Vintage Journal Cover - Tutorial

As promised here is my step by step of the altered book I made to create my vintage visual journal for the rest of this year (and beyond?) using one of my treasured cabinet cards. To see the full challenge brief pop over to the AVJ Challenge Blog where you can read all about the challenge and see the amazing inspiration projects from the Creative Guides. You can also see my introduction post HERE.

I began by preparing a couple of old books by painting the outside covers with gesso and adding some texture using the gesso with a palette knife when it was dry.

Having chosen the larger book and this cabinet card to use .....

..... I decided that as it was quite plain I would alter it and I found a piece of old Graphic 45 paper and cut an oval shape from it.

I had ensured there was plenty of space around the oval to fully cover the card.

I aged the centre cut by rubbing round with an emery board and blending over ground espresso DI. Then I adhered it onto the cabinet card and used a sanding block to sand away the excess patterned paper. This had then distressed the edges as well and again I blended in ground espresso DI.

I started to gather bits and snippets to make some decisions on the embellishing first. Every piece has been painted, inked and/or distressed in some way. I sealed all the card embellishments with satin varnish before they were added to the cover.

This cabinet card covers quite a bit of the front cover so I felt I needed to create a layered background with textures and neutral covers. I began with a text stencil and texture paste mixed with gesso that I heat dried and then, dribbled, dipped and spritzed my gorgeous decoart media acrylics.

 Using quinacridone magenta, titan buff and yellow oxide I dribbled and spritzed the colours to create a light mottled background.

I stamped with the same colours using a text stamp from the Andy Skinner shabby chic set.

I darkened the background by dribbling and spritzing some raw umber with titan buff and dabbled over some watery titanium white (all the time I am heat drying between each layer).

At this point I decided to seal it and used the DecoArt satin varnish. I wanted it to be very sturdy and ready to take the punishment of it being used regularly and creating and making the new journal pages. I began adding the collage elements in layers ....... getting the base parts adhered and flattened under a heavy box.

Now to add in the collage elements. I used the new clear modeling paste from DecoArt and oh boy does it have a strong bond for the card, fabric and metal pieces.

Looking at the book I felt there was something missing - contrast in the background - so I took a fine brush some quinacridone gold, paynes grey and raw umber ........ and with some dabbling of the colours around the collage elements the shading, shadowing, aging and framing has brought it together more.

I have already created my first pages in the book so keep an eye on my blog - Bumblebees and Butterflies - in May when the project will go live.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you are enjoying the new schedule and don't forget next Friday will be the start of our Creative Cardmaking series. I know the lovely Julia will be kicking us off with a fabulous make, so make it a date to be back here in a weeks time. See you then.

hugs Brenda xxx

Destination Inspiration - Terminal Four

Hi everyone and welcome! Well we've already had some fantastic projects from Nikki, Jennie and Sandy. Now it's Jenny here reporting for duty. So here we are, arriving at our fourth terminal for this month's Destination Inspiration and it's my turn to create with the contents of the travel bag this month.

Just as a reminder, this is what's in the suitcase:

Product - Texture or Modelling Paste

Substrate - Fabric/Burlap

Colour - Autumnal / Fall colours - orange, brown, rust

Technique - Collage

And here's the canvas I came up with...

This is an 8x8 canvas and I had to start by covering it in a piece of burlap. Anyone who has tried covering a deep sided canvas will know that the corners are the tricky bit,especially when the fabric used is thick and I decided to make mine more presentable by using Prima paper clay and an IOD mould to create bespoke trims. Painted with black gesso and dry brushed with IndigoBlu gold and coral Luscious pigment powders they worked a treat.

I adhered an old piece of Prima 6x6 paper with glue to the centre of the canvas and used Tim Holtz new Autumn Layering Stencil (in it's mini version) to add black embossing paste foliage across the top and down the sides. The Luscious pigment powders were used to colour them, this time with the addition of the bronze option, to add a gentle Fall palette and a touch of shimmer.

Now for a spot of collage - I added a die cut Ornate Frame and centre covered with more of the coordinating Prima paper and a brush of Luscious. You'll notice I repeated the stencilling/colouring with more Autumn foliage in the centre of the frame. Yet more Autumn Foliage was die cut and embossed with Tim Holtz Thinlits set and layered on top of the stencilled leaves. This really helped to bring the design to life and add a sense of depth.

The canvas was completed with the addition of some metal embellishments and crystal drops in keeping with the soft Fall look and colour palette. Here are some close up photos so you can see more of the detail;

So now you've had four creations using this month's travel bag. Make sure you come back next week to see the final Destination Inspiration from another of the Creative Guides and in the meantime there's still time for you to enter our current challenge 'Create Within a Frame'.

Have a fantastic week ahead and take care of yourselves.

Jenny xxx

Destination Inspiration Layered Collage

Hello everyone and thank you for visiting here. This is Astrid sharing a project with you that will hopefully give you some inspiration to work with multiple layers and collage. The finished project is a large (8 x 8) pocket card and tag.

What I am hoping to show you is how to build up a layered collage step by step, but to be honest, I am feeling quite nervous about it, because the truth is, I normally do my artwork like my cooking, - I never follow a recipe and just go with the flow. But as several of my blog friends have specifically asked me, to do a step by step on how I create my layered pieces, I'll try my best and hope I can take you along on the journey.
The base layer is a folded piece of Kraft card with a small spine to give room for the pocket. I am lucky enough to have some A3 Kraftcard which was just the right size, but you could easily create a spine with a separate piece of card. However, for this post I will concentrate on how I built up the main part.

I started with a piece of square Manila card stock and inked all around the edges with a mix of Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks.

As the centre is going to be covered with the next layer, there is no need to do the inner part, but to add a bit more interest to this layer I did some water stamping with a little background stamp, below is a close up:

The next layer started with a piece of smooth white card stock, cut slightly smaller than the first bit. I added texture with Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste through my favourite  layering stencil of the moment, the new Gothic Stencil by Tim Holtz of course.

When building up a design it is important to keep the eventual balance of the piece in mind, so in fact I turned the paper the other way round when I built up the next layers, as it usually works better to have darker and heavier elements towards the bottom of your finished piece.

When the texture paste had dried, I added some colour with three different colours of Distress Paint: Antique Linen, Weather Wood and Frayed Burlap. I used a brush, my fingers and most importantly a baby wipe and a water spritzer to blend the colours until I was happy with the effect.

To echo the textures of the paste I used the baby wipe, pouncing it in the wet paint to add some further textures.

Doing something like that, helps to tie the different parts of the piece together, - I just love the subtle effect of this process.

Time to slowly start to build up further layers:

First I added some more stenciling, this time using just Distress Inks in the same colours, Weathered Wood and Frayed Burlap, using the Lattice work Stencil this time, another favourite. I also added some tissue tape and background stamping, again, trying to keep a balance in the overall effect.
So far so good on the background, - now to the collage:

Most importantly, a vocal image, this could be a stamp, a photo or whatever you choose. For the front of my piece I decided to use the sweet girl from the Found Relatives and then I collected various bits and pieces, some tickets, stamped and fussy cut images, some bits of various paper stashes etc. I inked and coloured them to fit in with my overall colour theme:

Here you can see them but at this point I am not sure yet whether I will use them all or not, or will add additional pieces still.

Before committing to anything definite, it is always a good idea to play around a bit and see how things might work out, below is a picture where I am just playing like that, as you will see, there will be various changes still along the way...

Nothing is glued down yet, so all is possible still, just play around with your pieces until you feel the design looks good and balanced. Some things to keep in mind are:
-  vertical and horizontal lines
- arranging elements so the eye can move easily around the page
- balance between darker and lighter elements etc.

Right, time to start gluing down, I always like to have my vocal image with some layers behind and some on top, so this is what I landed up with first of all:

I have put the ticket at an angle to break up the stark vertical and horizontal lines. The dark 45c piece definitely needs to be balanced out as does the heavy Received ticket:

Getting a bit better already, but there are still a few funny gaps, the whole piece is also a bit bottom heavy, so what next?

I have this round piece left, useful to break up the blockiness, but where to put it? Top right? Bottom right? where? So many possibilities....

Which one is better, - the left or the right? Neither quite does it for me, or am I starting to over think?

I know, - no collage Tim Holtz style is quite complete without some Ideaology, so in the end I land up with this:

A stencilled Number, this time in Black to balance out the heavier elements in the bottom left corner, a type-charm and rusted pen-nib to help the eye move around the page and finally (though I am not totally sure about this) the bit of measuring tape ribbon, to balance out the vertical lines on the left. It looks a bit forlorn there, but I have just thought of a solution for that, but you will see that in a moment.

Are you still with me? Onto the inside of the card, I'll go a bit quicker this time round as this post is pretty endless already.

A basic sideways pocket created with bits from the French Industrial paper stash. As you can see, I stitched both the front and the back to the base card with some messy stitching.

A central panel done in the same way as the front, but this time without the texture paste.

Some stencilling, done just with inks and then the collage, going through the same process, playing around with elements until some balance is achieved, - this time the vocal image is a freebie from the net, it can be found here. This wonderful lady posts freebies every Friday.

On this photo the design is still a bit bottom heavy, but that will be balanced with the clip and heart that will be showing on both the front and the back, all rusted up with rusting powder for the vintage look:

Now all that is left to do is the tag:

However, as this post is so long already, I will do a separate post on that on my blog in a few days time.

So here you can see the tag in the pocket:

And here you can see the full inside:

If you are still with me, congratulations on being so patient. I hope you have enjoyed this project and that I have given you some inspiration to have a go at multiple layers and collage yourself. One final bit I have not mentioned is that it makes all the difference if you add some shadow to your vocal image. You can use a Distress marker, a coloured pencil or some charcoal, the possibilities are endless.

All the principles of this tutorial can be followed on both large and small projects, so why not join in our ATC challenge and give it a go?.

Almost all of the products used in this project are available from Countryview Crafts our wonderful sponsors. I hope you have enjoyed my destination inspiration.

Thank you so much for visiting today and have a great creative week ahead!

xxx