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 27 April 2018

Creative Card Making Tutorial in a Rusty, Crusty Style


Welcome! It's the fourth Friday of the month, and that means it's time for our 'Creative Cardmaking' feature here at A Vintage Journey. Sara Emily here sharing some ideas for putting together a card focusing on our preferred genres - vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk style.

My husband reminded me his brother's birthday was coming up and wanted to mail him a card today. Yikes! This is a simple card and took me less than an hour from idea to photo session. Using a selection of Tim Holtz products makes this super easy.  I have a product list on my blog. Sadly, I have no step by step photos, since I was really pressed for time.




I started by choosing this dapper fellow from the Paper Dolls pack, and my vignette was formed from that. I thought the chap looked a little bit like my brother in law. I knew I would add some gears (there's always plenty of them in the Closet!), so next I chose an appropriate, old Tim Holtz paper stash paper for my background. These are all kind of jumbled up, so I don't know which pad it's from. To add some timeworn quality to the paper, I dipped it in a watery puddle of Vintage Photo Distress Oxide and dried it. Gently tapping it into the remaining ink and then adding Seth Apter's Patina Oxide Baked Texture randomly and heating gives it some rusty interest. Distressing the edges with a distressing tool (or you could use scissors), and blending the edges with a dark brown ink (I used Ground Espresso) always adds some vintage or timeworn quality.


An easy way to add some interest to the Paper Dolls is to provide a backdrop for them. You could do this with some ephemera or vintage papers from your stash, but I chose to do some stamping on a scrap of cardstock laying on my desk. I dipped it in the leftover Vintage Photo DOX on my craft mat, spritzed with water and dried. Add some darker Distress ink randomly, and splash with some water, then dry for some more vintage goodness. The stamp is one of my newest of Tim's inked in Watering Can archival. More distressing and tearing off edges, then swiping with a Distress Crayon, heated to melt. I backed this panel with a scrap of chipboard to give it sturdiness and add little dimension from the background panel.


To give my little fella some life, I patted him with Faded Jeans and then Vintage Photo DOX pads, spritzing lightly with water and drying between colors. I edged with Ground Espresso ink.


Finally I layered it all up on black card stock, then an old gold embossed paper from my stash, and then onto a black card blank.  Before layering onto the blank, I distressed the edges and swiped on Distress crayon and heated to age it.


 Lastly, I tucked in some die cut gears from my stash. I made these quite a long time ago, so I don't remember what I used to give them the rusty patina, but they went quite well with Seth's powders, don't you think? A Chit Chat sticker adhered to the torn edge from the hand made ephemera panel makes a snarky Birthday greeting.


 So, there you have it!  I'm pretty satisfied with my quick card, but I think I would have chosen a different color for his suit in retrospect. I'm quite pleased at the seredipity in this project. I made it month's ago, but it fits in perfect with our current 'Rusty and Crusty' challenge. You still have several more days to play along! I can't wait to see what you will make!

I hope I've provided you with some tips or techniques you can use on your own project. Please let me know if I did!

Crafty hugs!
Sara Emily

Saturday 21 April 2018

Friday Tutorial Post - A Travel Journal

We have a new schedule for posts this year at A Vintage Journey - and the 2nd Friday after a challenge post - we have a tutorial post!  
Today I'm sharing a travel journal I made using a brand new Wrapped Journal Die from Eileen Hull/Sizzix. 
I also used Eileen's new Journaling Words dies for 'wander' on the cover
and 'travel' and 'journal' on the first page
I tied an Idea-ology Word key (Journey) onto the jute binding.
I used Idea-ology Linen Ribbon for the journal closing allowing extra ribbon to accommodate the fattening as things were added to the journal pages!
I used ScorTape to adhere the ribbon to the back of the journal so it wouldn't get lost when untied.
Here's how the wrapped journal looks when opened up
Here's how I made it! 
 I cut the journal out of matboard and sponged the binding sides and all edges with Ranger Distress Salty Ocean.
I used blue ink to coordinate with the map pieces (from a National Geographic Magazine) that I cut to fit the cover pieces.  I sponged the edges of the map pieces with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink.
Then I adhered the panels to the cover.
I made 4 signatures of 4 pages each -  each page is 7" x 5" and folded in half (giving a whopping 64 pages to the journal!) cut from Wendy Vecchi Newsprint paper and Paper Stash/Correspondence by Tim Holtz.  I lined up the folds in the pages with the holes in the cover, marked where the holes were and punched through the pages.  I used Idea-ology black jute string (4 pieces of 17" each) to bind each signature to the cover, tying the knots on the outside of the journal.
Here are photos of some of the pages I made.
Pockets for pressed flowers or photos
 Here is the center of the first signature where you can see the jute binding it to the cover.
 More pockets
 cards for notes
I used tags cut from Eileen's new Credit Card Sleeve and Tags die on some of the pages where I had envelopes or pockets so they could be found easily.  I looped a piece of twine through the holes on the tags.  Two of the tags are on the top of the pages, two are on the sides.



 Glassine envelope for small treasures

Even with bits sticking out past the pages, you can still cleanly close the journal and nothing falls out!
The wrapped cover design gives lots of room for expansion as things are added to the pages.
I brushed Gel Medium over the map pieces to give the cover some protection from all the handling it would get while traveling!
Now I just need to go somewhere!!
I hope you have enjoyed seeing my Travel Journal -  I would also like to remind you to check out our April Challenge - Rusty and Crusty
You have until May 3rd to link up your project! 

Friday 13 April 2018

Treasure Winners

Wow what an amazing array of incredible projects you entered for our Birthday Treasure challenge. We have all been extremely challenged ourselves in trying to wheedle down a very long suggestion list to just three people to receive pinworthy mentions and badges. So without further ado lets see who ended up top of the list. These are listed in order of entry not in preference.

#26 Lys from Impression Scrap



#30 Evelyn from Evelyn´s bunte welt - Stempeln und mehr





Congratulations ladies on being chosen as our Top 3 Pinworthy mentions for our Birthday Treasure Challenge. Your fabulous projects will be pinned to our Vintage Journey Pinterest Board.
Thank you for taking the time to share your talents and creativity in our challenges, we hope everyone who entered will join us again for our current theme and challenge hosted by the lovely Autumn which is called 'Rusty and Crusty'. You can see the details and fabulous inspiration from the Creative Guides - here.


We also threw open the challenge for you to join our Tag Friday link up party and nine fabulous tags appeared. This is the first time we've done this so we really appreciate those of you who came over to support. Tag Fridays seem to happen about four times a year and the next one will be in June so keep your eyes peeled for that one as you never know you could be spotlighted in the following winners post. Today though we are going to showcase this set of gorgeous tags entered by 


Congratulations on your Pinworthy Mention Preeti, your beautiful tags will also be pinned to our AVJ Pinterest Board.


And last but certainly not least, we have our three January Pinworthies joining us today to share their wonderful projects that they made for our current Rusty and Crusty challenge.  Please join us in welcoming Gina of Daydream Believer, Iris of Whimsytouches and Nate of The Scrap of Nate!



Hello everyone :)  My name is Gina, and I am thrilled to be invited to join the wonderfully creative crew at A Vintage Journey for this challenge.

I am a 50+ housewife who spends more time making a mess than cleaning up.  I have/will have a go at just about anything artsy and crafty, including fabric craft such as doll making and quilting.  In fact I resisted making a doll for this challenge...a "Rusty Crusty" clown doll sounded more suitable for Halloween lol 

Instead I turned to Mixed Media and created this Rusty Autumnal Panel.


I started with a dark background and a tree mask...


layers of acrylic paint and crackle glaze gave it a wonderfully textured surface.


I have posted a step by step on my own blog Daydream Believer if you would like to see more :D



Hello makers! I am so excited to be a Guest Creative Guide at Vintage Journey and share my collage piece. A little about me; I live in the Washington DC metro area and I am an Arts and Crafts Enthusiast. I have never met an art medium I did not like. I enjoy creating with clay, acrylic paint, inks, metallic waxes, texture medium, paper, and metal. I like sculpting, creating assemblages, collaging, altering bottles, and making jewelry. My style ranges from modern, vintage to Steampunk/Industrial.




I found this month's Rusty theme fun. It's always neat to create special effects on alternative surfaces, like metal effect on paper. For my project I wanted to go minimalist and made a sort of abstract vintage collage piece. I did not want to alter the ephemera, I just love everything original about it and wanted to preserve it, so I decided to collage it with rusty paper and metal embellishments. 

I used original court warrants/complaints papers from the 1920s. I got a bag full of these paper at an antique store a while back. I read them all; it was like reading the police blotter report on the town's folks, ooh! salacious. Why would people steal railroad spikes? Lol! Sorry, back to the project.

I glued the papers to an 8 x 8 inch canvas. I rusted pieces of chipboard, corrugated cardboard, meal embellishments using Modern Masters Iron paint and Patina oxidation process.

I glued the ephemera with Uhu glue stick, I like it because it's dry paste like nature will not lift the ink. For the rusty bits, I used wet glue because they are heavier. I darkened the edges of the canvas with Vintage Sepia Versafine ink.

I sealed the entire piece with Workable Fixative. It protects the rust and inks from rubbing off and won't alter your pieces. Quick tip, if you are going to paint over the collaged papers, use a gel medium instead. Painting over paper that's been adhered with a glue stick will greatly wrinkle the paper and possibly come off. I hope you like my project and happy rusting.



*** I have translated Nates original post from French to English with the help of on-line translators and my very poor high school French, hope that I have done it correctly Nate! ***

Bonjour à toutes, merci à vous merveilleuses équipe de A Vintage Journey de me recevoir une fois de plus a participer en tant qu' invitée pour ce défi d'avril .

Hello everyone, thank you to the you fine ladies of A Vintage Journey for asking me once again to participate as a guest for this April challenge.


Je suis NATE , j'aime scraper tout ce que je peux créer, je n'ai pas vraiment de styles déterminé une tendance pour le steampunk serait dominante.

I am NATE, I like scraping all that I can create, I really have no determined styles but a tendency to steampunk would be dominant.


Mon envie du moment pour le défi d'avril pour A Vintage Journey, mettre de la rouille! J'ai habillée ce vieux pinceau qui m'a bien servi j'ai décidée de lui donner une deuxième vie.

My desire at the moment for the April A Vintage Journey challenge is to apply some rust! I dressed this old brush which has served me well and decided to give it a second life.


J'ai commencée par coupé du carton qui me servira de support, j'ai passée du gesso puis de la pâte à structure pour le titre mémorie time , ensuite je me suis servie de poudre a embosser et de peinture décoArt pour avoir l'effet rouillé sur mes embellissements et sur le carton puis quelques tampons montres à la stazon .

I began by cutting cardboard which served as the support, then applied gesso and texture paste through a stencil for the title 'memorie time', then used embossing powder and DecoArt paint for the rusty effects on my embellishments and on the cardboard and then stamped some watches with Stazon.


Quelques détails.

Some details.



Un post détaillé est visible sur mon blog NATE , merci à vous.

A detailed post is visible on my NATE blog, thanks to you.


Fabulous projects one and all, thank you so much for sharing them with us.  Hope that all of you have also been inspired to join our Rusty And Crusty challenge, we can't wait to see what you create.

Brenda, Deb and the rest of the Creative Guides