Creative card making with Astrid

Hello lovely visitors, it's Astrid here and today it is my turn to make a card and have a quick tutorial here on the blog, so, let's get to it....

Here first of all, is my finished card. I pulled out some of my new and old Tim Holtz stash and will give you  a quick step out below:

I started by cutting a piece of 4 x 7 card and brayered some Antique Linen, Stormy Sky and Frayed Burlap  Distress paint all over it, spritzing with water until I was happy with the effect.

Next I took the text stamp of the Entomology stamp set to add further interest to the background.

Then I cut a piece of design paper from the Memoranda paper stash to 2.5 by 5.5"  and blended some watered down gesso over it, again using my brayer.

While the paper was still slightly damp I ran part of it through the botanical 3D embossing folder and then inked the raised bits with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink

For the focal part of the card I decided to play with my new Alcohol Lift ink. I created a background with different colours of Alcohol Ink on Yupo paper (mostly Cranberry and Black) and then inked up one of the stamps from the Lady Rose stamp set with the Lift Ink. On the right you can see what happened after I first dabbed with a piece of kitchen roll and then polished it to finish. The lifted alcohol ink on the stamp, was then stamped onto a piece of white card stock on the left, and that was the piece I decided to use.
 Below you can see how I finished it all off:

I tore around the edges of the stamped image and coloured it with brush markers.

I also added some strips of design tape, stamped around the background layer with one of the stamps from the Ornate Trims stamp set, wrapped some twine between the layers and added a sentiment.

Some stitching and mounting on a Kraft Card base finished it all off.

Well, that's it from me for today. Thank you for visiting and remember there is still time to play in our current challenge!

Have a great weekend

Astrid

Tando Mini Book Tutorial

Hi everyone, Nikki, from Addicted to Art, here today to share our mid challenge project tutoral post. This month's challenge is all about using Sentiments on our projects and for the challenge I shared this large canvas. (You can see the post here.)

Today I am sharing the same process but on a much smaller scale - this time to decorate 2 mini books - each 6 x 6 cm. These pre cut greyboard books are available from Tando Creative Ltd (here).

The greyboard base consists of two 6cm square pieces of greyboard and one 6 x 1.5cm for the spine. 

Here I have them laid out and painted:

To create my cover, which also joins the spine to the 2 outer covers I cut some kraft card - adding 8mm for the spaces between the spine and the covers. So my card is 6+6+1.5+0.8 = 14.3cm by 6 cm and I score at 6cm from each end. 

Now the fun bit! This is the same process I used on the canvas - just on a larger scale. Firstly randomly adhere scraps of paper / thin card before adding a little more texture through a stencil with texture paste.

Once dry I reached for my paints - selecting Dina Wakley Media Fluid Acrylics for their vibrancy. I did each book slightly difference to give a subtly different end result.

For one I began with white paint and covered quite a bit of it - but not all and for the other - black paint.

I then built up colours - working in patches of colour - drying in between. Mostly I used my finger, but used a brush to ensure I reached the crevices of the texture paste.

A bit of pink!

Blue and turquoise....

Green....

You can see how I left patches of the black showing. With the black base the pink is less vibrant but the green pops a little more.

Once dry, I dry brushed over the entire surface with white chalk paint...

On this small project I added this fairly evenly all over - but on the canvas I highlighted the textured areas more with my dry brushing.

Finally I adhered these covers to the pre painted greyboard - sorry forgot the photos at this point. I lightly sand the edges so that the covers sort of merge with the greyboard base and then added gold paint around the edge with my finger.

For each book I selected some Dina Wakley Collage words and adhered with matt medium. On the canvas I stamped (in archival) my words on tissue paper before adding them.

A few close ups to finish!

Thanks for getting this far! Don't forget our Get Sentimental challenge runs until the 2nd August and we would love to see you designs.

Nikki

xxx

Stencil It challenge Pinworthy picks

Hello lovely friends of A Vintage Journey. Today is the day we announce who are our three pin worthy picks for the June Stencil It challenge. But before I do anything else let me say a huge big thank you to all of you who added your truly wonderful creations. The creative guides always so enjoy to see where your creativity has lead you and like usual, it was not an easy choice to only pick 3 winners!!

But after much deliberation these are our choices for the month of June, in no particular order:

# 23 Preeti

Preety used one stencil, but she used it so creatively for these two amazing cards built up out of multiple layers, they became real eye catchers.

#20 Macarena

Macarena created this incredible canvas with amazing textures, using a stencil with texture paste as the base layer of all these wonderful grungy layers.

#47 Felix the Crafty Cat

Angela used Brushos and water through her stencil to create a truly masterful masterboard as the base layer for this wonderful summery card.

Each of these projects used stencils so creatively! Thank you ladies, your wonderful projects will be added to our special board on Pinterest.

Well, that's it for today. A heartfelt thanks to all those of you who support our challenges and share your creativity and talents with us. Don't forget, there is still plenty of time to join our Get Sentimental challenge this month. We can't wait to see what you create.

Thank you all

Astrid and the Creative Guides.

July Challenge - Get Sentimental

Welcome fellow travellers to our July challenge. Nikki here from Addicted to Art to host this month's challenge with the theme of 'Get Sentimental'. 

Let's see lots of sentiments on your project, whether they be words, poems or quotes. Just remember to create your project in our preferred styles of vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

We have some wonderful inspiration from the design team to get those creatives juices flowing! There are links below to our own blogs where you can find more details on our projects.

Nikki

For this challenge I painted a 10'' x 8'' canvas with Dina Wakley paints and used Tim Holtz Theories stamp set to add lots of words. For more details on how this came together do head over to Addicted to Art.

Julia

For Nikki's Sentimental challenge, I cut up a stamped quote and some Remnant Rubs for the sentiments which I added to my Brusho stenciled panel.  I adhered the panel to a die cut frame so it stands up for display!

To see how I created my Get Sentimental project, please come visit my blog here.

Astrid

I decided to create a journal specially for quotes, sentiments and different techniques for Nikki's wonderful theme. If you want to see more of the cover, a super easy binding technique and some of the pages, come and visit me.

Alison

I've gone back in time to the fresh spring breezes for my pair of panels, using quotes from my own EAB06 Spring Edition stamps by PaperArtsy.  These were inspired by the lovely Raquel, a.k.a. Scrapcosy, as well as using some of her word stencils to add to the sentiment theme.  Do come and visit me at Words and Pictures to find out more.

Brenda

I fancied a change of genre so I've gone to what I call a journalling style for my contribution this week. Using vintage book papers and scraps of inked, stamped and embossed papers and some stamping and stenciling I have created a journal panel or card topper. If you have a moment  you will find more details over at Bumblebees and Butterflies.

Amanda

I have made a piece of art on the round for Nikki's challenge with admittedly only one quote but that one quote is made up of quite a few words that give pause for thought! They are what guided my creativity! You are welcome to stop by my blog for more details 

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Hopefully that has sparked an idea or two. We look forward to seeing how you interpret the theme and see everyone's fabulous creations. Each month we are stunned at the creations we see! We highlight our selected 3 Pinworthies at the end of each challenge which are featured in a post next month, receive a badge of honour and are pinned to our Pinterest boards.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere summer is upon us when crafting sometimes takes a backseat in favour of holidays and sunshine. Whatever your are up to and wherever you are we wish you a lovely July and hope there is time for some crafting!

Nikki and the Creative Guides xx

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