Tag Friday comes round again

It's another Tag Friday and we hope you enjoy perusing the wonderful collection of tags on display. We love it when a fifth Friday comes round on the calendar - time to get messy designing and making to our hearts content without having to think about challenge themes etc.
Let's take a look at who has provided a sample this month and the gorgeous designs and effects they have created.

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Jennie

Sitting on my desk were some small shells, seaglass and pieces of driftwood picked up from the beaches whilst I was on holiday in Corsica in May and so I decided to use them to make a "Memories of Corsica" tag. There are more details on my blog if you would like to see more.

Autumn

I experimented with my Prima Patina pastes this month and made a very textural tag.  Check out the details on my blog, SewPaperPaint.

S@ndy

For this Tag Friday I couldn't resist using these two unfinished tags that I found in my stash.

I used some great cogs from my collection and my favorite of all time paper, Steampunk Debutante from Graphic 45.  To see more details please join me over at my blog by clicking here.

Astrid

I am heavily into junk style journalling at the moment and wanted to create a tag that could easily be incorporated into my journal. If you want to see how it came together and what it looks like in my journal, just come and visit me on my blog

Sara Emily

With United States of America celebrating 4th of July next week, I chose to go patriotic. See how I rescued my 3D embossed background from the trash bin to use as my background at my blog, sarascloset.

Alison

This pair of tags was made a while back when I was demonstrating to a friend how to use foil sheets. So there's a glimmer of gleaming foil amidst the dark earthy shadows here.  It's tough to get a picture which captures all the elements at once, so do come over to Words and Pictures to see a properly shiny angle!


Brenda

There are times when we want to use up parts of projects that didn't get finished and this was one of those occasions but I also did some internet research to get an image I wanted and a printable for my main embellishment. All the details and the freebie printable can be found at Bumblebees and Butterflies.

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Well I hope you enjoy a Tag Friday post to look at and read as much as we love making our tags. We love to read your comments both here and on our blogs so we look forward to your visit.

There is still a chance to enter our current challenge 'Stencil It' hosted by the lovely Astrid . If you haven't already, do pop over to take a look at more wonderful inspiration from the creative guides and also take a peek at the fantastic entries we have.

I hope you are having a fabulous month of June and either enjoying the heat wave we have been having in the UK or good weather elsewhere in the world.

hugs Brenda and the Creative Guides team. xxx

Creative Card Making with Alison

Hello all!  I'm here to share a card with you, as part of the new timetable here at A Vintage Journey.  Regulars at Words and Pictures will know I really don't do cards.  There have been maybe five of them in the whole six years of Words and Pictures' existence.  (By the way, come and celebrate with my 6th Birthday Blog Candy if you'd like to.)  So this was a proper challenge as far as I was concerned, but by keeping it very simple I managed to get there.

As luck would have it, I needed a card to act as a voucher for my brother's birthday back in April - one that would link to the old-fashioned lightbulbs he likes, and let him know he could go shopping for some.

I really don't like making cards, but I had a lightbulb moment and decided to employ one of the many inky Oxidey background tags which I have lying around.  The tag itself was a combination of inks and Oxides, smooshed in the wrinkle-free distress technique.  I think there's some watery Picket Fence Distress Spray in there too.

I stamped Tim Holtz's wonderful vintage lightbulbs from the Inventor 2 plate in Jet Black Archival and clear-embossed them.

I love to emboss a stamped image.  Not only do you get the lovely shimmer in the light (perfect for a lightbulb)...

... but you also get a touch of texture and dimension.  I inked around the edges for a nice vintage look.

I had a pack of kraft cards with envelopes.  Pre-folded cards always seem like they might get me moving on the card front, so I pick them up when I see them on offer, but mostly the packets just sit around.  (And now that I've discovered I can make books with them, I'm guessing there won't be any left for card-making!)  But for this occasion they were the perfect solution.  I snipped the top off my tag and re-inked the new edge.  Minus the tag hole, the standard #8 tag fitted perfectly onto the 6x6 card.

I used my little Hero Arts alphabet to stamp the text, and cut it out and inked it before glueing it in place.  And of course there's plenty of white spatter... beams of light darting around the space.

It's not my best piece of artwork ever, but it did the job, and with a pre-inky tag it was also so quick to make.  And given that I was able to pretend it wasn't really a card but just an altered tag, it was even a pretty painless process!

I hope this might inspire the non-card-makers amongst you to start adapting your tags, and if you add in some stencilling you can come and join in with Astrid's brilliant Stencil It challenge this month too.  We hope to see you there!

Alison xx

Fun with File Folders

Hello lovely visitors, - it's the third Friday of the month and that means a tutorial post from this month's challenge host, and that happens to be me - Astrid

As this month is all about using stencils, here is a tutorial of how to create a file folder booklet with pockets where you can store tags or cards using different stencil techniques.

 I created this folder for the challenge and I shall now show you how you could make one yourself.

The file folder I used for this project was a Kraft coloured folder in Foolscap size, but any size file folder will do.
But before I go into the details, for some reason these folders are hard to come by in the UK, while in the US or Australia any stationery shop will have them, but I found one source HERE, just in case you are interested.

You can of course decide what height you would like your folder to be, and also how deep you would like the pockets. You will also need to decide whether you want the tab to be at the top or at the bottom, or indeed not have a tab at all, in which case you would simply trim it off.
 For my folder I decided to have the tab at the top, so I trimmed 2" (5 cm) off the bottom,  and then folded the bottom up to create pockets about 3" (7.5 cm) deep

Having it this size means the space is just right to fit size 8 tags in the bottom pockets, and a size 10 tag in a top loading pocket. More about that in a moment.

Open your folder up and create a W shape by utilising the central folder fold and then folding each side up towards the centre as you can hopefully see from the photo, using a bone folder to get nice sharp creases.

Time to decorate your folder in whatever way you want:

 I decided to use designer paper and started decorating the front of the folder, by cutting a piece of my chosen paper (Stamperia Blues collection), about 1/4 " smaller than the folder front.

The paper I used  had a white kind of baroque pattern on it already, so I chose a stencil that would match that and stencilled with texture paste and while that was still wet, sprinkled some of Seth Apter's Baked Textures in Rust into it and then dried with my heat-gun to give it the rusty effect.

Next I added some strips of washi tape and did some background stamping. 

A few other embellishments and flowers finished it all off.

Time to decorate the inside panels, obviously as the pockets will fold up, you need to make sure to put your papers on the correct side. I also cut some notches with a circle punch to make it easier to get the tags in and out.

The pockets are decorated with slightly different stencil techniques using word stencils. For these two I used sand paste,giving it a slightly grungy texture, (hard to see on the photos). I then decorated further with background stamping, some lace and fussy cut elements.

For these two pockets I used Distress Crayons, scribbling over the top of the stencil and then rubbing it in with my fingers. This gives a slightly raised effect.

Alright, time to create the booklet. First glue the pockets toward the base of the booklet by either using a thin strip of wet glue or very narrow double sided tape.  Next, if you want a top pocket, glue panel two and three together in an L shape, so don't glue the top together. If you don't want a pocket, just glue these two panels together completely and your booklet is done. I hope the photos below explain this step:

Now you could easily continue and add several more pages to your book and make a mini or journal, but I decided to just keep it like this.

Now I had planned to tell you more about the tags I made too, but this tutorial has become so long already, that I will do a more in depth tutorial for the tags soon on my own blog, so if you are interested, - stay tuned.

Here are just photos of 3 of the 5 tags I made using different stencil techniques:

Using sprays for stencilling and a dry embossed background.

Using white paint, again against a dry embossed background.

And this #10 tag using crackle paste

Well, that's it for now. Thank you for your visit today, and don't forget there is still almost a week to join in our current challenge. Happy creating!

Words and Music Pinworthy Picks

Hello all!  Alison here to share our Pinworthy choices with you from last month's Words and Music challenge.  Thank you so much to everybody who joined in.   As always, it was fantastic to see what you were inspired to create.  

There were so many lovely entries, but the chosen Pinworthies also have a really strong musical connection to the songs they were inspired by.  So, without further ado, let me show you what caught the eye of the Creative Guides this time around.  In no particular order...

#3 froebelsternchen

Look at the lovely delicate layers in this page spread Susi created, inspired by the song Lavender's Blue.  The manuscript music, stitching detail and real flowers all add to the magic.


#16 Craftyfield

Christine found the perfect image to illustrate her chosen song, Reflections.  Doesn't she look as though she's gazing into a mirror?  And surrounded by music as she gazes.


#17 PaperWishes

Amanda's wonderful model boat captures the romance and perfect dreamy ocean blues of Enya's Caribbean Blue... Sail away, sail away indeed!

Congratulations to all three of you.   Your Pinworthy badges will be on their way to you shortly.

Thank you again to all our fabulous participants in May.  We hope you'll come along and join in with our Stencil It! challenge this month too.  Thanks for stopping by today, and we hope to see you again on this Vintage Journey somewhere down the road.

Alison and the Creative Guides xx

June Challenge - Stencil It

Hello all and welcome to our latest challenge! This is Astrid, your host this month and this time we would like you to pull out your stencils . Here is a full description of our challenge theme:

Create a project using at least one stencil, in a style that fits our challenge focus - vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk. There are so many possibilities to be creative with stencils on your cards, journals, layouts, ATCs or 3D projects. Stencils offer endless possibilities, be creative and have fun!

Well, I hope you will love what the Creative Guides have made for you and feel inspired to play along! So here goes:

Astrid

I altered a file folder and made it into a booklet that has pockets for tags. Each tag shows a different stencil technique and if you want to see more please come and visit my blog

Nikki

For this challenge I used lots of stencils on greyboard shapes to create a patchwork effect for my framed heart. As always lots more details over on my blog today.

Julia

I decided to make a card for Astrid's Challenge. I used 3 stencils - one sponged with Distress Ink and two rubbed with VersaMark and then one embossed with Ancient Amber and one embossed with Vintage Beeswax. My straight-on photo does not show the wonderful shiny gold and water drop look of the embossing powders - so please come to my blog post here to see the full effect!

Jennie

For Astrid's lovely challenge I decided to work on a larger than usual (well to me!) canvas panel as I wanted to use quite a few larger stencils and incorporate this wonderful text embellishment which has been waiting for the right project for a long time. Things didn't go quite to plan as you can see on my blog! but I liked the final outcome.

Amanda

With our last challenge 'words and music' still on my mind and having had U2 playing on a loop ever since, my project for this challenge was highly influenced by both factors. As you are now well aware I am a big U2 fan and I was super happy to have recently purchased a stencil of Bono which I have used to create a mixed media art panel for Astrid's 'Stencil It' challenge.
You are welcome to stop by my blog for more details . 

Sara Emily

Wow! It's been so long since I've played along with a challenge! But I was excited that there was room for one more Creative Guide to play along with Astrid's Stencil It challenge. If you swing by my blog, you'll see my card started out quite differently than it appears. I had a lot of fun using mostly someone else's stash, but adding my own twist.

Brenda

I'm definitely in summer mode and used several stencils to create the textured background for this 6x6 canvas. More details can be found at Bumblebees and Butterflies

Annie

I just had to play along with Astrid's fabulous challenge theme and had great fun stencilling and randomly stamping some new items in my crafty stash. For more details pop over to my blog HERE.

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Well, that's it for now, - I am always amazed at how different artists interpret a given theme, and I can't wait to see what you may create!

Thank you for visiting today and have a wonderful and creative month of June!!

Astrid and all Creative Guides.

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