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 31 August 2018

Tag Friday Special

Hi Everyone the team are back with a Tag Friday line-up of gorgeous tags for your perusal. There's no challenge, no theme, only the expectations that we will keep within our genre guidelines and that we have a play session to see what we come up with. We also would love to see what you have been creating in September
Here are our contributions for today.



Tag Friday here at A Vintage Journey is a great opportunity to experiment and for a while I have wanted to try paper napkin decoupage on thick canvas. And here is the result! If you would like to find out more then do please join me over at Live The Dream.




I know that it's still August but I've been working on Christmas designs for over a month now and had lots of Christmasy bits and bobs on my desk so decided to make this Winter Wonder tag (plus another bonus Snow Time tag!) for Tag Friday. No step out photos this time but I do have some closeups and descriptions of my process on my blog, hope you can pop by for the details!




I've been enjoying all the beautiful flowers in my garden this summer - so my tag is a reflection of this. I used some long neglected dies (as in never used since purchased!) as well as one of our Alison's lovely flower quote stamps! Please pop over to my blog if you'd like to see just how my garden grew!!




I had a play with the new Tim Holtz 3D Texture Fades and created this masculine tag. Join me at SewPaperPaint for the details.




The tag I created is more than just a tag, it's part of a booklet which can hold a gift card.
If you want to see how it came together, please come and visit me HERE




I seem to be in a calm and gentle crafting mood since returning from the blood-soaked show I've been working on! Come over to Words and Pictures to see all the details of this jumbo tag - with real lavender for extra calm...



I am delighted to be joining in with Tag Friday this month with my mixed media tag. I had such fun playing with paints, inks, stamps and stencils and can't wait to make some more. For more details hop over to my blog HERE




I have boxes of scraps on my shelves and it's times like these I like to grab some of them to put a collage together. Most of the sraps are painty leftovers but there's also a bit of patterned paper and dictionary paper added to the mix. To see more photos please pop over to Bumblebees and Butterflies if you have a moment to spare.

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We hope you've enjoyed that wander through the enchanting line-up and feel inspired by something you have seen to go and create a tag to link up with ours here, we love seeing what you make. There isn't a prize and we're not promising any comments but the Host of this month's challenge (Amanda) will choose one of those submitted as a Pinworthy and it will be pinned on our Pinterest Board and showcased in next month's Winner's post. To enter link one or as many tags as you want that have been made and blogged in this month (ie the 1st to the 31st August). The linky will close midnight on the 6th September which is when the new challenge begins so you have one week to get your entries in but remember they can come from any August 2018 blog date. Have fun.

See you next Friday with the next new challenge.


hugs Brenda and the Creative Guides. xxx





Friday 24 August 2018

Creative Card Making with Jennie

Hello and welcome to more Creative Card Making here at A Vintage Journey.


Jennie here with you today sharing a short tutorial for a reasonably simple card but which looks as though I have done loads of mixed media work! I am all in for a bit of cheating !!!


I have had these journalling notecards in my stash for years. They are really lovely quality cardstock but I always found the patterns a bit too fussy for what I wanted. However, I now realise that they make a good base for mixed media product and the larger ones are just perfect for a 5" x7" card.


Having chosen my journalling card I lay it down and start putting bits and pieces in place which correspond with the colours of the background and with an idea of a design. I find it easier to do this at this stage rather than later when paints and products are drying.


Then I added some texture paste through a layering stencil.


I love how when this dries it really looks as though it is part of the background "mixed media" cardstock underneath.


The MDF key was dabbed with some Picket Fence Distress Paint. I only give one coat as I prefer the more worn vintage look of the MDF showing through.


I roughed up the edges of the journalling card and cut a base card from craft and a cream mat.


I always like to sew the journalling card to the mat before sticking it to the card. The machine presses down the roughed up edges so remember to go back in with a fingernail and rough it up again!


And then I stuck everything down with a sentiment and some pearl buttons.




Actually quite a simple card which was made whilst glue and paints were drying on another project!

I hope this might inspire you all to go back into  your stash and look for some of those journalling cards or paperstock which you might find have a whole new lease of life.

As alway thank you for joining me today and happy crafting!

Jennie x


Friday 17 August 2018

Shades of Blue Resist Canvas Tutorial

HI Everyone and Welcome

Amanda (ink-a-pink) here to share a short tutorial for my 'Shades of Blue' mixed media canvas that I created for our current 'How can you Resist' Challenge. My original post can be seen here. 
 I will be focusing mainly on the 'resist' products and technique.


The canvas itself is a 5x7 inch board canvas.
Adhere strips of card to the canvas.
Apply 'resist' products to the canvas


Scrape white gesso onto the canvas randomly using a spatula.
Rub remnant rubs onto the canvas
Spray the canvas with Tim Holtz distress resist spray


With the gesso and distress resist spray being similar in colour to the canvas they are quite hard to see once applied


but if you hold the canvas in certain lights you should be able to see them a little better


Apply inks using the wrinkle free distress technique 
(I used mermaid lagoon and blueprint sketch Distress Oxides)


The colours may look strong at first but they will lighten at the next stage


Take an 'almost dry' baby wipe or lightly dampened cloth and rub gently over the canvas.
As you rub you will see that where ever you applied the resist products those areas will have 'resisted' the ink leaving larger areas of white where you applied the white gesso


leaving the remnant rubs as clear and black as when you first rubbed them on


and leaving some lovely speckles of white where you sprayed the Distress Resist spray.


If you wish to add more detail you can apply texture paste through  a stencil - I used Tim Holtz Dot fade layering stencil 


 stamp using Black Archival ink- I used a couple from my stash (brand unknown)


and add a few paint splatters


Decide on your focal feature, create and adhere in place.
As I mentioned in my blogpost my focal feature is the sum of a few parts
 a Seth Apter woodchip altered with inks and gesso, 
a square of ink resisted card,
 a crackle paint die cut 
and 
a glossy watercoloured butterfly.


I hope you have enjoyed your time with me today - thank you for stopping by.
If you would like to join us in our 'How Can You Resist' Challenge head over to the launch post where you will find all the details along with a fabulous gallery of inspiring projects from some of the Creative Guides.
We are really looking forward to seeing your entries.
Hope you all have a lovely weekend
Happy Crafting

Amanda
x

Friday 10 August 2018

Get Sentimental Pinworthies

Hello!  Nikki here to share our Pinworthy choices with you from our challenge last month where we asked you to 'Get Sentimental'.  Thank you to everyone for the wonderful, diverse creations which made our job of picking just three very difficult.

It was wonderful to see how everyone used their 'sentiments' in such creative ways. The three selected pinworthies really matched their artwork to their words. In no particular order this months pinworthies are:

#11 Preeti 
A stunning journal page full of depth.

#12 Jo
A wonderful celebration of creativity and an event Jo attended.

#22 Amanda
A fabulously textured, layered triptych.

Congratulations to you all, your Pinworthy badges will be on their way to you shortly and your creations will be pinned to our Pinworthies board on Pinterest.

This month's challenge 'How can you resist' started last Friday and we look forward to seeing more creativity.

Nikki and the Creative Guides xx

Friday 3 August 2018

'How can you Resist?'

Hello Everyone

Amanda (ink-a-pink) here to welcome and introduce you to our new challenge here at A Vintage Journey. The chosen theme this time is 

How Can You Resist? 
There are many different products in mixed media that you can use to do a resist technique - gesso, distress glaze, wax, embossing powder, etc. We would like you to use at least one resist technique on your vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk project.

Lets take a look at the 'resist' projects some of our talented Creative Guides have created. Be sure to click on the links each Guide has provided to find out more details about the creativity behind each project. 

Amanda



For this challenge I have created a mixed media canvas in 'shades of blue' using 3 different products for the 'resist' techniques- two old favourites and one definite new favourite! Interested to know more?  Then please hop on over to my ink-a-pink. 


Brenda



A shabby mixed media board from me which came about when I was asked to take a workshop with some lovely ladies at a local church group. They all made their own version in 2 hours (with a little prepping from me to help out). I just wish I had been able to take photos of their finished pieces.
To see more you are welcome to visit Bumblebees and Butterflies 


Nikki

Tim Holtz 3D Texture Fades and Distress Oxides

For the Resist Challenge I decided to experiment with the new Tim Holtz 3D Texture Fades and Versamark. Do hop over to Addicted to Art for all the details.


Deb


I explored several resist techniques on my 'Follow Your Heart' mixed media canvas for Amanda's wonderful challenge this month, including the use of embossing powder, acrylic paint and gesso to resist distress inks and stains. Pop by my blog for a step by step tutorial and hope you won't be able to resist joining in our challenge this month!


Autumn



For Amanda's wonderful theme, I made a stencil from a Tim Holtz die cut and created a 'resist' for my Paper Artsy Infusions. I mixed in some tissue paper stamping to complete these mixed media pages in my little handmade journal. Get all the details at SewPaperPaint.com


It's just a little mini at 3"x 3" but it's amazing how many different resist techniques one can find space for! If you would like to see how many different techniques I managed to achieve for Amanda's wonderful challenge, then do hop on over and join me at Live the Dream.


Alison



I've gone for a gesso resist to create the background for this pair of grungy tags. Do come over to Words and Pictures to check out all the details


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I'm sure you will agree our Creative Guides have shared some fabulous inspirational projects showing us 'how they resist.' 
Now its over to you to show us 'How you Can Resist!' 
We hope you will join us in this challenge as we are looking forward to seeing what you create.

At the end of the challenge the Creative Guides will choose 3 Pinworthy winners who are each awarded a Pinworthy badge for their blog and their winning projects are pinned to our pinterest board. 
The challenge begins today and as there are 5 weeks in August remains open for entries until the 6th Sept 2018. 

Happy Crafting Everyone  
Amanda
x