Rusty and Crusty for A Vintage Journey

Hello friends and welcome! Have you seen the fun theme the wonderful Autumn has chosen for our April challenge at A Vintage Journey? She called it Rusty and Crusty and of course there are so many different possibilities with this theme, do check out what my talented teamies have made!
I decided to keep it clean(ish) and simple(ish) at least for me, - and this is what I made:

 As many of you know I am in Australia at the moment, so created this before I left. Unfortunately the weather was so bad that I was unable to take step out photos, so I will try and talk you through my process:
The focal stamp is from the Darkroom Door London 2 set, I stamped it using a dark brown Faber Castell Big Brushpen. I then punched out a circle using a 2" circle punch to create a mask for the moon and then created my background blending Stormy Sky and Vintage Photo Distress inks. I added a few Walnut Crystals, spritzt with water and in that way created my rusty looking background. Using a waterbrush created the moonlight falling onto the building. I then scribbled some of the brown big brush pen onto my craftmat and using the waterbrush to pick up some of the ink created some shadows around the building. I also added a few doodles with a black fineliner. When I was happy with the image I used a Spellbinders cirle die to cut it out and put it aside while I worked on my background panel.

 For this I did some subtle stencilling with the Stormy Sky ink, did some background stamping and used various old Tim Holtz rub-ons and washi tape until I was happy with the composition.

 I adhered the die cut circle to the background and then used a couple of rusted embellishments to finish it all off. The cog was rusted with good old rusting powder and some vinigar and for the pen nib I used a mix of embossing powders to give it a rusty look.

 I matted and layered on to further bits of card and then one of Tim's word stickers finished it  all off.

Well that's it from me for today. Thank you for dropping by and do check out OUR CHALLENGE to get all the details or even better, play along and show us your own rusty and crusty projects! I can't wait to see what you will make!

xxxxx

Happy Easter for Mixed Media Monthly

Hello friends, Happy Easter, hope you will have a fanatastic day if you celebrate this festival and in any case happy April!

I have created a super large (# 12) tag for the challenge and to wish you all a happy Easter! Our challenge theme this month is a colour challenge, and here is the graphic:

As you can see it is a complementary colour challenge and I decided to go with yellow and purple.

The initial background to my tag was a geli print. I then added further colours, some background stamping and I distressed the edges with a dark brown gelato.

The sentiment was computer generated, here you can also just see a little more of the original geli background. (I used a mix of Paperartsy and Decoart luid Acrylic paints, plus some stencils).

The focal thistle stamp is by Art Journey, I have had it on my wishlist forever and finally ordered it all the way from Holland. 

The rest of the tag was embellished with one of Tim Holtz's Botanical ephemera and some bits and pieces from the Prima Lavender collection.

Well, that's pretty much it, - I hope you will decide to play in our challenge and show us your colourful mixed media pieces and meanwhile check out what my teamies have made by clicking HERE, and remember if you decide to play do add our graphic to your post.

Happy creating and thanks for your visit

xxxxx

Tag wallet for Minialum Makers

Hello friends and happy April and as it is Easter today, also Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it!

I have been spending quite a bit of time playing with my Geli Plate and for this months challenge decided to create a tag wallet where I can keep  all my samples. I shall show those at the end of this post, but first let me try and explain how I made it:

For the basic structure of your wallet you will need two tags for the front and the back (I used the small size 8, but you can of course use any size).

You will also need two strips of card folded accordian style as you can see in the photo above.They need to be about half the height of your tags, and the length can be as long as you choose, depending in the number of folds you want, and how wide apart you make your folds. Mine are 1/2 inch apart,and as I have 10 slots the width was 12" to leave me some space on either side to glue to my tags, I hope the photo below makes clear how to do that.

This is the first strip, the second one goes on the other side so you land up with it looking like the photo below.

As you can see there is a gap at the end, so you should make a spine to fold around that.

My spine looks like this, but you can of course make it as wide or narrow as you want, depending on how fat you want your folder to be.

Here you can see that the gap at the bottom is now covered, - it's a good idea to keep it in place while your glue is drying with some little clips. Below you can see what it will look like from the side:

So this is the basic structure of your album. I now took two more tags and decorated them to make the front and the back. I used texture paste, stencils, inks and sprays and decorated them with flowers etc.

Here is the front:

And here the back

I used a bit of seam binding ribbon to close my wallet.

Alright, now to the little tags that fit inside:

I had great fun playing with different colour combinations and stencils put on the geli plate.

Here is a close up of a couple of them:

After I had done the basics with the help of the geli plate, I decided to work on them further with more stencils, inks and doodling, so this is what they look like now:

Most of the stamps are older Tim Holtz ones. I even took out my old sewing machine and did some messy stitching around most of them. Finally a few close ups of some of my favourites:

Alright, that's it, - thank you for staying with me through this very long post! We hope many of you will join us for our challenge again this month, all you need to do is create an album, mini or handmade book in any style. Our sponsors this month are Gypsy Soul lazercuts and you could win a fabulous prize pack! Just click HERE for all the details and to see the wonderful labums my teamies have created.

Have a wonderful month!

xxxxx