A Cup of Tea for your Art : August Challenge

Hello you all! 

Jennie (Live the Dream) here with you this month as your host and welcoming you to our new challenge. What better things in life are there than to settle down to some crafting with our favourite beverage. But what if we were to use them in our artwork (and I am not talking about wine here!). This month I am challenging you to

Pour yourself an extra cup of tea (or coffee) 

and use it in your project

In your cup you could dye lace, ribbon, wood, paper and flowers, or use it to create splashes or cup rings on your project. And don't just limit yourself to "ordinary tea" - there's green tea, yellow tea, black tea, herbal teas and fruit teas - whatever you've got in your cup!

Just remember to ensure that you create in one of our preferred styles of vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

Our fabulous Creative Guides have created some wonderful projects to inspire and delight you. Just click on the links to be taken to their individual blog pages for all the details.

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Jennie

I had a massive tea dying session and had a great time creating lots of little envelopes and collages for this vintage journal using Eileen Hull's Wrap Around Die. As your host I will be back later in the month with a project tutorial but in the meantime I have a couple of sneak peeks on my blog.

Jo

Inspired by Jennie’s fabulous challenge and some wording on a sign at a local teashop, I had fun using a cup of Hot Cinnamon Spice tea for my art journaling this month. I applied the tea using both the teabag and the teacup to create a tea-stained background. To find out more please pop over to my blog, Let’s Art Journal, to see how it all came together.

Astrid

I loved the theme of Jennie's challenge and had great fun creating a little folder for a pen friend out of two tea dyed envelopes. The pockets will be filled with little tags and ephemera, all created with the help of tea and tea dyed papers. To see how it all came together, please come by my blog.

Julia

I made a card for Jennie's delightful Cup of Tea Challenge -  taking it quite literally with my tea themed stamps.  I brushed brewed Kenyan tea over watercolor paper for my background and added a vintage lace 'table cloth' under my teapot!  You'll find more details on my blog post here.  I hope you'll stop by for tea!

Sara Emily

I was inspired by Jennie's wonderful challenge theme and a box of Harvest Spice tea in my pantry to make a card for my brother and sister in law. Not only do I have that lovely tea stain on my papers and bow, but my card smells nice, too! If you would like to see the details of my card, I welcome you to stop by my blog.

Barbara

I interpreted the fabulous Jennie's Challenge A Cup Of Tea, with a summer theme! I had much fun creating a canvas, Tea on the beach, using Tim Holtz's die Teatime in a different way! I chose a color palette inspired by the sand and the ocean! Paper Dolls are perfect to fill my Cup of Tea, hope you like this project! You can find the tutorial on my blog!

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How could you not be inspired by such wonderful projects!

We really hope that you will join us in this challenge.  The challenge begins today and remains open for entries until the 5th September. So plenty of time to get that kettle on and start creating!

Jennie x

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Creative Card making with Annie

Hi everyone x It's Annie here with you today as we head out on the last leg of July's journey with our regular "Creative Card Making" post.

Grab a cuppa  as there are quite a few photographs en route :-)

Below is the finished card, which I will use for a forthcoming birthday of a close family member x

 The card measures 8.1/4 inches by 4.5 inches and the front panel measures 4.1/4 inches by 8 inches

The papers used  are from the Time is an Illusion pad by Stamperia. I distressed the edges with Tim Holtz Distressing tool. The card was then inked with Worn Lipstick, Fossilized Amber, Broken China and Bundles Sage DIO's, which blended beautifully together. Some water  was spritzed in to my hand before flicking it on to the DOI's, before dabbing with paper towel. 

I planned to turn back the stamperia paper, therefore I stitched  on a button from my stash to ensure it remained in place. Some ribbon flowers from The Paper Garden were adhered on to the card stock.

I cut a tag out from the Stamperia papers as I wanted to write a personal message that I could place within the pocket on the front of the card. A few circles from the same papers  were cut out and adhered on to the front of the tag.

A mini doily  was adhered to the card after ageing with Vintage Photo DI. (my all time favourite x)

 You can see the tag sitting in the wee pocket. Now to adorn the front of my card.

I love the texture of this woven twine and after careful consideration adhered it using double sided tape.

 A large die cut Doily was aged with Vintage Photo and then I cut out a circle of the Stamperia papers using my 2.5 inch punch.

A piece of hessian ribbon was adhered below the mini doily, top left. One of Tim Holtz Scroll Dies was inked with Worn Lipstick DIO, then finally the large circle of Stamperia paper was applied.

Two pieces of lace from Paper Garden were subsequently adhered to the bottom of the card and along the bottom of the fold.

Using Tim Holtz punch 4 butterflies were cut out and edged with Vintage Photo DI, some Idea-ology spinners were then adhered.

 Once the glue was dry I raised the butterfly wings a little, which you can see below.

 Thank You so much for joining me today and I hope that you will be inspired to use those beautiful paper pads that we all have in our stash.

Amanda's challenge theme for this month is "Precious Metal" and there is still time to join in with us x

The challenge runs until Thursday 1st August  at 18:00 and you can find the details by clicking the link HERE. 

We love to view your entries and to leave some love on your blog so we hope you have time to hop on board.

Take Care and Happy Crafting

Annie xxx

'Precious Metal' Canvas Tutorial .

Hi Everyone and Welcome

Amanda (ink-a-pink) here to share a short tutorial for my 'Simplify Life' mixed media canvas that I created for our current challenge 'Precious Metal'. My original post can be seen here.

I will be focusing on the main creative process today. There's nothing too complicated about it and its probably something you have all done before be it intentionally or unintentionally. 

 'Paint blistering', 'Paint bubbling', 'Superheating paint' ring any bells? 

They are all terms I have heard used for this process and when done 'intentionally' its great fun and creates some fabulous texture, detail and interest. 

So lets begin....
The canvas is a 5x7 inch board canvas

Apply a couple of coats of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Paint.

Scrape white gesso onto the canvas randomly using a palette knife

Apply silver metallic paint to the canvas quite randomly and in variations of thickness using a palette knife or brush if you prefer. 

Dry the paint with a heat gun ensuring the heat is in close proximity to the paint, i.e hold the heat gun super close to the canvas. 

As the paint dries it will start to bubble and blister - you will both see it and hear it as the paint crackles when it starts to blister. The size of the paint bubbles will vary dependent on the thickness of the paint application and the heat intensity. 

Repeat the steps above with gold metallic paint. 

I was multitasking here- taking photos with one hand and working the heat gun to bubble the paint with the other! Not so easy but hope I've managed to capture some shots that give you the general idea. 

 The bubbled and blistered paint can (if you want) be popped simply by using a pin or they can be flattened using your finger -once the paint has cooled of course!! Some may pop/flatten of their own accord but that's ok as you will still retain texture albeit in a slightly flatter form. 

The next steps are optional ....

Sponge very lightly and randomly onto the textured painty surface with touches of DecoArt Quin Gold, gesso and black acrylic paint, drying between each. 

The result 

Add some stamped detail using stamps and permanent inks of your choice. 

The stamping isn't at first obvious to the viewing eye but if you look close you will see 

that its nestled within all the fabulous 'paint blistered' texture. 

I used the same creative process for the slim central panel, the only differences being I worked with Tim Holtz tarnished brass distress paint instead of gold metallic paint and smooched the card through the paint to get an initial layer of colour. 

The focal feature is what I call a piece of 'street swag'- a lucky find that I came across when I was out clocking up some steps earlier this year. It took no real creative effort at all as it was already 'well weathered' so I simply added a few light touches of paint and gilding wax before adhering it to a double mount made up of a die cut (Seth Apter Loop de Loop) and a painted ATcoin (That's Crafty) 

The canvas is embellished with some of Tim Holtz metal ideology pieces, some of which were treated to touches of metallic paint like the ruler or silver gilding wax like the game spinner. 

The words on the philosophy tag and typed token were emphasized with black soot distress crayon and together they provide the title for my canvas

'Simplify Life' .

I hope you have enjoyed your time here with me today and that maybe I have offered some 'metallic paint bubbling/ blistering ' inspiration. 

If you would like to join us in our 'Precious Metal' challenge head over to the launch post where you will find all the details you need to enter. 

We love when you share your creativity with us and are really looking forward to seeing all your entries.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend 

Take Care 

Amanda 

x

Tissue Paper Pinworthies

Hello everyone, this is Astrid here to announce our pinworthy choices from our June challenge Tissue Paper.
Like always, it was really hard to whittle it down to just 3, but needs must, so without further ado and in no particular order, here they are:

#8 Experiments in Paper

We loved the way tissue paper was used both for the cover and the inside pages of this wonderful album. The detail on all the pages is amazing!

#10 Elly's Creaties

Even though tissue paper is not the main feature in this project, we really liked this fabulous little house with all the natural elements and gorgeous textures.

#4 Suzz's Stamping Spot

The creative guides adored the super clever technique with embossing paste and tissue paper on this fabulous ornate tag. The effect achieved looks amazing!

We would like to thank all our wonderful participants for playing in our June challenge and congratulations to our amazingly talented winners, we will be sending you your AVJ Pinworthy badges to display on your blogs very soon.

There is still plenty of time to play in our current challenge Precious Metal, so do check it out to get all the details.

Thanks for stopping by like always,

Astrid and the Creative Guides

Precious Metal , July Challenge

Hello Everyone

Amanda (ink-a-pink) here to welcome and introduce you to our new challenge here at A Vintage Journey. The theme this time is

'Precious Metal'

'For this challenge we would like to see some kind of precious metal feature in your project. Think gold, silver, brass, copper, aluminium, steel.... It could be in the form of embellishments, cardstock, paint, gilding wax, foil, gold leaf or rub ons. Just remember to ensure that you create in one of our preferred styles of vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk'.

So lets take a look at the 'Precious Metal' projects some of our talented Creative Guides have created. Be sure to click on the links each Guide has provided to find out more details about the creativity behind each project.

Amanda

I have created a Grungy Mixed Media canvas for my hosting challenge that features precious metal in several forms - paints, wax, a very 'lucky find' and some ideology pieces - two of which provide the 'note to self' title -'Simplify Life'. You are very welcome to pop by my blog to see and read more.

Jo

For Amanda's wonderful Precious Metal challenge I created an art journal page using copper and silver embossing powders; I had lots of fun heat embossing them onto stencilled modelling paste, stamped letters, chipboard pieces and a die cut butterfly. Please pop over to my blog to see how it all came together.

Alison

I've created a pair of ATCs using all sorts of mediums. Much of the delight of these comes in the details of the rusty effects and patinas, and in catching the metallic gleam from different angles, so do come and join me at Words & Pictures for some cool close-ups as well as step-by-step pictures.

Toni

I was delighted when I saw Amanda's challenge for July because I just love all things metallic! For this project I've submitted to my obsession with tomato paste tubes. If you're curious to see how I've used them, hop over to my Artistic Craft Dabbler blog, and all will be revealed.

Brenda

Well, for Amanda's fabulous challenge I have gone to town on the gold but I think the lovely sunshine and warm weather we have been having here in Surrey have influenced my colour scheme completely. and I could quite easily have gone for a seaside theme. In fact the focal pieces on the background have been changed several times until I was happy with it. There are just a couple of photos and a short explanation how this came together over at Bumblebees and Butterflies today. You'd be very welcome to pop over, I would love to see you there. xxx

Barbara

I want to thank Amanda for her wonderful Precious Metal challenge! This theme is perfect for me and it works so well with some of my favorite crafty things! I adore metal! I created an Etcetera tag with a lot of hand made metal embellishments! Hope you join me on my blog Yayacrap & more, you can find the whole tutorial of this project!

Deb

For Amanda's wonderful Precious Metals challenge I decided to create a mixed media plaque that started with a base of metallic foil and then was built up from there using metallic cardstock, metallic embossing powder and metallic embellishments.  Hope you can pop by my blog for the how to!

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I'm sure you will agree our Creative Guides have shared some fabulous inspirational projects featuring 'Precious Metal.'

We would love for you to join us in this challenge as we are really looking forward to seeing your 'Precious Metal' Creativity.

At the end of the challenge the Creative Guides will choose 3 Pinworthy Winners who will each be awarded a Pinworthy badge to display on their blog and their winning projects will be pinned to our Pinterest board.

The challenge begins today and remains open for entries until 1st August 2019.

Happy Crafting Everyone 

Amanda
x

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Click here to enter