A new amazing Guest Creative Guide

Welcome to this month's Guest Creative Guide post and we have a fantastic artist who makes the most incredible time worn and grungy projects using loads of different mediums, paints and usually somewhere there will be some incredible textured embossing. I would like to introduce you to the amazing Dee Adams, let's go take a look at what she has designed for us today to fit in with our current challenge 'The Magic of Three'.

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Hi everyone! I am very pleased to have been asked by Brenda to be your guest today. If you are not familiar with my work I love the aged worn look, metals, embossing and generally shabby, bit like myself! I also quite like a mythical feel to art but generally love it all inks and paints and my passion is mixed media.

Today I have taken the topic literally and gone with what it says on the tin! A wooden number 3. 

I started with various bits including texture sand paste, art stones, anything that will achieve texture.

You then glue it to the wood frame just don't use salt.

Next came a good coat of black gesso followed by raw umber to cover the three.

   DecoArt's weathered wood came next and once this was dry it was followed with DecoArt Media crackle paint.

 I swiped the uneven areas with a Versamark ink pad then I sprinkled Stampendous chunky gold embossing powder over the areas and gave a quick shake as you only want it to take in those places.

Once happy with the embossing powder I followed with the beads these were glued into position which can be quite messy.

Raw umber, Quinacridone gold & Prussian Blue hue were used to highlight and age the project around the embossed areas.

A very watery wash of Quinacrine Gold and Raw Umber were used over the crackle I think I did two coats but it's up to you.

The inside surface was a watery wash of Prussian Blue.

I made a little embellishment with a glass pebble and a clock stamp which I glued to the bottom curve then, I glued three gem stones to the upper curve.

For the butterfly I used a Stampendous butterfly from their Jumbo Butterfly Trio. I used watercolour  to paint it on a base coat of clear gesso. Beads were used to create the body of the butterfly.

I hope you have all enjoyed my interpretation of this amazing challenge.

'The Magic Of Three'

Thank you it has been a pleasure to join you

Cheers Dee x

My personal blog www.deeadamsart.blogspot.co.uk

designer blog: www.tando-creative.blogspot.co.uk

designer blog: www.sandee-and-amelie.blogspot.co.uk

designer @: www.stampendous.com

https://www.facebook.com/deeadamsart.blogspot.co.uk

Pintrest https://uk.pinterest.com/grungyart/

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What did I tell you? Dee has used all her favourite supplies to design and create this amazing project for us, just everything she has used fits together amazingly to produce such wonderful grungy, aged and textured results. Thank you so much Dee for altering this number three in such a brilliant way and sharing the steps with us. I don't know about anyone else but I want to get making and follow your steps to see what happens for me and I'm sure there will be lots of people reading this who have been inspired in the same way.

Well after you've left some love for Dee and hopefully popped over to her blog as well, I hope you'll spend a moment looking at our challenge that still runs till next Thursday.  We've had some fabulous projects entered already but there's always time and room for some more so we'd love to see you there.

Have a wonderful bank Holiday weekend if you're in the UK, that usually means for,a lot of people there is an extra one day holiday on Monday to look forward to.

Take care and see you Monday for the next DI installment.

hugs Brenda, Dee and the Creative Guides. xxx

Destination Inspiration: Arriving at Terminal 3

Hello everyone, Anne here, welcoming you to Terminal 3 of April's Destination Inspiration.

We have been using these items in our travel bag this month:

Product - Distress Ink / Paint

Technique - Stencil Mono-printing

Colour - Green

Substrate - MDF

When I planned to use Wendy Vecchi's Art Parts, I mistakenly thought they were MDF, but I think they are close enough as I don't have any other MDF in my stash....  I went for a clean and simple design with my project. 

 

I wanted to use one of my favourite Wendy Vecchi stamps - rules to live by.

The base is from Wendy's Artful Shrines Art Parts, I just used the inside piece and coated it with some white Gesso.

I gave the base a good coat of Distress Paint in Bundled Sage.

For the mono-printing element I used Tim Holtz's Honeycomb stencil and Fossilized Amber Distress Ink which I hoped would give a nice contrast.

I applied the ink directly to one side of the stencil, spritzed it well with water, laid it on top of the base, pressed all over with a piece of paper towel and dried it with my heat tool.  Heat setting it really brings it to life.  I love that this technique does not give a 'perfect' print but I am always amazed at how well it works (apologies for the shadow, I was crafting at night time)!

Once dry I stamped with this lovely Wendy stamp, I just love that some of the words are bold.  I keep this stamp on show in my craft room for encouragement!

I did not do a step by step of the flower but these are Wendy Vecchi Art Parts too.  I painted the large flower with Scattered Straw Distress Paint and the smaller one with Spiced Marmalade Distress Paint.  The leaves and stalk were painted with Pine Needles Distress Paint.  I gave each piece two coats and then overstamped with Hero Arts Newspaper Background stamp.  I added the little copper 'nut' (Prima I think) after painting the word 'Art' with Pine Needles DP.

Finally, the whole piece was edged with Pine Needles Distress Ink.

Like I said, clean and simple but it shows how well the mono-printing technique works, I hope that our projects this month have encouraged you to try the technique, if you have not done so already!

Our current challenge 'The Magic of Three', hosted by the lovely Annie is still running, we hope you will join in HERE.

Thanks so much for visiting, please come back next Monday for some more inspiration using our April Travel Bag! 

Hugs,  Anne xx

Inspiration From Our Pinworthies

Hello everyone and thank you for stopping by.  We are excited to have our three very talented Pinworthy winners from January back with us today; Iolia from JulD Handmade, Drea from Drea's Scraps of Inspiration and Hazel from Melliflous Meanderings.  They have all made wonderful projects to share with us for our current 'The Magic of 3' challenge, enjoy!

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Ioulia

Hello, I am Ioulia from Greece and I am so happy to be a Guest Designer 

once again at “A Vintage Journey”. It is such an honour to be here today. Thank you so much.

I loved painting and crafting from my early years, but instead of becoming an artist 

I became an engineer who loves to create things in her free time. 

So, crafting is my hobby. My passion is clay and texture in paintings.

 I am impressed by new techniques and altered materials. 

This month's theme “The magic of three” inspired me to create a mixed media painting with three poppies. This year the winter was so long and cold and everybody was looking forward spring.

The background is an mdf board which was painted with gesso, acrylics and inks.

I used stencils, stamps and tissue paper.

The poppies are made of air dry clay.

The stemps are made of copper wire and the leaves are made of used tea bags.

I hope you like it. 

For more details and pictures, I would be glad if you visit my blog, julD handmade

Also you can find me here:

Facebook: julD handmade

Pinterest: julD handmade


Drea

     Hello, Drea Slee here from Southern CA, currently living in Reno, NV with my husband and our 15 year old son! I have a background in fashion design, but have been into arts and crafts my whole life, with a huge passion for color. I've recently been exploring with mixed media, and love trying new products and techniques. Please visit my blog to see more of my work.

https://dreasscrapsofinspiration.blogspot.com/

     For me the "Magic of Three" represents my family, so I had my son choose three Dylusions Paints to create this page in my art journal.

     I love what he picked, and started by blending the paints in three different areas of my page. Then I used three different stencils to create the numbers, diamonds, and woodgrain, using an old Tim Holtz mask to create the large 3 on top.  The three small and large butterflies were stamped three times each before re-inking to give the illusion of movement. 

     The Magic of Three can also be found in the flowers that have three petals in the center, and were the only purple ones in the bunch.

Thanks for having me!

Hazel

Hi everyone, Hazel Agnew here, delighted to be asked to be a Pinworthy Guest.

I am a very messy and very impulsive mixed media arty type. Love to try out new methods and love to soak up all the wonderful art that is around us!
My garden is a source of joy, as are my two lovely small grandchildren.
I am very lucky to have my own craft room where I spend most evenings and many a day.

Here is my piece for the topic "The Magic Of Three".

I began with a piece of Acrylic Paint board and covered it with texture. Grungepaste, lace, doilies etc. Which I attached with Gesso.

My magical Threes were Hearts and flowers, which are encrusted with Frantage Embossing Enamels.

It is inspired by my Beautiful Auntie Joan, who sits happily amongst the arrangement. 

For more details about this, please visit my blog. Mellifluous Meanderings.

Thankyou to the "A Vintage Journey " Team for inviting me and for continuing to provide us all with wonderful inspiration.


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Wow what gorgeous creations, thank you so much for sharing them with us today!  I hope that all of you will also feel inspired to join in our 'The Magic of Three' challenge, there is a wonderful prize to be won from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies plus you may be chosen as one of our three Pinworthies and join us as a guest Creative Guide!  Thanks so much for stopping by and be sure to pop back on Monday for the next stop on our Destination Inspiration journey.  Hope to see you then,

Deb xo

April Destination Inspiration - Pulling Into Terminal 2

Hello and thank you for stopping by, it's Deb here today to welcome you as we pull into terminal #2 on our April Destination Inspiration journey.  If you remember from Tracy's post last Monday, our travel bags this month are packed with the following ingredients:

Product - Distress Inks/Paints

Technique - Stencil Monoprinting

Colour - Green

Substrate - MDF

And here's my 'A Very Wonderful Place' altered wood panel that I created with the contents of my travel bag.

I've a few step out photos on how I created it, hope you will enjoy seeing them.

I unfortunately didn't have any MDF in my stash so I substituted this free standing wood canvas from Southern Ridge Trading Company for the MDF surface, necessity is the mother of invention!

For my background, I used the stencil monoprint technique on 110 lb white cardstock through Tim Holtz's Blossom stencil with Old Paper Distress paint.

I then reapplied the stencil to the monoprint, bumping it slightly so it wasn't lined up exactly, and inked through the stencil with Twisted Citron and a touch of Mowed Lawn Distress inks.

A bit of stamping with a script stamp and Leaf Green Archival ink came next and then I sprinkled the background with water, applied some clear UTEE and heated the embossing powder from the back to activate it.  I unfortunately used a bit too much water to hold the UTEE in place in spots and ended up with some translucent areas once the powder melted but decided to embrace imperfection and just went with it!  Spattering with diluted white acrylic paint completed my background panel.

Wildflowers were die cut from Distress Mixed Media Heavystock, overstamped with the same script stamp used on the background and Hickory Smoke Archival ink, and then watercoloured with several shades of Distress inks (Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, Shaded Lilac, Dusty Concord, Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn).  I've become rather enamoured of watercolouring Wildflowers with Distress inks lately!

The prepared background was trimmed and adhered to the free standing wood panel and the watercoloured Wildflowers afixed overtop.  A few of the wildflowers were bumped up slightly on tiny pieces of white fun foam.  A Quote Chip was adhered to the top right corner and some green Distress ink coloured cheesecloth was glued all around the base.

One of Tim's Salvaged Dolls was aged with Vintage Distress Collage medium and her dress was painted with Americana Green Tea acrylic paint.  Diluted Ground Espresso Distress Crayon was painted on to emphasize her features and colour her hair slightly.  The crown and star wand from the Treasures Adornments were coloured with Silver Mixative and then aged with Black Soot Distress crayon.  A teeny little flower from my stash was coloured with Spun Sugar Distress marker and adhered to the star wand and a couple of fussy cut butterfly wings were adhered to her back.

An 'x' and an 'o' Alpha Dice were coloured with Old Paper and Ground Espresso Distress crayons.

Mini Holiday Greens were die cut from cardstock coloured with Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn Distress inks.

And using inspiration from our own Brenda Brown, I punched a butterfly from the same green cardstock with an EK Success punch and overstamped it with a Dina Wakley Scribbly Insects stamp (click here to read Brenda's butterfly tutorial).

And then the wood panel was assembled.  I adhered the Mini Holiday Greens around the bottom and glued the Alpha Dice in place with the little Salvaged Doll fairy princess perched on top of them.

More flowers die cut with the Tiny Tattered Florals die, from card coloured with the same colours of pink and purple Distress inks as used on the Wildflowers, were adhered overtop of the greenery.  That fabulous phrase from Tim's new Clippings Stickers was placed overtop of the popped up Wildflowers.  I am finding those Clippings Stickers to be so inspiring, the stories you can tell with those wonderful words and phrases!  And finally, the butterfly was perched onto the top of the panel as if about to take flight.

I hope that you've enjoyed seeing how my 'A Very Wonderful Place' altered wood panel came together, I had so much fun playing with the contents of the travel bag!

Be sure to stop by next Monday when Anne will be here with her Destination Inspiration project and I hope that you will also consider entering our current challenge, The Magic of Three.  Thank you again for stopping by today and as always, happy creating!

Deb xo

Winners and more winners.

A HUGE thanks to everyone who joined in the Birthday celebrations last month and what an amazing array of projects were entered - and what a job we had making decisions for the pinworthies too.

Before we make the big announcement, it's time to enjoy a project from one of our former winners.  Zelda of Out of Africa Creations won our January challenge, and she's here today with some inspiration for Annie's lovely Magic of Three theme.  Let's hand over to Zelda so that she can introduce herself and her fabulous creation.

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Hello everyone! I'm thrilled to be here and a huge thank you to A Vintage Journey for the opportunity to share my Magic of Three project hosted by Annie.

I'm from South Africa (hence the name of my blog Out of Africa Creations) and moved to the great big US of A in 2012. I've always loved creating and have tried many different crafts over the years. I love learning new techniques and when my mojo tank is a little empty, I experiment and often find myself elbow deep in paints and inks .... it's food for my soul.

I decided to create a mixed media canvas for the Magic of Three theme and included a number of elements in three's, namely 3 floral arrangements, 3 leaves (in focal area), 3 wire thread embellishments and 3 lace flowers.

I first added some color with Color Bloom spray to my canvas. I always feel better once I have a bit of color on a blank canvas, it somehow seems less intimidating. Next I distressed the edges of my patterned paper and adhered it to the canvas. I then added some lace and modelling paste with a stencil. After arranging the flowers and embellishments I added color and texture to various areas and finished off with a few pearls.

Here are a few close ups:

For more details please head over to my blog.

Thanks again to A Vintage Journey for inviting me and have a wonderful day!

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Thank you so much, Zelda - such lovely work.

Now it's time to find out who our Birthday winners are, so here goes -

Our out and out winner of the £20 voucher from Counttry View Crafts and chosen by Random Org is..............

#69

and that's the lovely Rupa from Together for Arts with this fabulous Spring wall hanging.

Congratulations Rupa, thank you so much for sharing your wonderful art with us and for all the support you give us over the year. You should be receiving your voucher from Country View Crafts very soon.

To follow this we have three wonderful Pinworthy Mentions for you -

#36   Creations by Nora

#40   Irena's Art

#48  Scrapbook Dreams

Well done ladies, it was a very tough job choosing these but they all three stand out for their ingenuity, inspiration and style. You all did a magnificent job.  You will be contacted soon to see if you would like to be a guest here at AVJ.

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Finally we have the special Tag Friday giveaway prize and although we had far fewer people join in (it seems a week isn't enough for you to get your entries in), we still have a winner

and that is -

#3

and we have the fabulous Trace from 'inkypinkycraft' with a gorgeous vintage tag.

Congratulations Trace your little prize will be wending it's way to you soon. We are so happy you have been able to join in with us and pleased to see an ex Creative Guide sister taking the stage.

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So there we have all our fabulous winners and pinworthies this week and many thanks to all of you who took part and who often find time to make and share something with us. As we now enter our fourth year of challenge making we look forward to seeing what comes our way and hope you will be there at some point joining in.

Don't forget to come back on Monday to see who has been in transit with the travel bag this week and what creation they have made with the contents.  And also we hope you have seen the new challenge 'The Magic of Three' and the inspiration projects from the amazing Creative Guides and hopefully you will be joining us for that one too.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend and enjoy whatever you have planned which hopefully will include some chocolate on the way.

hugs Brenda, Alison and the rest of the incredibly talented and hardworking Creative Guides. xxx