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).

Monday, 13 April 2015

Destination Inspiration - April Route 2 - A Collection of Three

Hi, it's Brenda here with my DI piece for you today. The lovely Anne started us off last week with her interpretation of combining the four chosen components together for a project and of course I've used the same four - 
Product - Distress Paint
Substrate - Canvas
Technique - Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC3C Book, page 65)
Colour  -  Picket Fence


I have chosen to reverse my canvas and work on the back of it as it is more like a shadowbox and I love the depth it creates.


My canvas is 25 x 30 cms and I cut a piece of prepared canvas material (to fit in the reverse side) on which to create my background. (I buy canvas pads to do this). 
Sand over the surface of the canvas mat with a sanding block to distress the background area. 
Apply distress paints to your craft mat – dried marigold, victorian velvet & evergreen bough and spritz with water. Also spritz your piece of canvas and dip it into the paints to create a marbled effect. Heat dry. 
Take picket fence distress paint, apply it to your craft mat and again spritz with water, dip the canvas in to create some mottled patches and dry. Later you will see the lovely mottled effects that are created by starting with a base layer of the paints first.


Use light modelling paste and apply through a stencil to create a design. Leave to dry. 
Spritz with distress spays – tea dye, evergreen bough & tattered rose. Heat dry. You can see the mottled white showing through as the picket fence paint has acted as a resist. 


Place the stencil over the design again and dab picket fence distress paint over some of the texture paste pattern to bring it back to pure white again and leaving some with the colour absorbed. This gives another great mottled effect on the texture. 



Take the canvas and paint the wood that is showing with white gesso and then cover the edges with Tim’s tissue wrap. 



Layered Butterfly 
Die-cut and emboss Tim’s layered butterfly. Take your colour of choice from a set of oil pastels and colour all the embossed (raised) parts. (I even got into blending colours using a cotton bud). 


Dip it into a wash of dried marigold distress paint, blot and dry it and then spray with tea dye distress spray. When dry take the evergreen bough and spray a small amount onto your craft mat and spritze it quite heavily with water to get a more watery tone, then dip the wings into it and dry it. 


Finish by inking the edges lightly with walnut stain and then spraying with a gloss sealer to give the colours more pop and shine.


Cut two smaller butterflies from Tim's butterfly duo die and give them the same treatment, strange how the darker one looks so different in style.




Grungepaper Flowers 
I followed Tim’s instructions on P.65 of the CoC 1 to make the petals and then of course I followed my own route. 
When you have made up the flowers dip the petals in spritzed picket fence distress paint and dry. 


To get some colour on them I dipped them in both mustard seed and evergreen bough stains that had been spritzed with water and left them to dry. Next I dipped them in dried marigold distress paint – again spritzed with water on my craft mat. 
Then sand the edges and blend in walnut stain distress ink. 


Put the petal layers together with Tim brads or metal flowers with distress paints daubed over them. 


18. Dab picket fence distress paint onto a word band and gently wipe the paint off with your fingers leaving the colour to remain in the recessed letters. Dab the edges with potting soil archival ink pad.


19. Now start to assemble the canvas – dab picket fence distress paint over the tissue wrapped frame, spritz it and wipe some away from the words and adhere the background into the recess.



20. Gather some elements together to create some interest and dimension on the background collage and adhere these to the back. I added some shapes from die-cuts of the trellis frameworks die and I took a metal number 3 painted it with gesso and when dry gave it a thick coat of picket fence distress crackle paint. I don't think I made the gesso coat thick enough as the crackle began to flake away but I added some evergreen bough distress paint and then some gathered twigs distress stain, spritzed it with water and dried it off, then gave it two coats of thick clear embossing powder. This has sealed it and will now prevent the crackle paint coming off any more. I rather like the distressed fell to the finish.


21. I took a small wooden bird and a chipboard frame from my box, painted them with white gesso and blended tea dye and walnut stain distress ink over them and I also stamped some text onto them. 


The frame is going to help hold the flowers. (I wired it so the flowers can sit over it easily).


Some rafia .......


.....  the die-cut shapes .....


.... add some remnant rubs ..... 



.... and some wired paper to the flower collection.


.... and the reverse canvas has come together.



Look how neat the flowers sit over the corner raised up on the frame I added.


Well done if you've managed to read this far .....


.... I hope you have enjoyed seeing my interpretation of the four chosen components coming together.


Thanks for stopping by.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx


Friday, 10 April 2015

Special guest and Birthday winners

Roll up, roll up it's a very special winners post today as we share a special project from one of our previous winners and we announce the winners and pinworthy choices from our special birthday challenge - oooh bet you can't wait.

Our special guest today is Zoe from IGirlZoe and I do recommend you pop over to her wonderful crafty space to not only see this fabulous project but also her other creations.


Hello, I’m Zoe and I’m delighted to be a guest blogger today at A Vintage Journey.


I am British and live in Geneva, Switzerland with my husband Neil. I moved here 7 years ago after Neil, who I hadn't seen for 18 years, contacted me through facebook. I came to Switzerland to visit him for a week and never went home! I miss England, especially my friends and family and things like hot cross buns, the cinema without French subtitles and the British sense of humour, but I do love living here. We are fortunate enough to spend many of our weekends in the Swiss mountains above Gruyere which I photograph and share on instagram. Our hobbies work very well together, he builds websites which requires only a computer leaving me plenty of room for my craft hobby! ;)

My second love affair started about 5 years ago after picking up Tim Holtz’s Compendium of Curiosities book. I love Tim's style, he's such a talented designer and great educator. I have taken both of his online Creative Chemistry classes and was lucky enough to attend his UK class a couple of years ago, where I got to meet Mario, (one of my other favourite people). I am utterly obsessed with distress... the inks, paints, pens, sprays, stains, alcohol inks. I'm never happier than when I have inky fingers.


I really enjoy being part of the online craft community and love social media. I have a blog igirlzoe.com, an instagram account and an active facebook group for Tim Holtz addicts, (to celebrate the addiction... there’s no known recovery)!


As soon as I saw the theme that Julia had set, I was really excited! I love Alice in Wonderland and couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I saw a great Through the Looking Glass book illustration on pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/189643834281647771/) and immediately thought of Tim's ornate frame die. I rifled through my Tim Holtz treasure looking for things that would fit around this idea and that looked Alice-ish.


I have just received Tim Holtz’s new idea-ology tiny vials and had to use them. I covered the vials with multi medium matte and then distress crackle paint. Once dry I dripped alcohol inks over them. The tiny labels I die cut and wrote "Drink me", inked the edges with vintage photo distress ink and tied to the vials with hemp string, also brushed with some vintage photo distress ink.


I continued with the crackle glazed look by adding picket fence distress crackle paint to the floor as well as the outside top and sides of the configuration box. I used clear rock candy distress crackle paint on the light bulbs and mirror.

Thanks so much for taking the time to look at my project. You can see additional photos of project on my blog http://www.igirlzoe.com/4635/vintage-journey.html




Thank you Zoe for creating such a very special project for us with  our current challenge theme, you have included so many wonderful details and a most fabulous shadow box for us to drool over. I can't wait to pop over and see more details.  In fact Zoe we congratulate you also for being a guest designer at Ranger this week and for anyone who would like to see what Zoe has made for her other guest spot you will find a link on her blog and a photo of a most fabulous mixed media collage. Love it Zoe.




Well after such a fabulous lead into our winners today, we are now ready to announce the winners of all the prizes available. Remember this was our special birthday challenge and we had 84 amazing entries, so Random Org and the Creative Guides have helped me choose who those lucky people are.

Firstly our regular winner each month will get a £20 gift voucher from our fabulous sponsors at Country View Crafts and the winner for March is ............


#39 is Samra from Paper Talk with Samra who created a fabulous birthday book box for us.


Congratulations Samra, you will receive your voucher and a winners badge by email very soon and your project will be pinned on our special winners Pinterest board.

Because our March challenge was also our first birthday challenge we had some extra prizes to give away and these are for our chosen Pinworthy Mentions.

The first Pinworthy prize which includes a signed copy of Tim's Compendium of Curiosities III and some other goodies donated by Chris and myself has been won by -


#45 that crazy chic





The second Pinworthy prize includes a signed set of Tim's Perspective stamps and again some goodies from Chris and I and has been won by -


#8 Tracy Evans





The third Pinworthy prize includes a Tim signed Ranger apron and some goodies again from Chris and I and has been won by -


#11 Crafty Creations



Congratulations to all three Pinwothies, you will be receiving an email soon with your special Pinworthy badge and if you reply to it with your snail mail address I will get these goodies in the post to you as soon as possible. Your projects will also be pinned on our special Pinworthies Pinterest board.



Last but not least our lovely Creative Guide Anne donated a special collection of a Compendium of Curiosities 2 with some sample products for someone who left a comment on the challenge post and Random Org has chosen ........

#27 is Suzanne C from Suzz's Stamping Spot

Congratulations Suzz, if you could email me your address I will arrange for this to be sent out to you as soon as possible.


Wow what an amazing month March was with so many wonderful creations entered into the challenge. We hope you enjoyed seeing all the winners today and we hope that now we have a monthly theme you will stay with us and enter Julia's fabulous 'Through the Looking Glass' challenge - she and the Creative Guides have given you lots of ideas of where you could take this amazing idea.

I have recently been asked if you have to use Tim Holtz products to enter our challenges and the answer is 'NO' but we do require some sort of Tim inspiration and that could be use a tag (Tim's most favourite substrate on which to create his art), it could be one of his techniques (there are many on his blog, in his books and on You Tube etc) or it might be take one of his projects and use it to create your own piece, We also prefer to see your projects in the vintage, shabby, mixed media, journaling styles - but that could be a card, an album, a scrapbook page, a journal, a 3D project or in fact whatever you like and if you want to make sure you will be considered for the prize why not tell us what your inspiration was. In many cases it will be obvious but not always. So have some fun, come and join us on our Vintage Journey and show us what you like to make.

Have a great weekend and thanks for sharing some time with us.

hugs Brenda and the Creative Guides. xxx


Monday, 6 April 2015

Destination Inspiration - April Recipe # 1

Hello Everyone, Anne (Redanne) here to kick off the second month of our new look Destination Inspiration (DI) posts.   We will be posting four posts, on Mondays each month, using four ingredients chosen by four of our Creative Guides (DT).  The recipe for April is:

Product - Distress Paint
Substrate - Canvas
Technique - Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC3C Book, page 65)
Colour  -  Picket Fence

Hmm, I thought, grungepaper flowers and canvas?  But this is part of the fun and where, hopefully you will see four very different projects by each of the four Creative Guides.
My oldest and dearest friend has been through a very traumatic time recently and she is about to celebrate a very special birthday so I decided to create a small canvas for her.  She is not a 'grunge' girl so kept the colours fairly neutral.
The base is a 5" x 7" stretched canvas.
The canvas was painted quite randomly with Mowed Lawn and Peacock Feather Distress Paint and allowed to dry.
A layer of Crackle Medium was applied, followed (when dry) with a good coat of Picket Fence Distress Paint.
I love the look of the Picket Fence over the colours underneath, and those wonderful cracks.  It almost seems a shame to cover them up.
Next I gathered what I needed to create my flowers - Grungepaper, Tissue paper, Glue N' Seal, Tattered Floral dies, Distress paint and Distress Crackle Paint. You can see how the flowers were made and assembled in Tim's Compendium of Curiosities II, page 65.
The flowers were finished off with some stamens from my stash.  I went over the petals with a light dry brushing of Picket Fence Distress Paint to tone down the Picked Raspberry colour.  It settled nicely into the cracks left by the Distress Crackle Paint.
I also die cut some leaves from the Garden Greens die and some of the beautiful lattice shape from the Mixed Media set of dies.
I love this image of the two girls from Tim's Found Relatives.  I cut the picture down and die cut three squares from Core'dinations cardstock, mounted the picture and then edged each of the squares with Picket Fence Distress Paint.
And here is the assembled piece once again.  I added a big chat sticker to finish the canvas off.
We hope you will come back next Monday to see what the next Creative Guide has created with the same four ingredients.  We also hope you will join in this month's challenge, set by our lovely CG Julia - Through the Looking Glass, which you can find HERE.
Thanks so much for joining us today!  Hugs, Anne xx

Friday, 3 April 2015

Through the Looking Glass

Welcome to the A Vintage Journey April Challenge!  I am the hostess this month
and my challenge for everyone is -  Through the Looking Glass . 

Let's make a project involving glass (acetate?) or mirrors (metal sheet?), perhaps a window or a clock face, a hand held mirror or glass bottle.  Tim has lots of Idea-ology products and dies that would be just the thing for this challenge.

We are a Tim Holtz inspired blog.  However, you do not have to use Tim Holtz or Ranger products (although we love when you do!).  Just let us know how you were influenced by Tim's style when you write up your blog post for your project.

Following are some very lovely and creative projects by the AVJ Creative Guides to inspire you!  First up is my 'Through the Looking Glass' project.

I started out my project just making the hand held mirror using Tim's Die and Distress Stains and Idea-ology pieces as a creative Birthday card for my Grandniece who is turning 1 this month -  then I decided I needed something to lay the mirror on - so I created this little bureau (with a mirror on it!) using 4 more of Tim's dies.  You will find more pictures than you really care to see and details on how I created both of these on my blog post here!

Whilst browsing through Pinterest (anyone else lose hours doing that?!!!) I came across a set of boards from Savvy City Farmer which included antique furniture and mirrors. The cogs started whirring and, in one of those 'what if' moments, I came up with an idea for ageing a Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Mirrored Sheet. Find out more about it on my blog.
 
Nikki
I decided to make a mini picture frame using the postage stamp die and acetate for my 'glass' front.
I had great fun with paints, texture paste, embossing powder, mixed media thinlets and lots more. There are more details over at Addicted to Art today.
 
Terry
I so loved the challenge Julia gave us and took the challenge quite literally! Using a few Tim elements all about looking through or at! My inspiration was in fact that I need to make an eye appointment, so it just went from there! For all the details, please visit me HERE.

Anne 
My lovely teamie, Terry and I had the same thoughts, following a visit to the Optician! I have used similar techniques to Tim's March tag, using stains rather than paints. Please visit my blog if you would like to see more.

What a fabulous theme from Julia! I headed for the acetate (piles and piles of hoarded packaging waiting to be used) and created some glass bottles with the Apothecary Bottles die. I used a combination of crackle and gloss glazes to create dimensional "glass", and I'm really pleased with the finished effect. Do hop over to Words and Pictures to see some close-ups!

I just did not know which 'rabbit hole' to travel down with Julia's fantastical challenge theme for April. Do I make some Apothecary Bottles? Do I use a facet or a monocle somehow? What about my corked vials and domes? I ended up taking a more literal route and created a window, that was once painted over, for this rustic little beach hut. Please stop by  my blog for more details.

I loved the challenge of Julia's theme for April, it really got me thinking in all sorts of directions. In the end I opted for an 'open' wooden picture frame (it doesn't have a back to it) creating one of my A34 (Artist 3x4s) using Tim's papers and his ephemera. I bought a roll of transparent film to adhere it under the glass then stamped the text and added the arrow over it. I love the way you can see right through it.  Please visit my blog for more details.

This is such a fabulous theme and I conjured up something "Alice in Wonderland" for me.
I had such fun recycling the packaging from some TH dies and a piece of cardboard. I am also in love with Tim Holtz new Flower Garden stamp sets and The Sizzix Die cut Butterfly Duo. For more details please visit my blog HERE

It is easy to spot Tim's influence here where we are "looking through the clock face".  It is filled to the brim with his products, techniques and colors.  I used this great quote from Bruce Lee to convey how we sometimes let time slip away while thinking about a project.  To see more details and photos please stop by my blog
My "Crafty" Life On The Internet.

Inspired by Tim's love of texture and rust, I've used his DPs and layering stencils to create the background base of my mirror before adding more for the decorations.  The details can be found here.  Chris xxx



So now it's time for you to create "Through the Looking Glass".  We look forward to seeing how you are inspired by this challenge!
The AVJ challenge is now a monthly challenge and one randomly chosen winner will receive a £20 gift voucher from our very generous sponsor, Country View Crafts. We will continue to have our Pinworthy blog badges for the Top 3, who will be chosen by the Creative Guides (DT).

You have until April 30th at 6:00 pm GMT to link up your creation!