September Altered Art Winner and Pinworthies

Hello all!  Well, you made our lives very difficult again by sharing so much amazing Altered Art for last month's challenge.  Thank you all for joining us on the journey.  The Creative Guides enjoyed visiting each and every one of your creations, and it was a hard task to whittle our choice down to just three officially Pinworthy projects.
You're all worthy of pinning!

First of all, the easier - and very pleasurable - task of announcing our randomly drawn winner of last month's prize sponsored by Simon Says Stamp.  The Random Generator gets to do this job, and here's the selected number:

That's Remya at Curls'n'Twirls who shared this fabulous spread from
her recycled cardboard art journal.

Beautiful work, Remya, and congratulations.  We'll be in touch shortly with your winner's badge and the details of how to collect your prize.

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Now on to our three Pinworthy choices.  Since the challenge was Altered Art, I'm sharing some "before" photos as well as the finished projects, so that you can see how impressive the altering was!  In order of entry number, but otherwise in no particular order, they are...

#33 Lula at u Luli

Just look at the extraordinary transformation of this unassuming alarm clock into a steampunk masterpiece.  Lula took a really imaginative leap with this one, and it's full of brilliant details from every angle.

Do hop over to Lula's blog to see the full details.



#34 Pooja at Let's Get Crafty

Not only did Pooja use a pizza box as the substrate and lots of clothes labels and tags to build the layers, but she took apart a metal candle-holder to build the structure at the heart of her mixed media creation.

It's well worth visiting Pooja's blog to see the altering in action.



#36 Hélène a.k.a. 2amScrapper at Lotsa Scrap

A fantastic substrate here - Hélène has altered a specially chosen licence plate which has information related to her own life already on it, and created a rusty masterpiece full of personal meaning.

Take a trip over to Hélène's blog to find out more.

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Congratulations to all our Pinworthies this month - fantastic projects all round.  We'll be in touch shortly with your badges and an invitation to join us here at A Vintage Journey as a Guest Creative Guide in the future.

Once again, thank you to everybody who joined in with the challenge, and we hope you'll be inspired to come and play along this month in Jennie's wonderful Crazy For Autumn Colour theme, sponsored by the amazing Calico Craft Parts.

Join us on Monday to see who's arriving next at Destination Inspiration but, for now, have a great weekend and happy crafting all!

Alison and the Creative Guides x

Destination Inspiration - Arriving at Terminal 1

Hello, Anne here to welcome you to Destination Inspiration #1 for October!  The contents of the travel bag for this month are:

Product - Crackle Paint/Paste

Technique - Die Cutting

Colour - Any Fall colours you fancy

Substrate - Corrugated Card

Now I will admit, up front, I read the details wrong and went on to create my project, using the corrugated card for my die cutting.... oops, not a great start, but with no time to create another project I hope you will forgive my misdemeanor... I created a little wall hanging.

Since Calico Craft Parts are our Sponsors for this month I wanted to use one of their Printers Trays to create my project.

I die cut two ATCs from chipboard and the Steering Wheel by Seth Apter (a gift from a lovely friend) from corrugated card.

I painted the printers tray in Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Mahogany Chalk Acrylic Paint (part of Seth Apter's Limited Edition range).  I painted the little frame with Buff and then added a good coat of DecoArt Weathered Wood Crackle Paint.  

Once the Crackle Paint was dry I applied a coat of the Mahogany to create these lovely crackles.

To create my autumnal colours for the base of the ATCs I used Seth Apter's monoprint technique, you can see the layers as I built them up.  It doesn't look very pretty to start with but if you persevere and keep adding layers until you like it, it really does work and it also creates some lovely texture.

To create the layers, you need two pieces of cardstock.  Apply paint to your first piece of card, in this case I used Paper Artsy Midnight Fresco paint, I added Key Lime Fresco paint to the second piece and quickly laid the second piece of card over the first, pressed lightly (as you would with a Gelli Plate).  I like to start with a dark and light colour for the first layers but you can start with light colours, or any colours that takes your fancy.

You can see from the above, that layer 2 is still quite dark, I used Mahogany and Green Patina before moving on to more autumnal tones - Smoked Paprika, Terracota and some Buff to tone it all down. 

I chose the parts of the finished cardstock that I liked the best and die cut two ATCs.  These were attached to the chipboard ATCs and I used a brown marker to go all around the edges.

To colour the steering wheel parts I used Imagination Crafts Rusty Patina Texture Paste in the rusty colour and also the turquoise colour.

I assembled the die cuts on top of the ATCs and added some Prima hardware to the centres just to add some interest.  I hope you can see a little of the turquoise patina colour on top of the brown.

To finish off I added some of Tim Holtz's chit chat stickers.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to Terminal 1 and I also hope you will join in Jennie's wonderful challenge this month - Crazy for Autumn Colour which you can find HERE.

Take care and enjoy your crafting!  Hugs, Anne xx

Crazy for Autumn Colour!

Hello everyone and welcome to another new month and another new challenge here at A Vintage Journey. Jennie here with you this month as your host and you will be pleased to hear that our challenge for this wonderful colourful month is

CRAZY FOR AUTUMN COLOUR

We want to see you choose a bold, colourful, autumn palette this month for your vintage; shabby; mixed media; art journalling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk project. Let's just see those wonderful autumn colours in all their glory!

We have a new sponsor this month

CALICO CRAFT PARTS

and you will find their details and those for the challenge at the bottom of this post.

And so without further ado let's see what the Creative Guides have been making with those wonderful autumn colours.

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Jennie

We have had a wonderful Autumn here in the north with flowering shrub roses, grasses and rosehips gracing the garden with their fabulous colours. I tried to replicate these colours (and the fact that the wooden fence and shed need painting!) in a Calico Craft Parts Shadow Box. Do please join me over on my blog Live the Dream to see how this all came together and a step by step for the little background painting.

Anne

Autumn is my favourite time of year, with the stunning colour of the beautiful falling leaves and the time we celebrate the harvest.  If you would like to see more, please visit my blog here.

Autumn

I went crazy playing with my mediums and a beautiful autumn palette!  My piece was inspired by the rusty colors of fall and deep moody feelings of the changing seasons.  See how I transformed this Scrabble board game on my blog, SewPaperPaint.

Deb

For our October challenge I decided to make a mixed media canvas filled with autumn leaves in all the glorious colours of fall.  I also wanted to include the touches of frost and ice that we often experience on cool October mornings here in Canada so used lots of metallic foils, embossing powders and mica sprays to represent that frosty component.  I have some step out photos on my blog on how I created it, hope you can stop by for my how to.

Alison

An autumnal tag from me, with burnt oranges and earthy browns on a misty morning... and I'm afraid there's another of my word stamps too.  I suppose I shouldn't apologise for being inspired by them - that's kind of the point!  Do come over to Words and Pictures to see the details.

Sara Emily

There's nothing better than taking a walk on a crisp, sunny autumn afternoon. I wanted my card to reflect the colors and textures of the season. You can learn how my colorful background and crunchy leaves came together on my blog-sarascloset.

S@ndy

Oh how I love the colors of Autumn with the lovely oranges, browns and greens with the golden leaves turning for the season. I hope you will stop by my blog HERE to see a little tutorial of how I made this home décor item.

Brenda

It's that time of the year when we see less and less of the sun in the northern hemisphere as Autumn delivers a blanket of wonderful rich colours and the days get shorter. I am also trying to use up some bits and pieces in my supplies box as I will be having a big move around with all my supplies soon, but at the moment let's just enjoy those gorgeous hues outside.

How can you NOT be inspired!! All those wonderful autumnal colours and fabulous projects!

And now a little more about our challenge details.

Our sponsor this month is Calico Craft Parts who make wonderful wood and MDF Shapes, Plaques and Craft Blanks. The randomly chosen winner will receive a wonderful autumnul bundle of Calico Craft Parts MDF products.

The Creative Guides will also choose their top three Pinworthies from all your entries and these projects will be pinned on our Pinterest page and the pinworthies invited to join us here at A Vintage Journey as a Guest Creative Guide. Just check out our Travelling Instructions (on the sidebar) before entering to make sure your entry qualifies.

So now you have all the details and inspiration let's see what you share with us.

Do visit again on Monday where we will have another Creative Guide will be sharing the Travel Bag contents with you in another Destinations Inspiration.

Happy crafting!

Jennie x

An InLinkz Link-up

September Destination Inspiration - Arriving At Terminal #5

Hello Everyone and Welcome

Amanda here today to greet you at Terminal #5, the final leg of this months Destination Inspiration. As September is a 5 week month we not only have a tag Friday but we have 5 Terminals to call at on our Inspiration Journey so I hope you will join me and enjoy our extra stop today.

Lets begin with a quick recap of the contents of the travel bag

Product: Gesso
Technique:  Any form of Resist

            Colour: Olive Green
Substrate: Chipboard

      

Limited supplies maybe, but if you have been journeying with us this month Jennie (Terminal #1), Tracy (Terminal #2), Autumn (Terminal #3), and Sara Emily (Terminal #4) have not let the lack of supplies limit their creativity. If you have been delayed and are just arriving be sure to check out their projects and all the details by clicking on the relevant links provided. 

Here's the project I have made - it wasn't pre-designed or pre-planned, it just developed throughout the creative process. I'm calling it an Art Scroll 

One of my favourite resist techniques is 'Gesso' resist and given that the product in my travel bag is gesso it seemed the ideal resist technique to use.

I used Tim Holtz distress inks throughout my project.

  

Using a piece of cut and dry foam I applied gesso to my stamp of choice - one of the stamps from Seth Apters Impression Obsession 'Border lines'stamp set

and stamped it repeatedly to cover a piece of mixed media paper - not so easy to see the stamping when working white on white . 

Once dry I applied Tim Holtz Distress ink over the gesso stamping using a blending tool, Crushed Olive being the first application - now the gesso stamping is clearer to see

Though I do like this Olive tone I had a deeper, darker Olive hue in mind so continued building up the colour with Distress inks. Once happy with the colour I used a damp wet wipe to reveal the gesso stamping. I always love seeing how the gesso resists the ink. I distressed the edges of the panel with both Gathered Twigs and Black Soot distress inks..With a black Micron pen I added some drop shadows to the stamp pattern and mounted the panel onto black cardstock 

At this point I gathered up a few of my chipboard pieces and played around with them to get some idea of how to move forward with my project .... A quick fast forward and I had a finished design in mind .

I adhered old book pages to the back and front of a chipboard ATC using collage medium

distressing the edges lightly with distress ink and a touch of gilding wax when dry. The gesso resist panel was then adhered on top of this.

I punched two holes along the bottom and top edges of the resist panel ,and fixed eyelets over the holes. These would hold the loop pins which in turn would hold the two pieces of remnant rubbed dowel .

Now for the focal feature....

I used two of the wood chips from Seth Apters 'Wood Chips'- the circle and the square frame. 

To alter the circle I experimented with a wax resist technique. 

I grated wax crayons to create wax shavings, sprinkled the shavings (only a light sprinkling) onto the wood chip circle

 and covered with a piece of wax paper. I placed a hot iron onto the wax paper and held still for a few seconds to melt the wax shavings. 

I then removed the iron and wax paper to reveal a wonderful amalgamation of colour. I blended Crushed Olive distress ink over the waxed wood chip surface- the wax resisted the ink. Unfortunately I was so caught up in the creative process that I failed to capture a shot of this but I did repeat the process using mixed media paper as my substrate to show you. To the left is a photo of the melted wax crayon shavings, to the right is a photo of the wax resisting the ink . 

Back to the circle wood chip ... I applied gesso to another Seth Apter stamp, this one is from Seth's Pathways IO stamp set and stamped it onto the waxed resist circle 

before adhering in place inside the crackled wood chip square frame.

I embellished the circle with a few pieces of metal - 2 Ideology gears, an old foreign coin and a Tim Holtz Ideology hitch fastener

-to give some dimension

and to finish off my Art Scroll Project

Thank you for your company today. I hope you have enjoyed your time here at Terminal #5 and leave with some inspiration.
 Pop back on Monday when a fellow Creative Guide will be picking up a whole new travel bag of ingredients ready to embark on our October Destination Inspiration Journey. 

There are just a few days left if you fancy joining in our current challenge 'Altered Art'. It is open until Thursday this week and details of the challenge can be found here  

We always love to see what you create and appreciate each and every one of your entries . 

Wishing you all a great week

Take Care 

Amanda

x

Tag Friday!

Welcome to Tag Friday! A few times a year we have 5 Fridays in a month meaning we get to hold our Anything Goes Tag Friday. It is always popular with the Creative Guides - we do love our tags, and it's always fun to see the different directions we all go in when there's no strict route to follow.  Let's take a look at what everyone has created...

Nikki

I decided to make some Christmas themed tags (I have started early this year!) and make them into Christmas cards - you can find all the details over at Addicted to Art today.

Anne

At this time of year when most people's thoughts turn to beautiful autumnal colours - mine turn to Halloween! I was inspired by a card by Richele Christensen... you can see more detail on my BLOG.

Alison

I'm getting ahead of myself with a wintry pair of tags... that's what comes of having to create samples for winter word stamp sets in September! Not that I'm complaining - I'm thrilled to have some new quote sets out, and there's one of them involved here. Do come and check out the details over at Words and Pictures.

S@ndy

I simply love the colors of Fall and this tag uses all of my favorites. I could not pass up a chance to use oranges, browns and greens. ENJOY.

Autumn

I was inspired to depict an end of summer feel on my tag, with withering greens and grasses fading. See more of the process and closeups on my blog, SewPaperPaint.

Jennie

I was demonstrating PaperArtsy Infusions at the weekend and so have some lovely base tags to play with. I decided to use my favourite Sleight Blue to create this little tag with a fabulous quote from Alison's latest stamp release. If you would like to see more details and in particular how the background developed then please do join me on my blog.

Tracy

I had fun just enjoying the process of creating this piece, decorating one of Tim Holtz Etcetera Tags. If you would like to see more close up detail and explore this journey further with me, please pop by my BLOG.

Brenda

September and October find me very busy but I wanted to join in with this Tag Friday line up and managed to get this completed in under the wire (just!) to contribute along side the other fabulous contributions from my very talented teamies. To complete this in almost record time I have limited myself to just a few supplies and a tag background from my bits box. There are a few more photos over at Bumblebees and Butterflies if you find you have a little time to pop over.

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Well, there you have it... what a fantastic variety of tags, though you can see that we're all leaving summer behind, by the look of things.  I hope that's given you a little burst of inspiration fuel for the last few days of this month's challenge.  There's still a week left to join us with an Altered Art project, and we'd love to have your company.  Our sponsor this month is Simon Says Stamp and our random winner will receive a $25 gift voucher for their store.

Not only that, but you could be selected as one of our Pinworthy projects and be invited to join us as a Guest Creative Guide... so off you go and get altering!  Have a great weekend, everybody.

Alison and the Creative Guides x