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 March 2020

Creative card Making with Barbara

Hi everyone! It's Barbara ( Yayascrap & more) here and this is my first Creative Cardmaking Post!
In this difficult moment for each of us, I wanted to create a card that will make all united in the same effort, with the hope or better with the certainty of being able to slowly resolve the situation with our own sacrifices.
I chose two quotes to remind us of both our task and why we absolutely have to combine all our efforts!
Stay home because we have just one life!
Here are the close-ups and the tutorial.



Here's the tutorial
When I start a project the first thing I do is choose the colors I want to work with. This time my intention was to create a dark sky but with some gashes of light blue. Alcohol inks are perfect because they can create incredible effects. I chose the colors you can see in the photo and then I used the new product from the Alloy range in the Foundry color.
This is an amazing color. When I tried it I couldn't believe my eyes! The moment the drops come out of the bottle they look golden, then as they move the magic happens, together with the gold there is the silver. It's incredible!
I started with a few drops of various shades of blue together with a few drops of Alcohol Ink Blending solution on the Yupo Translucent paper. You have to move the sheet slowly because if you do it too fast the drops mix and you will no longer have those well-defined color effects but a uniform and a little boring coloring. If you move slowly instead you will be able to direct the drops. When you have obtained the effect you can dry from a distance with Heat Tool. At this point, drop a few drops of Alloy Foundry at random and immediately above them a tiny droplet of Blending solution.
You will see the golden color expanding and dividing creating lines similar to those of marble.
At the same time as these golden lines are created, the silver color appears on the surface. It is truly stunning! I really fell in love with these new Alcohol inks!
The background of the card is ready. The Yupo Paper Translucent is perfect for working with Alcohol Inks but it is a little transparent and if you have to use them on dark cardstock as I did, I recommend you to glue it on a white sheet cut in the same size using the roller to make exit any air bubbles.
At this point with the metal cardstock by Tim Holtz, I cut the urban landscape in two colors and I used an old embossing folder to give dimension.
 With the same metallic cardstocks and the Tim Holtz Alpha Numeric Tiny Type Upper Thinlits die I cut the letters to compose the phrase #Stay Home.
 At the base of the landscape, I inserted a strip cut with the 3D Star Trim die.
To complete the card I used a cutout that I had left from the colored base with the Alcohol Inks and I cut some hearts that I glued on the houses.
As a final detail I used the color Alloy Foundry to highlight the stars and added the "Just One Life" sentiment.
The phrase Just One Life is part of a set of Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous stamps that will surely become a must-have because it really contains a huge number of sentences!
To stamp it I used Versamark and Platinum embossing powder. I chose the colors of the layers of the card and I finished the job by gluing them.
I hope you enjoyed reading the tutorial and I hope this card will help us understand that at this moment we must have a common goal and that there no exist boundaries like never before. If you want you can find the whole list of materials that I used on my Blog Yayascrap & more!
I also remind you that you still have a whole week to participate in our monthly Challenge: Celebration Time Come On!
Stay home!
Thanks for stopping by, see you soon!
Barbara




Friday 20 March 2020

Shabby Vintage Shadow Box Tutorial

Brenda here with another project for you during our 6th Birthday celebrations using more of the shabby hearts I made sometime ago for my daughter's wedding.


Process Steps
I started with the background and used a 23x23cm piece of watercolour paper and my trusty DecoArt paints and mediums.

1. Take the piece of watercolour paper, raw umber and titan buff media acrylics with a brayer to create the first layers. 


2. Dip, drip and dry with burnt sienna.


3. Use the Tim Holtz ledger script stamp and coffee archival ink to add some text stamping.


4. Take the brayer again and titanium white and roll over to lighten the background a bit.


5. Next use a stencil brush, more titanium white and a harlequin stencil to randomly add another layer. (Note the  bottom left is the part to notice as I nearly forgot to photograph this step and had started the dirty glaze in the top right corner).


6. Paint a wash or glaze of colour all over using soft touch varnish, paynes grey, burnt umber and titanium white mixed with a little water. Then stamp more text using white chalky finish paint.


7. Take the inner frame that comes with the shadow box and cut it down to 19cm square. Brayer over the brown and white paints again and stamp some text using a beige chalky finish paint to echo the background. Distress the edges with brown distress ink.


8.  I found a rusty key and tied it to one of the hearts with rusty wire.


9. Find some words or a quote.


10. Start to place everything where you want it and make any additions and or changes to the original design. So I decided to add some stars that I painted gold, then to add to the gold I found a little crown to sit on the base of the shadowbox. I also experimented with some gold foil on a heart.


11. Assemble together ....


.... and put the crown and wire in the bottom of the frame.


I hope this gives you some shabby vintage inspiration and mounting and keeping your work in a shadow box adds another dimension, especially if you sell your work.


We'd love to see your celebration projects over on the challenge post,  just show us what you are celebrating in your art and craft work at the moment. The doors are wide open for this challenge so please come and join the party.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

www.bumblebeesandbutterflies.com


Friday 13 March 2020

Against the Grain Pinworthy Winners

Hello! Thank you for traveling along with us with our Against the Grain challenge! We enjoyed visiting each one of your wood inspired entries.

Even though we didn't have many entries, they were all exceptional making narrowing it down to just three favorites a very difficult task. But without further ado, here are the Creative Guide's three Pinworthy choices:




#5 Lys at Impression Scrap


The 'wood planks' on Lys's 'fence' are so realistic you would think you were sitting in your back yard! Be sure to check out her blog, because she's got some great close up shots and a brief tutorial.


#11 Elle of Empire of the Cat


Elle actually had two great projects linked up, and it was hard to choose between the two. We loved how she embraced the challenge and used wood grain in so many creative ways on her fun project. Be sure to visit her blog, as she takes you through her creative process.

I will be sending you your Pinworthy badge to display on your blogs shortly, and we will be pinning your gorgeous entries to the A Vintage Journey Pinworthies board on Pinterest.

There is still plenty of time to enter our current challenge,  Celebration Time Come On, and you can find all the details HERE along with some fabulous celebratory inspiration from the Creative Guides.

Thank you for traveling along with us on our creative journey, and we can't wait to see what you create this month! It's time to get crafty!

Sara Emily and the Creative Guides

Friday 6 March 2020

CELEBRATION TIME COME ON!

YAY, let's celebrate our 6th Birthday. Is it really 6 years since we started this challenge blog?

Do you remember the words from the Kool and the Gang song? It reached #1 in February 1981.

There's a party goin' on right here
A celebration to last throughout the years
So bring your good times and your laughter too
We gonna celebrate your party with you.
Come on now (Celebration) Let's all celebrate and have a good time
(Celebration) We gonna' celebrate and have a good time

To get you into the mood we started our celebrations early and have some fabulous inspirational projects to hopefully whet your appetite.

Brenda

For our special sixth birthday party I am celebrating all things vintage shabby as well as my family. I have used an Ikea frame but turned it back to front to create a shadowbox and used some collage paper, crackle paste and a special heart I made for my daughter's wedding the year before last.
If you'd like to see more details there is always a warm welcome at Bumblebees and Butterflies.



Happy birthday A Vintage Journey, I can't believe it's been 6 years already, time flies when you are having fun!  To celebrate our 6th birthday I made a tag journal from windowed junk mail envelopes and recycled file folders to celebrate my love of making art journals and recycling/upcycling.  Hope you can pop by my blog for the how to and a quick flip through video of the finished journal and can't wait to see what our wonderful followers are celebrating in their art!



I decided to celebrate my absolute LoVE of mixed media assemblage for our sixth birthday celebration. I never tire of this wonderful mixed media art form. Do please join me over on my blog for more details of how this canvas came together.



Happy candle-blowing, wish-making, cake-eating day! I have a very special card to share with you today that I created for our 6th birthday celebration. I hope you can pop on over to my blog to see how it came together.



I'm so excited about our Birthday Celebration this month; I hope you'll join us! I was enjoying the party atmosphere whilst art journaling using Tim Holtz products to create this Happy 6th Birthday page. Please find how it all came together over at my blog Let's Art Journal.


Mixed Media birthday card with Tim Holtz Tattered Butterfly die

I thought I would combine our anniversary celebration with a birthday card for a lovely craft friend. So here's to celebrating crafty friends! For more details on my textured, layered card please pop over to Addicted to Art.


Alison

Six years... unbelievable!  After a long absence owing to work, I'm celebrating this milestone simply by being back at the craft desk and playing with some of my favourite things - tiny houses, crackle, rusty wire and, of course, some lovely words to go with it all.  Do come over to Words and Pictures to see all the details.


Astrid
I recently had a crafty day with our lovely teamie Annie and her mum Rita. The project I am sharing here was inspired by that get together. To see more detail of what was involved, just hop over to my blog



I have long admired collages such as the one I've created today, but never had the courage to actually sit down and create one.   So I am celebrating moving into unknown territory in my art journey with my canvas for AVJ's 6th birthday!   Please stop by my blog here to see how I created my mixed media project!



I am really happy to take part in AVJ's sixth birthday as a Creative Guide and celebrate this date with all of you!
I dedicated my project to AVJ and I chose the sentiment "Happy together" because I believe that this is exactly what keeps the blog alive: the link between all the Creative Guides and you who follow us! Happy Birthday, AVJ! If you are interested in seeing the details closely and reading how I made the project check out my Blog Yayascrap & more.


Toni

Happy 6th Birthday AVJ! In order to celebrate the birthday of this fabulous blog. I've returned to the beginning of my paper crafting journey and made this tag, influenced by the wonderful Tim Holtz. If I hadn't stumbled upon his Twelve Tags challenges, all those years ago, I wouldn't, be part of this great team !


Amanda 

When AVJ started out 6 years ago it focused on the style, techniques, products and ideas of Tim Holtz and as it was my discovery of Tims distress inks that got me back creating after a long time away I thought I would celebrate AVJ's roots and indeed my own creative blogging roots with a 'Tim Holtz' inspired project. To find out more just hop on over to my blog ink-a-pink where the birthday celebrations are in full swing! 

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Ok ... so over to you to show us what you are celebrating in your art and craft work at the moment. Don't forget to link us into your blog post and if it's not really obvious share with us how your project relates to the challenge theme. Just remember to create your project in one of our preferred styles: vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

Before we go we'd just like to share that Sara Emily and Autumn are leaving the team to give themselves more time to other commitments that they have both in the crafting and real world. As life changes for us there are times when we need to concentrate on new horizons and time for family and so these two amazing ladies are going to be greatly missed in our monthly line-ups and creative posts. We wish them the very best for the future and every success in whatever they have planned and thank them both for sharing their talents, ideas and fantastic projects with everyone.

Thanks also to you for sharing your wonderful art with us, we always look forward to see the wonderfully creative and gorgeous ideas you have when creating and making.

Good luck in the challenge, don't forget the Creative Guides choose their Top 3 for our Pinterest Board where your post will be linked to if you're successful.
So come on join the party and have fun.

hugs Brenda and the Creative Guides xxx

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