southern Hemisphere.

This is Astrid, your host for this our 90th challenge, just where has the time gone....

But here we are, and I hope that you are all happy and healthy.

So our theme this month is Rustic Charm, and this is what we would like you to do with it:

Rustic describes a design that is natural, rough, aged and casual. We would love to see you create a project using these elements: think nature inspired textures and simple and earthy colours. Rust and textures, or indeed anything related that your imagination can come up with. Just remember to create your project in one of our preferred styles: vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

Well, I hope you like what we have in store for you, and there is certainly plenty of inspiration here


Astrid

Some of you may remember the tag I made for our tag challenge last week. For our June challenge I made a matching pocket and folder to hold the tag. It will be a gift for a penfriend. I will do a tutorial here on the blog of how it all came together soon, meanwhile, if you want to see more photos, just visit my blog

Jo

I had so much fun creating this rustic page for Astrid's challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed making the wood effect background and also this happy bear from my new Tim Holtz Theodore Thinlet set really makes me smile! To find out how it came together please pop over to my blog Let's Art Journal.

Ann

I'd created a decoration for Astrid's fabulous theme. I use natural colors and materials to show the "Rustic Charm". Please join me for a brief tutorial on my blog.

S@ndy

For this great challenge I decided to do something a little different. I made some cute and fun vintage vignettes using projector slides. I hope to see you over at my blog where I have a video showing just how I made them.

Barbara

Thanks to Astrid for this wonderful theme! I made a tiny birdhouse by creating faux wood with stencils and colors. If you want to read the tutorial I will wait for you on my Blog Yayascrap & more.

Alison

I've been doing some altering for Astrid's lovely theme, converting some cheap shiny plastic plant pots into weathered rustic stonewear.  Do come over to Words and Pictures if you'd like to see how I did it... and also to see them with their plants happily in place.

Toni

For Astrid's fabulous challenge, I've constructed a little rustic notebook, filled with coffee dyed paper. If you'd like to see how it came together, please hop over to my Artistic Craft Dabbler blog, with this link

Well, I hope you agree with me that the sheer variation of styles and projects here is inspiring, and of course we all hope you will join us for the challenge this month. We would love to see what you create.

Thanks for coming by and happy creating!
Astrid and the creative team

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Tissuepaper Book Box tutorial by Astrid

Hello friends and welcome for our tutorial post here at AVJ. As the host for this month's challenge, it is my turn to share a tutorial for the project I made for that..

As you may remember, I altered one of these bookboxes that I am using to keep my wax seal stamps in. So let's get started:

Here you can see what the box looked like to start with. To cover it I used an old technique using scraps of plain tissue paper to end up with a sort of leather look surface.

I tore a hug pile of tissue scraps, the fact that they have this strange colour is just due to the bad lighting when I took the photo, they are actually white.

I adhered them to all sides of the box, including the spine of course, using gel medium.

I then gave it all a coat of clear gesso and then coloured everything with a mix of Distress Oxide Sprays and Decoart Media paints, until eventually I was more or less happy with the result, and then promptly forgot to take a photo of that stage, - sorry.

While the box was drying I started work on the front panel.

I adhered a piece of Tim Holtz tissue wrap to a piece of card with Collage Medium and then toned it down with some Decoart Media Translucent White paint, gently removing some areas with a slightly damp baby wipe.

I then turned to the inside of the box. I covered the inside of the lid with a piece of rice paper from Stamperia.

I then used Distress crayons and collage elements to add further interest.

First I used a stencil and texture past, then I added some washi and parts of paper serviettes (all further examples of tissue paper of course) and finally finished it with a wax seal.

I used similar elements for the front panel, moving collage elements around until I was happy with the final composition  and then adhered the panel to the front of the box.

The final stage was to highlight some of the raised  bits created with the tissue paper with Treasure Gold gilding paste and then to fill my box with my ever groing collection of wax seal stamps. I love how wax seals can create a finishing touch to collage projects and journals, and using them has definitely become somewhat of an addiction...

Well that's it from me for today. There is still plenty of time to add your own tissue paper project to our challenge and we would love to see what you can come up with!

Thank you so much for your visit today and hopefully see you next week when one of us will share a creative card making post with us all here.

Tissue Paper, our challenge for June

Hello A Vintage Journey fans, welcome to our June challenge! This is Astrid and I am excited to host our challenge this month and show you all the amazing and diverse projects my teamies have created. Hopefully you will feel inspired to play along!

This is what we would like you to do this month:
As the title suggests, use tissue paper. There are many different ways you can incorporate tissue paper into your project - create texture by scrunching it up, stain it, paint it, wax it, stamp on it, emboss on it. You could use cheap tissue from the supermarket, recycle gift wrapping tissue, or even use old dressmaking patterns. Just remember to create in one of our preferred styles of vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

So let's begin by showing you our projects:


Astrid


I decided to alter a book box to keep my wax seal stamps in. I have an ever growing collection of these and this book box seemed the perfect place to house them. I have used several different techniques using tissue paper and you can find more photos of both the inside and the outside of the box on my blog.


Nikki


For our Tissue Paper challenge I have taken inspiration from a recent workshop I attended with our very own Brenda Brown. I have adapted the workshop project in a number of ways and, of course, incorporated Tissue Paper. The details of this version and the original workshop design can be found at Addicted to Art today.


Ann


What a great opportunity to get out the tissue paper you love and play. For our Tissue Paper challenge, I have taken inspiration from the Photo Frame Wall. To find out more please feel free to stop by my blog.

Jennie


I have been experimenting with my Gelli Plate and discovered that some tissue paper takes paint beautifully! I created the silhouette flowers with die cuts and layered the tissue paper onto stamped card. If that whets your appetite for more then please hop on over to Live the Dream where I explain it all !


Jo


I had lots of fun art journaling for Astrid's fabulous Tissue Paper challenge. Inspired by a beautiful display of flowers in my garden, I used a couple of new techniques with tissue paper to create the background as well as all the foliage and flowers on this page. Please pop over to my blog to see how it all came together.

Sara Emily


I am really drawn to the many bird images on Tim Holtz Aviary Collage Paper, and his new-to-me Crochet Thinlits lacy die cuts. If you would like to see how I used these and other bits to create this vignette, please join me for a brief tutorial on my blog.

Toni


I love Astrid's challenge, and agree with her on just how versatile tissue paper can be. I particularly like the way it disappears when you apply it to a surface. If you'd like to know more about how I've used it to upcycle this plant pot, hop over to my Artistic Craft Dabbler blog and all will be revealed.

Annie


I had great fun creating this mixed media jumbo tag for Astrid's fabulous challenge theme. Lots of paint, crackle medium, DI's, wax and a tissue napkin from my stash were used in my project.
If you would like to view the details then pop over to my blog by clicking HERE

Barbara


I'm so thrilled to take part in the fabulous Astrid's June challenge! I created a canvas using Tissue Paper for the background of my frame! I colored Tissue Paper with Distress crayons and I love the way it turned out, so vivid! You can find step by step on my Blog!!

S@ndy


For this challenge I used some Tim Holtz Tissue Paper as my background. After a little color, glue and stamping it's ready to go. I hope you will join me at my blog here to see how it happened.

Well I am sure you will agree that these projects are full of inspiring ideas and illustrate just the versatility of tissue paper and the many creative possibilities it can be used for. Now we cannot wait to see what you might come up with!!
Thank you so much for being part of our journey here and have a wonderful month!

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