We have very talented Guests today!

Good morning everyone,

We have great pleasure in introducing our Guest Creative Guides this morning - Pinworthy winners from a previous challenge - Suzz, Nicole and Deb with THREE wonderfully creative projects...

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Suzz of Suzz'z Stamping Spot

Hi!  My name is Suzanne Czosek.  I am thrilled to be part of the pinworthy guests. The Vintage Journey Design Team is talented and inspiring. 

I live in Illinois in the Midwest of the United States.  My family consists of my dear husband, my lovely 3 children and our two sweet dogs.  I have been blogging about my art since 2008.  I have always loved dabbling in art.  I love playing with inks and stamps and trying new artistic endeavors.

Today I am sharing a journal page that started with one of Tim's layering stencils sprinkled with spring colors.  When I think of spring colors I think of pretty pastels like pink, yellow and softer shades of colors.  When I started my journal page I was thinking of the first real colors of spring we see and it is the green of the grass, plants and flowers starting to renew and the blue skies overhead. 

This page uses a layering of the stencil with white embossing paste on a nice sturdy mixed media paper.  I added a light coat of Antique Linen Distress Stain Spray to age my background.  Then I decided to use up some of my glimmer mists where the spray nozzle doesn't work anymore.  I just opened up the bottles and started pouring on the colors and tilting the paper every which way to get some drips and splotches. After that dried I wanted a pop of black and decided to use the Remnants to add some texture.

The finishing touches was really pulling out a mix of odds an ends and layering them together in a fun way and adding the finishing details.

Visit Suzz's blog here.

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Nicole of Canadian Nickel Scrap'n

Hello AVJ Travelers!  Time to buckle up and enjoy the creative journey with me… Nicole Wright.  I’ll be your creative guide for today’s journey.  I have traveled all the way from Calgary, Alberta Canada where the snow is melting and spring is popping!  I have a passion for all things inky, distressed and messy.  I love to create with layers, textures, stamps, inks and my Sizzix dies! 

As designers we work to inspire our audience.  The talent here on AVJ is without a doubt some of the most creative designers out there.  I’ll be sharing a project inspired by the super talented Brenda Brown!  I was inspired by a few design elements she shared and sometimes that’s all it takes to get us creating in the right direction.  I’m heavily influenced by all the amazing designers I stalk.  Thank you to the team for hosting me again on A Vintage Journey.  I love spending the day with you and your travelers.

OK, so I had this idea awhile back.  I had the canvas, duo butterflies, dragon fly and the intension to make a mess.  But something wasn’t clicking.  Then there it was a recent “Reverse Canvas” (http://www.vintagejourney.com/2015/04/destination-inspiration-april-route-2.html) project Brenda had posted here.  I was stuck on the flat surface of the canvas not the canvas itself!  Flip it around and now we are cooking…I mean creating!

There is always a lot of watercolor paper on hand when I’m creating.  I love the texture, weight and inking I can do with it.  I almost always create my own background by inking, stamping and adding some texture with stencils.

Good luck finding one of my designs without a Sizzix die added!  I love these new Sizzix Tim Holtz Thinlit dies.  They add a delicate element to any project.  Cutting “beautiful” in black makes it pop from all that is going on around it.

Brenda’s use of tissue wrapped around the reverse canvas is brilliant.  Using this technique is a great way to frame out the natural shadow box that is created when you reverse the canvas.  The colorful fluttering creatures pop right off the canvas!

Thanks for all the inspiration the Vintage Journey Team shares.  I always love being asked to be a part of the journey.  I hope you get just as inspired and share your spring colours, dies and stamps for this month’s challenge.  For a few more photo’s travel over to my part of the world and say EH…Canadian Nickel Scrap’n.
 

You can visit Nicole's blog here.

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Deb of Paxton Valley Folk Art

Hello, my name is Deb Riddell and I am tickled pink to be here at A Vintage Journey, what an amazing honour!  In keeping with the Creative Guides tradition of using their baby pictures here on AVJ, here's me when I was a tot a very long time ago!

I live in British Columbia, Canada on a small acreage with my hubby and our three rescue dogs, who are much better known as our kids!  I am new to the wonderful world of Tim Holtz and mixed media and have learned so much from the talented Creative Guides here at AVJ.  I started out my own creative journey as a decorative and water colour painter but when I discovered the folk art and primitive styles of art, I branched out into creating home decor and decorative items using fabric, paper and paint.  From there it was a short hop to mixed media and my life long love of antiques and vintage treasures meant that Tim Holtz's vintage style drew me like a moth to a flame.  My favourite place to be is down in my studio, playing with all my new Tim Holtz toys and getting my fingers covered with ink, stain and glue.

The May challenge of 'Spring Colours' that Astrid set for us immediately made me think of the soft greens, blues and pinks that start to appear as the winter snows melt away here in Canada.  I was especially inspired by the delicate petals and colours of the cherry and apple blossoms that burst forth at this time of year and here is the canvas that I ended of making.

I coloured the background of the canvas with distress stain and ink, spritz and flick, stenciling through Tim's 'Blossom' layering stencil with transparent texture paste and some random stamping.  The honeycomb on the left was cut from grunge paper with Tim's 'Frameworks' die and the branches along the top were die cut using Tim's 'Bird Branch' die.

The cherry blossoms were die cut from tissue paper using Tim's 'Tattered Floral' die and gently coloured with distress ink.   A fragment charm was stamped with a butterfly stamp using Tim's 2008 August technique challenge and the typed token was coloured with distress paint.  The little bird on the clothespin was sanded, colored with distress ink and then overstamped with a text stamp.  I made a small tag to clip into the clothespin that was stamped with block stamps and embossed.

I randomly added some of the off cut hexagons from the 'Framework' die back into the honeycomb.   Some were covered with paper from Tim's 'Wallpaper' paper stash, others had remnant rubs applied and some were embossed with letters using Tim's new 'Typewriter and Keyboard' embossing folder.  The bunny image was resized and colored with distress ink and a water brush and the daffodils and narcissus flowers were fussy cut and embossed with clear embossing powder.  I colored the 'grass' along the bottom with distress ink and spritz and flick and then hand cut the grass texture.  The word band was coloured with distress paint and some alcohol ink and the mirror stars were coloured with alcohol ink and glued to each side of the word band.  The wee bees, from a K & Co chipboard set, were added last.

So that is my creation for this month's 'Spring Colours' theme, thanks to Astrid for her wonderful prompt that inspired it!  I have a step by step tutorial over at my blog if you are interested in learning more details on how I made my canvas, hope you will stop on by and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you to the Creative Guides for asking me to be a guest designer here at A Vintage Journey, it is a dream come true, and thank you for taking the time to view my project.  Happy Spring everyone! 

You can visit Deb's blog here.

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Wow!  Three stunning projects and each so very creative and beautiful in their own way.  It's amazing to see just how Tim's influences can result in such different results but that is exactly the objective!  THANK YOU Deb, Nicole and Suzz for these fabulous pieces of work and for sharing your inspiration and creativity with us all here today!

We're half way through the challenge folks and we'd love to see more of what you're doing.  The winner of the £20 shop voucher, so generously donated by our sponsor Country View Crafts, will be chosen at random so EVERY ENTRANT is in with a chance of winning!

Have a great weekend everyone, make it crafty if you can!  >;o)

Chris xxx

For Brenda and the Vintage Journey Creative Guides