Box It Up - Tutorial

Hello crafty friends and welcome to the AVJ monthly tutorial post.  Julia (Create with Me)  here this month as the hostess for the September challenge "Box it Up" sharing a quick tutorial of how I put together my Halloween Haunted House Treat Box.

I often make projects like this to sell at my church at various holidays - so I'm making maybe 10 of them - and while I want them to look vintage, spooky and 'professional' (!?!) -  I also want them to be easy to make!

To that end - I used already distressed-look papers from Tim Holtz Regions Beyond and Materialize Paper Stash pads which saved me the time of distressing them! Instead of using matboard, I cut the house pieces out of black cardstock and again from the patterned paper, then glued them together.  It makes them sturdy but not quite as bulky as when you use matboard.

I cut out the box pieces using Eileen Hull's new House Ornament Die along with some pieces (chimney, window frames, roof trim and door) from her older House Pocket Die (which just happen to be to the same scale!) I cut out various faces from one of the papers in the Regions Beyond and mounted them on foam tape behind the windows so you really feel they are 'inside' the house.

I double layered all the window frames for extra thickness and rubbed them with Bronze Age Metallique Wax from Prima.  I did the same to the Irongate Fence pieces as well as the cat and bat - all older Tim Holtz/Alterations dies.  I put two chimneys on the roof (see 3rd photo below) - as a haunted house would surely have at LEAST two giant fireplaces right?!

Here is my Halloween Treat Box - from all sides!

And the spooky faces in the windows close up!

 There's even a skeleton in the attic!

And finally - the treats found inside when you open the bottom of the box!  River Rock Chocolate Candies!

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I put this together . There is still plenty of time to join in our Box It Up challenge, link up by 10/3.  You will find all the challenge details HERE along with some fabulous Box It Up projects from my fellow Creative Guides.

As always thank you for joining us at AVJ and we hope you all have a creative weekend!

A Cup of Tea for Your Art : Tutorial

Hello to you all and welcome to our monthly tutorial post. Jennie (Live the Dream) with you this month as the host for the challenge "A Cup of Tea" sharing with you some of the ways I used tea dyed elements in my journal. I used Eileen Hull's wrap around journal die to create the cover and her Passport die to create the inside booklets.

This is quite a long post so you might need to pour yourself a cuppa !!!

It is quite a daunting task to fill even the smallest of journals but I like to make a pile of embellishments which I can then use quite quickly to decorate my pages. For this journal I put aside a couple of days and cleared my desk both to tea dye elements and also to make lots of envelopes and ephemera ........

I quite literally poured myself a mug of tea from the left overs in the pot after tea one evening. Even in a small mug it is possible to dye quite a bit of lace, ribbon, pieces of wood, little flowers ......

You can get different levels of colour by using different types of textile. For example cotton lace takes the tea far more than an acylic based one. The lace and ribbon on the right hand side of the photograph was removed after one hour, while those on the left were left in the cup overnight.

Dyeing paper requires a bit more organisation and access to the kitchen. I make up a watery solution in a large washing up bowl and immerse ordinary copy paper into the water, shake it a little and hang it on the clothes airer. Do put an old shower curtain or something similar on the floor or the drips will stain the floor! Once they have hung for about 20 minutes I collect 4/5 pieces together and lay them on top of each other and put them in the oven (140 degrees) for about 10 minutes which really "crisps" them up!

By this time I had a lovely pile of dyed papers and textiles to work with.

I folded an A4 page of dyed paper into four and used a few of my favourite tag dies to cut as many shapes as possible.

I then stamped these with some favourite stamps. The child in me loves little piles of labels to work with!

I also used some of my ticket and label stamps to create some mats. I have added a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink around the edges to make them look more complete.

Next I made some small packets from the tea dyed paper using the Tim Holtz mini packet die and then stamped and decorated them with various tags, stamps and ribbons. Creating in this way - focusing on a single element - means I can have a lot of creative fun and even if they are not going to all be used for this project they will be used for another.

I had some vellum lying on the desk so  added some elements on top and behind to create a little collage which then got stiched on the machine rather than glued.

This is a good opportunity to go through the bits box to find elements stamped for other projects and not used. Add in a couple of favourite dolls ........

Finally I cut my pages for the journal using Eileen's Passport die (they fit perfectly into the Wrap Around Journal).

For the front of each individual booklet I created a large vintage layered pocket for some journalling.

I started with a glassine pocket (stamp collectors use these and are easy to purchase on Ebay) and added a piece of card for journalling. I started decorating the front by adding some old text paper ......

..... next I added a  tea dyed doily and some white muslin ......

..... followed by a vintage photograph and then ribbon was tied around the whole envelope

..... finally I used one of my stamped labels and pearl button.

As I created I placed the finished items in a little box all ready for me to use. As a child I loved collecting things and having them in boxes ..... nothing changes!

I was then able to sit down and decide what I wanted to stick into each of the individual booklets and to set aside elements for the front cover.

I made a little pocket for the cover which I then stitched onto some vellum which was then stitched on to another label, a doily and some lace. It is a little fragile for a cover but the stitching will help to hold it all together over time. I used lashings of lace and ribbon to hide the elastic holding in the booklets, however I had dyed that in tea as well to tone it down a bit.

Hopefully you are still with me ! I will finish up with a few photographs of the inside pages so you can see how I used all those wonderful tickets, labels and pockets.

I hope this tutorial and a peek into the way I make up a journal will inspire you to give it a go. There is still plenty of time to join in our Cup of Tea challenge and you can get all the details HERE along with some fabulous inspiration from my fellow Creative Guides.

As always thank you for joining me and have a wonderful crafty weekend.

Jennie x

Friday Tutorial Post - A Travel Journal

We have a new schedule for posts this year at A Vintage Journey - and the 2nd Friday after a challenge post - we have a tutorial post!  

Today I'm sharing a travel journal I made using a brand new Wrapped Journal Die from Eileen Hull/Sizzix. 

I also used Eileen's new Journaling Words dies for 'wander' on the cover

and 'travel' and 'journal' on the first page

I tied an Idea-ology Word key (Journey) onto the jute binding.

I used Idea-ology Linen Ribbon for the journal closing allowing extra ribbon to accommodate the fattening as things were added to the journal pages!

I used ScorTape to adhere the ribbon to the back of the journal so it wouldn't get lost when untied.

Here's how the wrapped journal looks when opened up

Here's how I made it! 

 I cut the journal out of matboard and sponged the binding sides and all edges with Ranger Distress Salty Ocean.

I used blue ink to coordinate with the map pieces (from a National Geographic Magazine) that I cut to fit the cover pieces.  I sponged the edges of the map pieces with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink.

Then I adhered the panels to the cover.

I made 4 signatures of 4 pages each -  each page is 7" x 5" and folded in half (giving a whopping 64 pages to the journal!) cut from Wendy Vecchi Newsprint paper and Paper Stash/Correspondence by Tim Holtz.  I lined up the folds in the pages with the holes in the cover, marked where the holes were and punched through the pages.  I used Idea-ology black jute string (4 pieces of 17" each) to bind each signature to the cover, tying the knots on the outside of the journal.

Here are photos of some of the pages I made.

Pockets for pressed flowers or photos

 Here is the center of the first signature where you can see the jute binding it to the cover.

 More pockets

 cards for notes

I used tags cut from Eileen's new Credit Card Sleeve and Tags die on some of the pages where I had envelopes or pockets so they could be found easily.  I looped a piece of twine through the holes on the tags.  Two of the tags are on the top of the pages, two are on the sides.

 Glassine envelope for small treasures

Even with bits sticking out past the pages, you can still cleanly close the journal and nothing falls out!

The wrapped cover design gives lots of room for expansion as things are added to the pages.

I brushed Gel Medium over the map pieces to give the cover some protection from all the handling it would get while traveling!

Now I just need to go somewhere!!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my Travel Journal -  I would also like to remind you to check out our April Challenge - Rusty and Crusty

You have until May 3rd to link up your project!