Welcome back Vicki with winners announcement

It's Friday and it's Tic Tac Toe with a difference. Vicki is back with an amazing tutorial project and oh boy are you gonna just love this.

Hi, its Vicki here from [dig] that crazy chick. I have recently returned home to a chilly and snowy Alberta, having spent the past few weeks in sunny and warm Arizona. I can see why so many people travel or choose to live there. Arizona is absolutely beautiful! (I’m already planning to go back.) This is a picture of me and Io (my little girl), she is certainly glad we are home. She slept on the floor in my craft space while I made these so I felt it important to include her here. She loves the winter and snow is her very most favourite thing. Yes, I am wearing shorts in the snow (a true Canadian).

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I am excited to share my technique for faux inlaid wood as part of my guest designers honours at A Vintage Journey’s TIC-TAC-TOE challenge #25. The projects are made using sheets of paper backed wood veneer, not looks like wood, real wood. You can find the complete photographic step-by-step here (Permalink - http://digthatcrazychick.blogspot.com/2015/02/tic-tac-toe.html). This technique also makes for wonderful masculine cards.

Tim’s Distress palette and how the colours work with each other, and how with a bit of craftily applied water they react with each other; makes magic happen (everytime). You can easily pick through the colours and combine them to evoke senses of times gone by; the not so long ago Retro, the slightly older Vintage or so time-worn that you have no period to define it. I hope you enjoy travelling with me today on my Vintage, time-worn and Retro Journey.

My “game” strategy was to take the right-hand vertical column with “X”s (as I have never liked playing as “O”s)

Match Maker

TIC – Crinkle Ribbon

TAC – Labels (Thinlits), Matchbox & Mini Silhouettes (Movers & Shapers)

TOE – Distress Aged Mahogany, Bundled Sage & Pumice Stone

The crease pad is a must for cutting wood veneer papers when you need to fold it, especially the folds against the grain.

The wood is so thin that you can easily cut it with Thinlit dies.

When cutting the wood pieces I vary or alternate the direction of the grain. I chose the diagonal to mimic the lines of the silhouette. 

When I want to ink the edges of small pieces (or tight inside edges) I use a cotton swab.

When staining wood you always want to work the colour in the direction of the grain.

I use sheets of double-sided tape to adhere the pieces together working from the outer most frame first.

When finished, all the pieces are flush with each other. I lightly sanded the surface just to add the feeling of being worn before folding the match box cover and securing the seam.

Here are a couple more matchboxes I made using the same techniques and the tic-tac-toe theme.

Black Powder

TIC – Jute String

TAC – Matchbox & Mini Skull (Movers & Shapers)

TOE – Distress Black Soot, Old Paper, Picket Fence & Walnut Stain

Playing with Fire

TIC – Striped Paper String

TAC – Alphanumeric & Labels (thinlits), Matchbox (movers & Shapers)

TOE – Distress Brushed Corduroy, Faded Jeans, Festive Berries & Stormy Skies


Oh wow Vicki, that is just so amazing, what brilliant projects. Thanks so much for such an innovative idea and fabulous process steps enabling us all to have a go so easily. Now where did I put that wood veneer ...............?

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Next up is our winners spot and Astrid has made the final decisions for her 'Love is in the Air' challenge.

We had so many wonderful entries for this challenge; it did not make the choosing any easier…. But as a team we were pretty much in agreement that our overall winner should be -

 #15 Ruth (A love to create)

Her amazing rusty heart is a piece of pure genius, so cleverly crafted and conceived and full of the most amazing rusting techniques. It is a labour of love from beginning to end, that no doubt took many hours to create.

Choosing the pin worthies was very hard this time too, as there were so many wonderful and creative entries, but in the end I chose, in no particular order:

No 25 Rupa. 

She created a wonderful altered book, with lots of creative tags to adorn in. I loved the fact she altered a Mills and Boon!

No 27 Berdien, 

who entered two gorgeous vibrant tags full of lovely Tim goodness.

No 39 Cathy 

with a beautiful soft shabby chic card that demonstrates just perfectly in how many different ways the love theme can be interpreted.

Congratulations all of you, badges and the winner's voucher from Country View Crafts will be on its way soon and your amazing projects pinned to our Pinterest Winners Boards.

Thank you to everyone who has shared projects with us enabling us to come and see amazing work on your blogs, it is a delight to visit you all.

Don't forget our current challenge Tic Tac Toe hosted by our lovely Annie is well under way and has attracted some fabulous entries already.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda, Astrid and the Team xxxx