Creative Card Making - Christmas!

Hi everyone, Nikki (Addicted to Art) here with our monthly Creative Card making feature. I have created a set of Christmas cards featuring two of Tim Holtz's recent products; Festive Overlay stamp set and Shifter Stencils.

My cards are 5 x 7 inches. I began with my stencilled layers - each card using a different stencil - Shifter Stencils - Trees and Stars plus 2 older layering stencils - Stars and Snowflakes. For the shifter versions I used white embossing powder on versamark for the first position and then shifted the stencil and added texture paste.

Once I completed all four I added Distress inks and oxides in varying colour schemes. I brayered over the surface of some of the texture with white gesso to highlight the texture. 

Here is close up of the Snowflakes with Gesso brayered over the surface.....

....and the shifted stars - some embossed and some texture paste. I let the ink absorb into the texture paste on this one to contrast with the white embossed stars.

I then stamped the Festive Overlays in coordinating colours and die cut ovals to place on the cards. I added various embellishments - seam binding, twine, rhinestones and punched stars to complete the cards.

Thanks for visiting today. We are back here at AVJ next Friday for one our favourite Tag Fridays. In the meantime do join in this months challenge - Paper Stash.

Nikki

xxx

Destination Inspiration - Arriving at Terminal 3

Hi everyone and welcome! Jenny here for your next stop on this month's Destination Inspiration adventure. Let's undo the travel bag again to remind ourselves what is in there.

Product: Lace

Technique: Texture Paste through a Stencil

Colour: Bubblegum Pink

Substrate: Canvas

Confession time - guess which bright spark suggested Bubblegum Pink as a colour and immediately regretted setting such a challenge (one which I must say my fellow Creative Guides, Alison and Jennie have tackled superbly!!!) Having taken a very deep breath I started down the path of creating a new canvas and here are the results;

I'm pretty sure you'll be wanting to know how this came together so I've put together a short Snapguide tutorial for you;

Check out How to Create a Dramatic Pink Textured Canvas by Jenny Marples on Snapguide.

And to finish here are some close ups of the completed canvas;

So that's it for Terminal 3. Make sure you join us here next Monday for the next scheduled stop on this month's journey, and if you feel inspired by today's post don't forget to get those entries in for our current challenge 'Texture or Embossing Paste'.

For now take care of yourselves, Jenny xxx

Destination Inspiration - June Terminal 4

Hello all, Alison here from Words and Pictures, and I'm delighted to have arrived at Terminal 4 to share June's fourth and final Destination Inspiration project with you.

Packed in the travel bag this month we had:

Main Colour - Walnut Stain

Technique - Layering Stencil and Texture Paste

Substrate - Watercolour Paper

Product - Any Tattered Die

Three of my fellow Creative Guides have already shared their inspiration with you, keeping us all fuelled for the journey (you can see their roadmaps of inspiration again at the end of the post), and now it's my turn.  Here's what I came up with...  (I had to make this some time ago before life got busy, but I'll do my best to remember how I put it together!)

I started by cutting a large tag out of a sheet of watercolour paper, and applied texture paste through the fabulous Typo stencil before spritzing with Walnut Stain Distress Spray.  I tried to keep some whiter spaces, and places where you can really see the delicate splatter pattern from the spray.

I decided I wanted the Typo lettering to pop a little more, so I did some dry-brushing with Picket Fence Distress Paint to highlight the texture.

I'm not much of a flower-maker in the general way of things, but I know where to go when I do want to do some... my fellow Creative Guide Jennie has some amazing tutorials over at her blog Live the Dream, and I almost always go there for help when I'm using the Tattered Florals die.

I followed her Cabbage Rose design for my large flower (I've enjoyed the results in the past, and it didn't fail me this time either) and a sort of half version of the same for the smaller ones.  I did less curling of the petals on the small roses as my book pages I was using weren't really strong enough to take it.

So with all my components in place, I now had the fun of adding collage elements and embellishments to finish the whole thing off.

I used one of the brilliant Photobooth photos, and layered up paper scraps and other ephemera to frame it.

I altered my metal embellishments with alcohol ink and some Treasure Gold.  I think the clock looks pretty good peeking out from behind the roses.

I particularly like the effect on the WordBand.  I thought about applying paint to accent the lettering, but decided I rather liked how subtle the words are like this.

I like the dark Teakwood and Espresso alcohol inks contrasting with the bright gilding.

I needed something a little brighter to carry the eye on a longer journey and capture the light in places, so I grabbed some thick card off-cuts from the Frameworks Honeycomb die which were hanging around on my craft table and gave them a coat of Antique Linen Distress Paint and then one of Rock Candy Crackle Paint.

Once it was dry and cracked, I pressed the pad of my Walnut Stain Distress Stain down onto them to let the ink sink into the crackles to highlight them.

The seam binding at the top has had a close encounter with the Walnut Stain inkpad so that it tones in with the rest of the tag.

And I'm a complete spatter fiend at the moment - can't resist it!  You can see the dry-brushing and a little hint of Treasure Gold highlighting the texture here too.

So there you have it... my roadmap of inspiration to re-charge your batteries for the next stage of the journey.

 I hope you like it.

As promised, here's a recap of all the Destination Inspiration projects from this month.  I love seeing how each Creative Guide uses the same luggage from the travel bag to create such different and individual projects.

Terminal 1 - Jennie

Terminal 2 - Anne

Terminal 3 - Astrid

Terminal 4 - Alison

So there you have it - I hope your creativity is firing on all cylinders after all that.  You've still got a bit of time left to come and join in S@ndy's Celebrations challenge, so get cracking!

What will be packed in the travel bag next month?  And how will each Creative Guide use the components to fuel our onward Vintage Journey? You'll just have to come back each Monday to find out... Bon Voyage!

Alison xx

Destination Inspiration - Can You Feel It?

Hello Vintage Journey enthusiasts!  Julia here with my very first Destination Inspiration post.  Today I'm playing with felt - seeing how Tim Holtz products work with it. I'm always looking to use my stamping supplies in new ways.  So let me show you how I've played with felt and several things "Tim"!  I also have a few felt projects to share at the end of my post.  

 NOTE:  I decided on the topic for this post in January and started working on it then - I had never seen Tim use felt so I was a little nervous doing this post - and then, Lo and Behold!!  Tim used a die cut felt heart on his Feb 2015 tag - then I felt  much better!!

First off - I decided to experiment on little pieces of felt so I didn't ruin a project if something didn't work out.  Here I've used Peacock Feathers Spray Stain through Lattice Work Stencil onto tan felt.  I love this result! (and used it on a project below!)

Next I sponged Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink through the Dot Fade Stencil onto orange felt.  This came out nicely as well!

For my third experiment I used Wendy Vecchi's White Embossing Paste through the Gothic Stencil onto maroon felt.  I was surprised the stenciling came out so clear on this - and the texture is wonderful!

Next up is embossing onto felt -  this came out much better than I thought it would- but the embossing powder sort of stuck everywhere not just on the inked image - so the text isn't really clear.  I used Wendy Vecchi Watering Can Archival Ink and Embossing Powder and a Dina Wakley stamp - Create with Abandon.  The felt also shrinks up a bit when you heat it.

The next two photos show how you can get different results depending on the color of the product (in this example - Distress Paint) and the color of the felt.  Using Rusty Hinge Distress Paint on maroon felt did not produce a clear image.

 The image showed much cleaner using Fired Brick Distress Paint on grey felt.  The bird is from Classics #16 set.  (ALWAYS clean off your stamps right away after 'inking' them with paint!)

So then I tried Distress Paints through Stencils onto felt.   Here is Picket Fence with the Harlequin Stencil on orange felt -  I was surprised that the white paint showed yellow on the felt - another outcome you wouldn't know until you tried it.

My next photo shows how the Picket Fence Distress paint shows true on tan felt as does the Fired Brick on orange felt.

So then I wanted to try using felt with some of Tim's dies.  My first experiment was with his Tattered Pine Cone die. The felt cut easily with the die and I put it together pretty much the same way as when using paper (accept you can't bend over the edges to shape! - see Tim's Tattered Pine Cone tutorial with paper here.) 

I hot glued the center piece to the tip of a toothpick and wrapped it around adjusting it until I liked the shape.

I added hot glue to the bottom.  Then I had to add some hot glue on a few of the layers to hold them together.  I cut off the exposed end of toothpick.

Since this felt pine cone was so successful - I moved right into making a project with them.  I made several pine cones in tan and dark brown felt and also cut out the fern on the same die in two different colors of green.  I added dots of white Embossing Paste with my finger to look like snow.

I embossed Letter Press letters with Wendy Vecchi Fern Green and Tree Branch inks and  Fern and Tree Branch embossing powders.

Wendy suggests that after you have the embossing powder on the letters - to rub some off of the edges so that when you heat emboss them it looks like some edges of color have worn off - here you can see how I've rubbed some of the powder off (and below you will see them embossed on my finished project)

 The felt seemed a little bit too clean to me (!) - so I sprayed them with Tea Dye Distress Spray Stain

and did the same to the pine cones.

I made a base for my project using a 4" x 6"  Burlap Panel.  I laid a piece of  Melange Tissue Wrap over the top and covered it with Gesso.  When dry I sprayed it with Brushed Pewter Distress Spray Stain  (effectively removing any hint of the pattern of the tissue wrap under it!)  And then I used white embossing paste through the Lattice Work Stencil along the top half.

After that dried - I adhered my pine cones and branches around the edges and the Letter Press words in the open space.

I proceeded to make 2 more projects using felt - I'm just going to show you photos since I've kept you SO LONG already! (are you still here?!)

They are pretty straight forward.

I decorated an 8" x 4 1/4" felt purse that I purchased at Joann's, using tan felt, the Winter Wonder Die, Lattice Work and Dot Fade Stencils, Snowflake Adornment, Linen Ribbon, Mini Fasteners (the eye) Mini Gears,  Peacock Feathers Distress Spray Stain and Picket Fence Distress Paint. I adhered the felt to the bag with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive.

And finally, I decorated a 5" x 7" burlap bag.  I used Tim's Frayed Fabric Technique for the base of this project - found on page 66 of Compendium of Curiosities Vol III - the Ornate Frame die, an old Sizzix Heart die, Heart Charm, Ring Fastener, Arrow, Stripes Stencil and Picket Fence Spray Stain.

I hope I have inspired you to try new ways to use all of your stamping/crafting supplies (including felt!) . As Tim wrote in my copy of Compendium of Curiosities Vol I - "Stay Curious!"
Thanks so much for stopping by at A Vintage Journey today!

And don't forget the AVJ Special Numbers challenge going on right now!

Hugs XX -  Julia