Welcome Shari as Guest Creative Guide

Today we have the amazing Shari Trumbull as our guest and she has created a most wonderful altered cabinet card to fit in with our Tic-Tac-Toe challenge theme. I'm sure you'll love the colours and textures of this gorgeous creation and if you want to see more do pop over to her blog - 'Ain't That Artsy Fartsy' to see other gorgeous creations for you to drool over. Over to you Shari .............

Hi!  I’m Shari and I’m still in an ecstatic state of shock of being here as your Guest Creative Guide today!!  I was completely blown away when Brenda invited me to Guest for Annie’s challenge of Tic-Tac-Toe and I hope I do not only all of the Creative Guides proud, but all of the wonderful Tim Holtz goodies and techniques I’m using today proud, too!!

A little bit about myself—I’m originally from the Los Angeles area of Southern California, but now call the mountains of North Idaho my home with my hubbie Don and our furry family of 3 dogs and 2 cats and all the wonderful wildlife this beautiful area affords us.

I’m a late bloomer to crafting and didn’t really do anything creative until I started making my own hand stamped cards when I was in my late 20’s, around 1997.  I was a clean and simple card creator back then and ended up taking a break from it for about 5 years, between 2005-2010.  When I re-emerged, I realized much had changed while I was away and OMG!—who is this Tim Holtz guy?!  Exciting times ahead, indeed!

It only took one of Tim’s video’s to set me on a completely different course of creating and I haven’t looked back since!!  It’s a creative journey that I never thought I’d be on, and I’m so glad to share the things that I’ve learned (and am still learning about) with you here at A Vintage Journey today!  Let’s Play!

Annie’s game of Tic-Tac-Toe, a la Tim Holtz, pretty much means carte blanche on creativity and gosh--Which move to make, which move to make?!

 I’m taking left-vertical with Idea-ology/Paint/Foil Tape. 

Wait, I’m moving bottom-horizontal with Foil Tape/Texture Fades/Stains. 

No, I’ve got right-vertical covered with Ribbon-Twine/Die Cuts/Stains. 

I love all of Tim’s techniques but one of my favorites is creating backgrounds.  I love layering his Distress Inks, Paints, Stains and now his Spray Stains together to form one-of-a-kind backgrounds to build upon. 

I’m using one of Tim’s Cabinet Card Frames to showcase one of his Found Relative cards.  I altered the cab-card with Picked Raspberry & Barn Door Distress Paints that I finger painted over the surface and heat dried. When dried, I rubbed Tea Dye & Vintage Photo Distress Inks over the painted surface.  I used the Hearts Layering Stencil and Walnut Stain Distress Ink to add a few hearts, then I spritzed and flicked a bit of water over all of it for those wonderful water spots and heat set.

I tinted the Found Relative card with my Worn Lipstick Distress Marker, giving the lovely lady a little color in her blouse.  Then I roughed up the surface a bit with my sanding block by lightly pulling the block over the surface and edges, then inked over the surface with Tea Dye Distress Ink and my ink blending tool. 

I have a confession to make—The heart embossed piece of foil tape…I used my Hearts Layering Stencil to create the embossed hearts!  I didn’t realize how little foil tape I have left in my stash and the pieces that I do have, were already embossed with polka dots.  I didn’t want just polka dots, so I grabbed my Hearts LS, a couple of silicon mats and ran it all through my Big Shot.  I cheated on using –Texture Fades- but it’s a good improvisation with using your Layered Stencils for embossing! 

I used my Tattered Florals die with a few different colored card stocks and gesso’d & Distressed stained tulle to create the blooms.  I also used my Garden Greens die to cut out the leaves from Tim’s tissue wrap.  Each bloom was given a gumdrop center that I have colored with Adirondack Alcohol Inks. 

I topped the card with seam binding that I colored with Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick & Barn Door Distress Stains, tied into a fancy bow, embellished with a Locket Key, Heart Charm and a crystal heart all hanging from a Hangar Clip.  See the glitter inside the keyhole?  I got that idea from Anita-The Artful Maven, who has an astonishing Tim Holtz style all her own!  

 I hope you enjoyed my play with Annie’s game of Tic-Tac-Toe today!   Thank you to the Creative Guides for having me and before I close I’d like to leave you with one of my favorite Tim quotes—“Embrace Imperfection”!! 

Wow isn't this just a sensational altered cabinet card? What fabulous colours and techniques and oh I hope you didn't miss that little tip about using your layering stencils to emboss with. Thanks Shari for a beautiful Tic Tac Toe project and fabulous steps guiding us through your make. It is beautiful. 

Well I hope you've all had a lovely Valentine's Day weekend and have a great week ahead. See you Friday with another fabulous challenge. It will be the last one before our big birthday bash.

hugs Brenda xxx

Welcome back Vicki with winners announcement

It's Friday and it's Tic Tac Toe with a difference. Vicki is back with an amazing tutorial project and oh boy are you gonna just love this.

Hi, its Vicki here from [dig] that crazy chick. I have recently returned home to a chilly and snowy Alberta, having spent the past few weeks in sunny and warm Arizona. I can see why so many people travel or choose to live there. Arizona is absolutely beautiful! (I’m already planning to go back.) This is a picture of me and Io (my little girl), she is certainly glad we are home. She slept on the floor in my craft space while I made these so I felt it important to include her here. She loves the winter and snow is her very most favourite thing. Yes, I am wearing shorts in the snow (a true Canadian).

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I am excited to share my technique for faux inlaid wood as part of my guest designers honours at A Vintage Journey’s TIC-TAC-TOE challenge #25. The projects are made using sheets of paper backed wood veneer, not looks like wood, real wood. You can find the complete photographic step-by-step here (Permalink - http://digthatcrazychick.blogspot.com/2015/02/tic-tac-toe.html). This technique also makes for wonderful masculine cards.

Tim’s Distress palette and how the colours work with each other, and how with a bit of craftily applied water they react with each other; makes magic happen (everytime). You can easily pick through the colours and combine them to evoke senses of times gone by; the not so long ago Retro, the slightly older Vintage or so time-worn that you have no period to define it. I hope you enjoy travelling with me today on my Vintage, time-worn and Retro Journey.

My “game” strategy was to take the right-hand vertical column with “X”s (as I have never liked playing as “O”s)

Match Maker

TIC – Crinkle Ribbon

TAC – Labels (Thinlits), Matchbox & Mini Silhouettes (Movers & Shapers)

TOE – Distress Aged Mahogany, Bundled Sage & Pumice Stone

The crease pad is a must for cutting wood veneer papers when you need to fold it, especially the folds against the grain.

The wood is so thin that you can easily cut it with Thinlit dies.

When cutting the wood pieces I vary or alternate the direction of the grain. I chose the diagonal to mimic the lines of the silhouette. 

When I want to ink the edges of small pieces (or tight inside edges) I use a cotton swab.

When staining wood you always want to work the colour in the direction of the grain.

I use sheets of double-sided tape to adhere the pieces together working from the outer most frame first.

When finished, all the pieces are flush with each other. I lightly sanded the surface just to add the feeling of being worn before folding the match box cover and securing the seam.

Here are a couple more matchboxes I made using the same techniques and the tic-tac-toe theme.

Black Powder

TIC – Jute String

TAC – Matchbox & Mini Skull (Movers & Shapers)

TOE – Distress Black Soot, Old Paper, Picket Fence & Walnut Stain

Playing with Fire

TIC – Striped Paper String

TAC – Alphanumeric & Labels (thinlits), Matchbox (movers & Shapers)

TOE – Distress Brushed Corduroy, Faded Jeans, Festive Berries & Stormy Skies


Oh wow Vicki, that is just so amazing, what brilliant projects. Thanks so much for such an innovative idea and fabulous process steps enabling us all to have a go so easily. Now where did I put that wood veneer ...............?

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Next up is our winners spot and Astrid has made the final decisions for her 'Love is in the Air' challenge.

We had so many wonderful entries for this challenge; it did not make the choosing any easier…. But as a team we were pretty much in agreement that our overall winner should be -

 #15 Ruth (A love to create)

Her amazing rusty heart is a piece of pure genius, so cleverly crafted and conceived and full of the most amazing rusting techniques. It is a labour of love from beginning to end, that no doubt took many hours to create.

Choosing the pin worthies was very hard this time too, as there were so many wonderful and creative entries, but in the end I chose, in no particular order:

No 25 Rupa. 

She created a wonderful altered book, with lots of creative tags to adorn in. I loved the fact she altered a Mills and Boon!

No 27 Berdien, 

who entered two gorgeous vibrant tags full of lovely Tim goodness.

No 39 Cathy 

with a beautiful soft shabby chic card that demonstrates just perfectly in how many different ways the love theme can be interpreted.

Congratulations all of you, badges and the winner's voucher from Country View Crafts will be on its way soon and your amazing projects pinned to our Pinterest Winners Boards.

Thank you to everyone who has shared projects with us enabling us to come and see amazing work on your blogs, it is a delight to visit you all.

Don't forget our current challenge Tic Tac Toe hosted by our lovely Annie is well under way and has attracted some fabulous entries already.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda, Astrid and the Team xxxx

Destination Inspiration - Upcycled Tattered Flowers

Hi Everyone, It's Julie from Juliz Design Post here today with my very first Destination Inspiration post. We all love using our Bigz Dies but are you guilty of forgetting all the items they are capable of cutting, I know I am. So I hope to inspire you to think again as you reach for you Bigz dies combining Tim's techniques with items lying around the house begging to be Upcycled.

I used Sizzix Movers and Shapers Mini Tattered Florals throughout this tutorial.

This flower was cut from a Juice Can. I pierced a hole in it big enough to get the point of my scissors in and cut around the can. Please be very careful at this stage as the edges will be sharp. Once you die cut your flowers you will now notice your edges have lost their sharpness. The metal curves around the die whilst cutting, softening the sharp edges.

Using Distress Paint, coat the inside of your embossing folder on the debossed side. Place your die cut flowers inside and emboss through your die cutting machine.

Let your flower layers dry before shaping and adding some Ideaology to the centre. You now have a Painted Industrial look to your flower.

This flower was made from an empty Tomato Purée tube, cut open and washed. The metal is softer to work with which is fab for molding different shapes. I dripped Alcohol inks onto the petals along with some Blending Solution and let the inks run into each other. Using Black Archival ink I then stamped over the petals with a crackle stamp. I now shaped my petals to build up my flower adding the Gumdrop to the centre which was shaded with Alcohol Ink.

An old pair of Jeans for this one. You will see I tattered the edges of my flowers. Next adding some Multi Medium to the reverse side I then scrunched the flowers and let dry on top of lids. This stiffens the fabric. The centre I scrunched to form a bud and secured with a staple. You will see I cut off the point so it would sit flush in the centre of my flower.

The finished result, which I now could add a little Distress Paint on to the edges for definition or leave like this.

Grungepaper flowers. I added a selection of Distress Paints and Sprays to my Grunge Paper and stamped on texture with a Map and Leaf stamp.

Once dry I glued an old music sheet and map to the reverse side.

I distressed the edges of my petals with ink before building them up, here you will see all the different shaped flowers I made.

This is the baby wipes I used when mopping up the paint from my Grungepaper flowers. I scrunched them up and dried over the radiator.

See all the shades you get on the petals once cut out. My bud was held with my croc tool over my heat gun. This shrivels it up. Gluing my next layer on I repeated the process catching the corner of my petals with the heat tool. The other petals were shrunk back on my heat mat then all layered together. The resulting flower has a firm feel to it. 

More lovely shades on these baby wipe petals

I used a large pearl bead and started gluing my layers on.

As you add more layers you will see your flower shape forming.
  

The finished flower has a softer feel to it with not having the heat tool put on it.

I do hope you have enjoyed my post and now feel inspired to make some Upcycled Flowers. I'd love if you left a comment to let me know which one is your favourite.

It would also be great to have you join in our Current Challenge Tic Tac Toe, you will find all the info and inspiration here. Our kind Sponsor Countryview Crafts have donated a £10 shopping spree to the winner, where you will find all my products used at this fabulous online shop.

Happy Crafting,

Julie xx 

It's time to play Tic Tac Toe

Hi everyone...its Annie here as your host for this fortnights challenge and I thought we could play Tic Tac Toe.

With so many Tim Holtz/Ranger products as well as other similar products to choose from, we would like you to pick/take a minimum of three items from the grid below, incorporating them in your entries/projects. You can choose items horizontally/vertically or diagonally, it's your decision. It's also okay to use more than three products in your entry. One more very important request........ can you please, please include the name of the items you are using within your post, not just in the link to the challenge. 

Idea-ology or any metal embellishment	Sprays	Ribbon/twine
Paint	Ephemera	Die cuts
Foil tape	Texture fades	Stains

Country view Crafts is our regular sponsor and the challenge winner will receive a voucher which can be redeemed at their online store. We also have blog badges for our Pinworthies. Winners and Pinworthies are chosen by the DT and as well as the entry we also check that the pesky challenge rules have been met too. 

For my project I used the horizontal top line of Metal Embellishments, Sprays and Ribbon. To obtain more details please visit my blog HERE

As always our uber talented Creative Guides have came up with more inspiration for you to view.

Jenny

Sometimes fate plays a hand in what you end up creating and this time was definitely one of those occasions. I'd already made my selection from the Tic Tac Toe grid - Sprays, Ephemera, Texture Fades - and then Tim produced his February 2015 Tag challenge HERE... based on ephemera and my favourite faux quilt look! Well it had to be done, so how did I incorporate Sprays and Texture Fades? Take a look at my blog HERE to see more.

Chris

I chose 'Paint', 'Ephemera' & 'Die cuts' for my three options although you'll see a few more included lol! It's not very often I craft in just the brown hues but I quite enjoyed using them. My Tim inspiration this challenge is 'product' but especially the picture from his 'Found Relatives'. If you want to see more, you'll find all my steps here. Chris xxx

Terry

Had a great time playing Annie's Tic Tac Toe and my choice line was Idea-ology, Ephemera, Stains. Great excuse to use up some of those products I buy and forget to use! For more details, please stop by for a visit, HERE.

Anne

I have used one line of Annie's Tic Tac Toe chart (Ribbon/Die Cuts/Stains - and some Sprays) along with some of Tim's new stamps to create my card. If you would like to see more please pop over on my blog.

Brenda

I had great fun choosing which elements to use to match the Tic-Tac-Toe line combinations. I can actually cross off three lines with this altered clipboard, but maybe you could do more. Do you remember playing noughts and crosses as a child, I so loved that game.

Jennie

My dream destination for a long long while has been New York and I am finally going in April this year! I used the top line of the Tic Tac Toe to create this plaque - Ideology, Sprays and Ribbon/Twine. Do join me over on my blog, Live the Dream, if you want to know a little more.

Alison

I had lots of fun with Annie's fantastic Tic Tac Toe board. I played the first vertical line Idea-ology or any Metal Embellishment/Paints/Foil Tape and came up with a pair of weathered metallic ATCs. It was hard to capture the glint of the metal in one photograph, so do come and see some close-ups over at Words and Pictures.

Nikki

I have chosen die cuts, stains and twine for the challenge. I have used my stains in several ways; marbling, stencilling and a little painting. Do hop over to Addicted to Art to see the details.

Julia

What a fun challenge Annie has for us today! This is a great way to make us use all those products we have in our craft rooms - maybe some we don't usually grab first. I decided to use Ribbon/Die Cuts/Stains on my creation, getting out my Compendium of Curiosities Vol II to help me to use stains creatively. Please stop by my blog, Create with Me , to see just how I put my Tic Tac Toe Tag together!

Inspired...........then lets see your amazing entries.  We are a Tim Holtz inspired blog, however, you do not have to use Tim Holtz or Ranger products. Just let us know how you were influenced by Tim's style and of course which grid you have chosen in our Tic Tac Toe Challenge. 

We are looking forward to viewing your creations and you have until the 19th February at 18.00pm to take part. Please use the inklinkz link below to attach entries.

Before we go we would like to give you a heads up there are some changes afoot here at AVJ. On March the 6th we will be celebrating our first birthday and we will have a special challenge and some prizes for you. The most significant changes will be a move to a monthly challenge theme with a gift voucher of £20 from Country View Crafts. In future the winner will be chosen by Random Org but we will continue with our Top 3 Pinworthies and our Pinterest boards. The structure for the month will change and Fridays will very much be about projects and guests and Mondays will hold a completely new format of Destination Inspiration posts linked to a monthly menu of a product, a colour, a technique and a substrate. Mix those four things with four Creative Guides and there will be some wonderful informative posts for you. Some of the months will include five weeks and when this happens you will see the return of our very popular Tag Fridays. So stay tuned and keep the date in your diary - don't forget the 6th March, but for now enjoy our current Tic-Tac-Toe challenge. 

Happy Crafting and See You soon xx

Annie x

An InLinkz Link-up

Welcome Toni as Guest Creative Guide.

We are so lucky that very talented artists are happy to guest for us at AVJ and today we have the very lovely and gifted Toni Burrows with us. Toni resides at Artistic Craft Dabbler and I fully recommend an excursion soon if you haven't visited her part of blogland yet. She is a very artistic lady who has a love of Tim and a very unique style. Enough said from me, let's see what Toni has created for all of us today.

Hi everybody! My name is Toni and I’m delighted to be a guest of the incredibly talented team here at A Vintage Journey.  As a lover of all things Tim, it’s an honour to be given the opportunity to showcase a project using his fabulous products and techniques.

By day I’m a teacher, I actually have two part-time jobs, one as a peripatetic Teacher for Visually Impaired Children and the second as a pottery teacher in a primary school. I live in the West Midlands with my husband and second son Max. We are all lovers of vintage style and collectors of... well... pretty much anything that takes our interest. Fortunately we live in a large Victorian house and I’m lucky enough to have a big attic room to craft and stash all my stuff in!

Like most of the crafters I read about, I also started from a young age. My mum always encouraged us to draw and make things. She taught me to how knit and my dad fostered my interest in sewing. He started a tailoring course when we were youngsters and bought an electric sewing machine, which was quite something back in the late 1950’s. My two brothers and I went to a fantastic secondary school called Moseley School of Art. This was a state school that specialised in teaching a variety of visual arts.  We studied all the usual subjects but also had lessons in graphic design, dress making,

 pottery, drawing and painting. One of the greatest things I learnt there was to ‘look’.

I absolutely love the theme Astrid has chosen for the current challenge, ‘Love is in the Air’ my project is a little altered a paper mache book. My initial thoughts were to make something pale and pretty but as I got started my thoughts turned towards full on romantic luxe and that of course has to include red roses. I’ve used Tim’s Tattered Pine Cone die, and included two of my all time favourite Ideaology items, an Ornate Plate and one of the original Frozen Charlotte Dolls.

I covered the book with black tissue paper which I had firstly stamped and embossed with gold embossing powder. I used a strip of black fabric to cover the books spine and glued on a couple of metal numbers.

I painted the inside of the book with red acrylic paint and used Rock Candy Distress Glitter, coloured with Red Pesto Alcohol ink, to coat the inside of the deeper half of the book box. I made a stamped label to fit on the other side.

I then had great fun using Tim’s Tattered Pine Cone die to make lots of roses. Some were used on the cover and a dozen to go inside. I painted them red and spritzed on some gold spray once they were dry.

I used the rest of the flowers to create a bed of roses for my little Frozen Charlotte to nestle into.

I gave her some gold wings with a crackle finish and used a Remnant Rub On word, ‘love’ across her heart. Here she is again....

I also used Remnant Rub Ons to create the phrase under the Ornate Plate, ‘Love Lives Here’. I had to do a bit of doctoring of the words, as the words ‘here’ and ‘live’ don’t feature.

I’ve had a great time creating this project and it’s been wonderful to be able to share this with you all. There are a few more details on my blog if you’d like to have a closer look.  I’d like to thank the fabulous members of the  AVJ Team for inviting me to travel along with them, for this part of their journey. Many thanks also to Tim for his constant innovation, encouragement and enthusiasm.

And we would like to thank you too Toni for creating such a beautiful project for the current challenge. I love the idea of the book and the wonderful elements you have included, especially the bed of roses, very creative.

Please pop over to see more of Toni's work on her blog and leave her a little Valentine love for such a wonderful project. If you haven't seen the challenge at AVJ yet, it runs till Thursday evening (London time) so there is still an opportunity to take part and maybe you could be winning the £10 gift voucher from Country View Crafts.

Have a great week everyone.

hugs Brenda, Toni and the Team xxx