Think Inside Or Outside The Box

Hello and happy New Year everyone, Deb here with you today to present our January challenge at A Vintage Journey:

Think Inside Or Outside The Box

Here is the brief:

For our first challenge of 2018 we'd like you to create with a box. Any box of any size will do. It can be one you made yourself or one that you are recycling or even one that you have drawn. We'd like you to make your project either inside the box itself or do something imaginative on the outside or both if that's where your muse takes you. As always we like to see your projects in our preferred styles: vintage, shabby; mixed media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk. So put on your thinking caps and re-imagine those boxes both inside and out!

As always, the Creative Guides have come together with some projects to inspire you and get your creativity going, enjoy!

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Deb

Happy New Year everyone! For our January challenge, I decided to recycle a couple of small gift boxes from my craft stash, nesting one inside the other. And there is a sweet surprise to be found inside the box as well, hope you can pop by my blog to see what it might be.

Julia

There's a secret to my box and you can find out what it is on my blog post here!

Nikki

For this challenge I decided to alter a small chocolate box. For all the details it would be lovely to see you at Addicted to Art today.

Autumn

For our boxes challenge I decided to go fall back on a very old favorite and made a notecard gift box with Distress Inks and Tim Holtz stamps and dies. Find the box tutorial and more details at SewPaperPaint.

S@ndy

For this fun challenge I have decided to Think Outside of the Box. I used the outside of an unused Configuration Box from my leftovers. To see all the details please join me at my blog, My "Crafty" Life on the Internet.

Jennie

I decided to use this lovely box frame for Deb's fabulous challenge as it gave me the chance to alter and decorate both inside and outside. Do join me over on my blog if you would like to see how this all came together and details of the paper mache texture on the front of the box.

Sara Emily

For Deb's challenge, I decided to use some unmatched gift box lids and a few more recycled boxes. You can see how this rather large industrial 'canvas' was constructed entirely from boxes and embellished almost entirely with found objects and trash on my blog.

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Amazing as always I think you will agree! Our sponsor this month is The Funkie Junkie Boutique:

and Linda is offering a generous $25.00 gift certificate to our lucky randomly chosen winner plus the Creative Guides will choose three Pinworthy winners who will have their projects pinned to our Pinterest board and who will be offered a guest spot here at A Vintage Journey for one of our future challenges. So get your thinking caps on and 'Think Inside Or Outside The Box' and link your projects up below, you have until February 1st, 2018 to enter, have fun!

Deb and The Creative Guides

Destination Inspiration - Terminal Five and a Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Nikki here with our final stop on the December Destination Inspiration journey. Our new challenge begins on Friday so even though it is January and 2018 we have one final visit to this travel bag:

Product : Tissue Paper

Technique : Embossing (Dry or Heat)

Colour : Silver or Gold

Substrate : Acetate

I cheated a little bit - my original intention was to use the acetate as it is intended in this month's mix - as the substrate to work on, but it just wasn't working for me. Forgive me !

I began with a canvas board and gave it a coat of neutral paint before heat embossing Tim Holtz's background lattice stamp.

Next I took my tissue paper and built up a texture border and left to dry.

Once dry I added a watery wash of blue paint - mmmm not quite the result I was after!

Dry brushed in black around the border....

Still wasn't happy with this but continued and added random stamping to the centre of the panel masking off the area the die cut circle would be.

I die cut about 8 Seth Apter Drip Drop's and adhered 6 together and 2 together. I also cut a circle of acetate to fit the centre.

I embossed this with a folder.

Forgot some photos here - I painted the drip drop dies in black paint and heat embossed some frantage and gold embossing powder. Once dry I adhered the acetate between the 2 sections.

I then began placing it all together and realised it needed more gold - so reached for the gilding wax.

A few close ups to finish... The stars are below the acetate layer.

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Before we leave this journey let's recap the stops along the way:

Jennie

Sandy

Astrid

Sara Emily

Friday see's the start of a new challenge here at A Vintage Journey. 

Once again, a happy New Year from us all - may it be a creative and happy one.

Nikki

Addicted to Art

Final Tag Friday of 2017

Welcome to Tag Friday! A few times a year we have 5 Fridays in a challenge month, meaning we get to hold our Anything Goes Tag Friday, and December is one of those months this year. 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...

Jennie

I decided to re-acquaint myself with my fabulous collection of dies, some of which I use all the time and others I completely forget about! I also wanted to use this fabulous quote along with some coffee stained papers sitting on my desk.  Do join me over at Live the Dream if you would like to find out more.

Alison

Since we're not even halfway through the 12 Days of Christmas yet, I make no apology for offering up a festive tag.  In fact, this tag is doing double duty - it's also my final tag for the Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas challenge... and the closing date is today!  Do come and visit Words and Pictures if you'd like to see all the details of this "leftovers" creation.  

Astrid

Having kept all my Christmas cards flat for posting, I had great fun adding some embellishments to this wintry Tim Holtz Etc. tag. It's the small size, but still huge... If you want to see how it came together, please come and visit.

Anne

I had a set of ice skates left over from another project so I used them, together with one of Alison Bomber's wonderful sentiment stamps, to create a simple wintry tag.  You can see more over on my BLOG.

Julia

I was ready to move past the holidays and even the winter season for the moment and created an encouraging tag with a sentiment stamp from one of our own Alison Bomber's stamp sets,  creating my background using the 'Cling Wrap Technique' which you can learn all about on my blog post here!

Autumn

After making many a Christmas tag, I decided to turn my thoughts towards a New Year's celebratory tag, filled with stars and glittery accents.  Happy New Year to you and thanks for your visits to my blog SewPaperPaint throughout 2017. 

Amanda 

My original design for my tag background didn't quite go as planned and it was destined for only one place - the bin! That is until the white paint and brayer that were sat on my desk caught my eye .......! Thanks to them the 'bin worthy' background was transformed and along with Seth Apters dies, stamps and woodchips  made into the tag I share today over on my blog. Please feel free to pop by for more details.

Sara Emily

What started out as a mop up from cleaning my stencil turned into a icy winter scene with the help of some die cuts and a few new Christmas gifts. This tag proves there are two sides to every story. Thank you for all your support  in 2017 both here at A Vintage Journey and at my blog, sarascloset. Happy New Year!

Deb

For our last Tag Friday of 2017, I decided to embrace the new Pantone Color Of The Year 2018, Ultra Violet, and created a tag with multiple Distress products in various shades of purple.  Think a touch of the next upcoming holiday, Valentine's Day, may have crept in there too!  Hope you can stop by my blog for my how to and Happy New Year everyone!

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That's all from us in 2017 - though you've still got just a few days to join in with Sandy's lovely Winter Wonderland challenge - so we'll wish you a very Happy New Year right now.

We'll see you soon in 2018 for some more challenges on our Vintage Journey.  Greetings and good wishes to all our amazing followers and players from around the world.  We love having you on board for the journey, and enjoying your creative explorations as you play along with the challenges here.  Happy 2018 everybody!

Alison and the Creative Guides xx

Destination Inspiration--Pulling in at Terminal Four!

Merry Christmas! It's Sara Emily here with you today to guide you through the 4th stop on this month's creative journey. Each Creative Guide is using the same four items in our travel bag. To review, we are using the following ingredients:

Product: Tissue Paper

Technique: Embossing (dry or heat)

Color: Silver or Gold

Substrate: Acetate

Since it's Christmas day, I could see nothing more fitting than a Nativity scene, so we can all focus on the real reason behind this wonderful day.

You can see how my talented teammates Jennie, Sandy, and Astrid used these same ingredients by clicking on their names. Like my teammates before me, I had to do a little finagling. Usually I start with my substrate, but like the others, my acetate was something to be added to bring the piece together in the end.

I started with this gift box with the cheapo gift still in it. I picked it up at a yard sale for 25 cents, not for the paperweight inside, but for the box, knowing I would need it for this post. First I did my best to clean up the acetate sleeve that slides off the box; it had a number of stickers on it. Next I gave the cardboard box several coats of gesso.

I colored the back, "ceiling", front and sides with Distress paints, spritzing with water to blend and fade. I think I used Faded Jeans in addition to the Tumbled Glass pictured above. I didn't take too much care on the back and sides because I knew they would be covered in tissue, nor did I paint the inside back wall, since that would be completely covered with paper.

Then using Distress Collage Medium,  I adhered printed tissue paper I saved from a package my teammate and good friend, Anne (Redanne) sent me last year. Thank you, Anne! Once dry, I trimmed and sanded for a timeworn look.

For the inside walls of my tiny box, I stenciled stars on Tim's plain tissue wrap using Prima clear crackle texture paste. When dry, I highlighted the stars with Brushed Pewter (silver) Distress crayon and adhered the tissue to the walls.

While the tissue wrap was out, I stamped a Bible verse which I adhered to the bottom ledge.

Back to the inside, I built my scene, using the snow fall die from Winter Wonderland Thinlits, with silver Deco Sheets to back it. I die cut some trees using the Treeline Thinlits die, and colored a portion of them and the background with Distress Oxides. I added some snow to the foremost trees using collage medium and Clear Rock Candy glitter.  To make the treelines appear more dimensional, I used scraps of foam core between the layers. Multi medium matte is my go to glue for adhering all these little details.

Now it was time to make my manger. I used an Impression Obsession die set and black card and cut a second manger from fun foam. I wanted baby Jesus to stand out and be given importance, so I cut a half circle of card covered with a scrap of gold Deco Sheet. I die cut the Star of Bethlehem from the same card. Additional color is from alcohol ink. Everything was adhered to my acetate substrate fussy cut from waste packaging. I scored the acetate at the bottom and folded. This bottom portion serves as a stand for the manger scene. After adhering the manger to the "floor" of the box, I smudged on Grit paste and sprinkled with Clear Rock Candy glitter to hide the workings and to add some snow.

To finish, I die cut "Noel" (Vintage Tidings) and a snowflake from the Mini Paper Snowflakes Thinlits sets. I colored them with  Distress paint; Noel with Brushed Pewter and the snowflake with Tumbled Glass. While the paint was wet, I sprinkled with Emerald Creek's Fractured Ice embossing powder, then heated. The two embossed (technique) die cuts were adhered to the acetate sleeve, and I slid this over the completed box.

One more look at the completed vignette box. I realized when finished this would have been really sweet as a shaker box, but if I did that I would have had to glue my box shut. Since I was planning on sliding a gift card into the back, I couldn't do that, so perhaps on the next one...

Wishing you all a joyful Merry Christmas day today! Please join us again next Monday when our 5th teammate will thrill you with her creation using these same four art ingredients. In the meantime, there is still time to enter our current challenge Winter Wonderland!

Hugs and Blessings!

Sara Emily