Happy 1st Birthday AVJ

Welcome, welcome, welcome to our first birthday celebrations.

Courtesy of Candy Colwell one of our ex Creative Guides.

There’s lots to tell you today about the changes to our schedule and what surprises there are for the birthday winners (you will definitely want to see what they are - so read on please..), but first I want to extend a very warm welcome to our newest Creative Guide Shari Trumbull. Shari lives at Ain’t That ArtsyFartsy and you can find her photo and read more about her in 'Meet the Creative Guides' in the sidebar. I am sure you will extend a warm welcome as she joins us today with her first Creative Guide challenge sample. You will also notice that Trace is on the line up and is going to stay with us and I am so pleased she has managed to find some time to join in today as well. In fact I think there is something from all of us to whet your appetite for this next challenge. So grab a coffee and a few minutes of your time to help get this party started.

Other news

From today we are changing our challenge schedule quite significantly, we are now posting one challenge a month and the winner will be chosen by random.org. We continue to have Country View Crafts as our fabulous sponsor and Susan will be donating a £20 voucher as the prize. Our challenges will go live at midnight on the first Friday of every month and finish at 6.00 pm on the Thursday night - the day before the next challenge commences (London time).

We are continuing with our 'Pinworthy Mentions' and these will be the Creative Guides' Top 3 from all the entries, as last year it will be the Host of that month's challenge who will pull all the Creative Guide suggestions together and make the final decisions. Those projects will be pinned to the appropriate Pinterest board on our Pinterest site and we will send you a Pinworthy badge for your blog.

Throughout the month Fridays will be project based with guests and we will invite the winner and the pinworthy mentions to join us with a project as guest Creative Guides. We will also continue with a special invited guest each month - so watch out for a very special Tim team member, Paula Cheney who will be with us on the 27th March.

Mondays will be education days, every Monday there will be a Destination Inspiration post brought to you by one of the Creative Guides and if you pop back here next Monday Alison is first up and she will explain what we will be doing.

Birthday Challenge and Birthday Prizes......

read on ---------

To celebrate our first birthday we are going back to the first challenge we started off with in March 2014. 

ANYTHING TIM

Make 'Anything Tim' your key focus with one of those vintage, shabby, mixed media or journaling projects that has a Tim Holtz influence. What is a Tim influence? Well it could be that you use one of his techniques, some of his stamps, Idea-ology range, dies or his embossing folders. Alternatively, you might take one of his tags for inspiration or use something from one of his books or videos. Whatever it is, just have fun and post it on here with the proper links (see our Travelling Instructions in the side bar).

Here is the Creative Guide line-up for this week and each and every one of us is joining the party; I think we have produced some incredible samples for you to take inspiration from and to encourage you to join us in the challenge. We have cards and pressies and even a cake .........

Jennie

Whilst I love all the wonderful "Tim" techniques, more than anything I love using Tim's products in my own style. And this is my favourite - pulling together a disparate collection of items (die cuts, flowers, metal, buttons, etc),  equalising them all with gesso and then re-colouring them using Distress sprays, inks and paints. If you want to see what I used and the process then do please hop on over to Live The Dream where there are more details.

Astrid

I decided to alter a little 6 x 6" file folder from my stash, playing with my new Correspondence papers and Mixed Media dies. Of course many other wonderful Tim Holtz products came out to play too. If you want to see more, all you need to do is click here

Anne

To celebrate our first birthday I have created a tag to commemorate this, using lots of new and some older Tim goodies.  If you would like to see more, please pop over to my blog.

Terry

It is so hard to believe how quickly a year goes by and Happy Anniversary to AVJ! Well AVJ is not the only one with an anniversary and my pocket watch die full of Tim goodies will be gifted to my absolutely better half for our special day. Stop on over for all the details right HERE.

Shari

Serendipity has a way of making a play when I didn't even expect it!  Inspired by Tim Holtz designer Richele Christensen, I created this layered burlap panel with family birthdays in mind, but here I am at the 1 Year Birthday of A Vintage Journey celebrating as a Creative Guide!!  If you'd like, I've got a few details of how I put this together at my blog Ain't That Artsy Fartsy. 

n't That Arts

 Julie

I just couldn't resist baking....Oops ! making a cake for our 1st Birthday Celebrations. After all a party just wouldn't be a party without a Birthday cake. I would love to have you pop over to Juliz Design Post to see all the details. 

Nikki

For our 'Anything Tim' challenge I decided to use the new Runway stamp set and create a wall hanging for my study. Lots of Tim inspired techniques including stamping on frosted film coated acetate. More details over at Addicted to Art today.

Julia

I used some new Tim (Cracked Pistacio Distress Ink, Handwritten Sentiments) and several old Tim (Butterfly Frenzie and Postage Stamp Frame dies, Latticework Stencil,Chit Chat Stickers to name a few) for my Birthday card celebrating A Vintage Journey's first birthday!  

You can find out just how I put this together over at my blog post here.

Alison 

I'm celebrating by playing in a different style than normal...  I was trying to stay true to the spirit of the sentiment!  And I had a lovely time playing with this glorious new stencil from the latest CHA releases to create this card and co-ordinating envelope.  Come over to Words and Pictures if you'd like to see more.

 Trace 

I am loving collage style pieces and have used lots of my favourite Tim Holtz goodies, with lots of distress inks and stains as well as plenty of my favourite... idea-ology and lots of ephemera. 

Hop across to inkypinkycraft to see all the details x

Chris

Curiously, my 'hedgerow album' has been made using Sheena Douglas dies, BUT the inspiration for the album is Tim's riveted patchwork technique made with foil, alcohol inks and distress paint.  I use a lot of non-Tim products in my crafting but most of what I make is inspired by Tim's techniques in one form or another.  You can find the step x step for my album on my blog.

Have fun joining in with us this month, good luck!  Chris xxx

S@ndy

I've been in the process of reorganizing my blog and studio so thought I would share a storage chest I made to hold some of my Tim stash.  This little chest has made it easy for me to find those small items that I sometimes forget about or don't want to look for.  I have these items at my fingertips with this storage unit sitting on my worktable.  For more details and tutorial please stop by my blog here.

 Annie

It's so hard to believe that we are celebrating our 1st Anniversary here at AVJ  and with so many gorgeous giveaways as well as a great challenge. 

I decided to make a Pillow Box and incorporated lots of Tim Holtz products as you can see. To view more details please click on my name above, which will take you straight to my blog. Best Wishes x

Jenny

Now for my Tim thing... this is a bit of a different colour scheme for me isn't it! It looks kinda complicated but in reality it's quite simple to achieve, making use of the new 'Flower Garden' stamps, 'Mixed Media' Thinlits dies and Tim's 'Distress Watercolouring' technique from the Compendium of Curiosities III. See more about it on my blog HERE


Brenda

I'm celebrating Tim's new Correspondence papers today and I've made a hard back bound book which I think I might just use as a birthday book.

.

AND NOW FOR THOSE VERY, SPECIAL BIRTHDAY PRIZES (just for this month only)

The Winner's Prize
- drawn by random.org (and who is eligible by following the rules) will win
£20.00 gift voucher for the Country View Crafts on-line shop.

Pinworthy Prizes
for the Creative Guides chosen Top 3
(The Creative Guides check eligibility for winning a prize against our rules)


1. A special Compendium of Curiosities 3 signed by Tim Holtz
donated by Tim and Mario.

2. A special set of 'Perspective' stamps signed by Tim Holtz
donated by Tim and Mario.

3. A special Ranger apron signed by Tim Holtz
donated by Tim and Mario.

THANK YOU TIM AND MARIO for sharing our birthday celebrations with us and sending these fabulous items for three of our lovely challenge entrants to win.

(The additional products have been donated by Brenda and Chris).

Commenting Prize 
- drawn by Random Org from all the people who comment on this post before the challenge ends

A Compendium of Curiosities 2 and additional Tim products
donated by Anne (Redfern)

So how exciting is that ????? - so many special birthday prizes. Want to have a go at winning one? Then make your project keeping the expectations in mind - link it to the linky below and good luck

I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who is supporting and donating, including Susan, Anne and Chris and of course Tim and Mario and to all of you who enter our challenges, what an extra special birthday it is and now we are looking forward to year two of AVJ themes, guests and destination inspiration posts.

A Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary if you are celebrating something special today and that includes our fabulous CG Terry who has a wedding anniversary today.

happy Birthday AVJ

hugs Brenda and all the Creative Guides. xxx

An InLinkz Link-up