This is a unique challenge blog where we are inspired by and focus on the Vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn and steampunk genres and encompass the talent, flair, expertise and ideas of many artists that we are inspired by. We welcome all types of projects - cards, journaling, assemblage, layouts, albums, atcs, altered art in fact whatever you want to share (as long as it is in good taste).

Friday 3 June 2016

Texture or embossing paste

Hello everyone and welcome to A Vintage Journey! It's Astrid here, being your host for our June challenge.  This month it is all about the ever popular texture or embossing pastes.

 Use any kind of texture paste (home made, crackle, coloured or plain) on your projects. There is an endless variety available, so play, have fun and apply it to your heart's content. Use it through stencils, randomly or in whatever way you want, but remember it should be in one of the vintage; shabby; mixed media; art journalling; industrial or steampunk styles that we favour. Put on your mixed media hat and create some magic!

We have some wonderful projects to share to inspire you hopefully and can't wait to see what you will make.
We are sponsored this month by the lovely Susan at Country View Crafts and the winner will receive a £20 Voucher to spend in their shop.
A Vintage Journey is Proudly Sponsored by:
I decided to use a wooden box canvas as my substrate, with many layers of different pastes, there is no danger of warping. Nothing like making time to enjoy the simple things...


I do love playing with embossing and texture pastes! I have used them in two differing ways on this reverse canvas - do join me at Addicted to Art to see the details today.


For Astrid's challenge this month - I made a textured 3D mug gift box - using Eileen Hull Sizzix Dies and Wendy Vecchi Crackled Texture Paste that I colored with drops of reinker and spread through a Tim Holtz Stencil! You'll see just how I put this together (and how I stamped the pattern on my silver spoon!) over at my blog post here.

I decided to use this months challenge to alter a (very cheap!) wooden frame for our newly decorated bedroom. This Found Relatives Photograph reminds me of the young children who I imagine used to live here in the house many years ago. For more details (and a few close up photographs showing the crackle paste!) please do visit my blog.


It seems ages since I've had time to offer an inspiration piece here but I'm delighted to be around for Astrid's fabulous Texture Pastes theme. I had a wonderful time with this 12 x 12 canvas, layering, collaging and crackling... and all the while stories were bubbling up within the textures. If you'd like to see and hear more, do come and visit me at Words and Pictures.

For Astrid's challenge I decorated this wooden box for my daughter, with lots of different textures and pastes turning it into a keepsake Vintage Book Box. Love for you to stop by my blog Juliz Design Post to see all the photographs and the inside decor. 

I decided to go all shabby for this challenge as I love adding texture to 5 x 7 canvas boards and making them into stand up cards. I used gesso for background texture and crackle paste through a stencil and I also used the media paints and made a mixing swatch to show you how I got to the colours I wanted to use.


I didn't really have an idea for this challenge when I first started, not until I found this snowman mdf shape and I thought it maybe a little early, but why not! Finding this piece and combining with some Andy Skinner paint techniques seemed the perfect combination. Pop by my blog for step by steps.

When coming up with a 'plan of attack' for this theme I was inspired by two wonderfully creative people. Wendy Vecchi recently shared a brilliant idea for mixing embossing powders to create a faux rusted effect on different inky backgrounds. And back in 2013 Vivian Keh (Contadina K) posted a fabulous video using embossing powders with embossing pastes to create fabulous textures. That little voice in my head that often says 'I wonder what would happen if... ' kicked in and here is the resultant canvas. Find out how it came together on my blog HERE.

As I have been blogging now for just over a year I thought I would look back to my very first post and recreate the wooden hanging heart I made then using a different colour palette but retaining all the crackle and texture. You are very welcome to pop by my blog to see more details

Well as you can see, there are no end of possibilities, so we hope you will feel inspired to play along and cannot wait to see what you will create!

You have until Thursday the 30th to enter.


22 comments:

  1. What gorgeous texture for all seasons here for our inspiration! I can see I'm going to learn a lot about this topic when I visit everyone's blogs! Julia xx

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  2. What a great challenge Astrid and many inspiring projects from the design team of the AVJ!!! All fabulous!!!

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  3. Amazing projects from you all ladies, thanks for all this wonderful inspiration!!

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  4. Beautiful work from you all.....I do love textures pastes,it's such fun to use. Happy June! x

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  5. Amazing inspirational creations from the entire DT as always, off to find out how you created them all,thank you for sharing your talent! Deb xo

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  6. Stunning projects Ladies!! Gorgeous inspiration for all. Julia S-W xx

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  7. Such a fabulous array of inspirational projects for a great challenge theme. Sending hugs to everyone and TFS
    Annie x x

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  8. Fabulous Inspiration from the team beautiful projects. Mo x

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  9. A gallery of fabulous creations and inspiration ladies. Thank you Astrid for such a great challenge. x

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  10. Love the array of different styles and supplies used, you are such a talented bunch and thanks for the great theme Astrid xx

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  11. Who knew the same products could come out looking so differently beautiful. Great makes from the team! S@ndy xx

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  12. Fantastic projects from everyone - I had a lovely time hopping round to see them all in detail.
    Alison x

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  13. What an awesome theme! Can't wait to play. Way to go DT on creating some amazing inspirational pieces!

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  14. I love it when we have a new challenge. I love to see how we are all inspired so differently. Have a lovely weekend everyone. Hugs. Tracy x

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  15. A great theme and a fantastic display from the DT. Beautiful!

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  16. Fabulous projects of the DT and loving to join into the fun Hugs Terry xxx

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  17. Thank you for the challenge. Lovely work by the design team.

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  18. Stunning makes ladies - thanks for sharing wonderful inspiration. Nicola x

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  19. I love the textures created on the DT projects! They are all fantastic.

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  20. Thank you for the great challenge and beautiful inspirations from all of the DT! Also wanted to shout out a thank you for teaching me by sharing your step by steps - I greatly appreciate it Karen xx

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  21. Loving the DT projects and thanks for the great challenge theme, love it. Angela x

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