Holly Jolly Christmas for a Vintage Journey

Hello friends, believe it or not, - I am back again with another project for A Vintage Journey, this time for our December challenge. But first of all let me start by wishing you Happy December, and may this month be peaceful for you and not too stressfull.

Most of my crafting time is spent making Christmas cards, and so I thought I would share one of them with you here for my challenge project.

It is a DL size card base. I inked around the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and then adhered a piece of old music paper which I had in my stash.

Next I embellished with various old and new Tim Holtz dies. I am really into using dies for my cards this year, as they are not too bulky, even if you layer them like I have done here, - and so are easy to post.

I coloured the die-cuts with a mix of inks and some subtle shading with a pencil as you can see on the deer below.

The sentiment was computer generated.

I made a whole sheet of these which I will attach as a freebie below, in case you would like to use them for your own cards.#

Well, that's it, a pretty quick and easy card, specially if you do your die cutting in advance. I spent a happy afternoon doing so, and now I have a whole stash of them to use for my cards.

Below the freebie:

Don't forget to have a look on the A Vintage Journey blog for a ton of inspiration from my teamies, and of course we hope you will play along with our challenge.

Thanks for your visit like always and happy crafting

xxxxx

Tag Friday at a Vintage Journey

Hello dear visitors to this poor neglected blog.... It's been weeks and weeks since I last posted, but today it is a 5th Friday in a month, and that means it is tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey, when some of us Creative Guides share some tags we have made, and you are warmly invited to share one of yours. So here first of all is my tag:

I decided to make this tag part of a little gift for a friend, so I made a little folder for it to fit inside:

But before telling you more about the folder, a bit more detail on the tag:
The background was created with a gelli print and then further enhanced with inks and sprays.

I then did some background stamping with white gesso and finally stencilled the words through one of Tim Holtz's layering stencils using the Picket Fence Distress crayon. The focal image of the vintage Santa I found on the internet many years ago and have used in previous years on some of my freebies.

Now for the folder I took a piece of 12 by 12 card, trimmed it to just a bit higher than the tag, and scored as you can see from the inside of the folder, to make 3 panels, with a quarter inch score between so it folds easily.

Each of the panels was covered with some blue paper that I created in Photoshop elements and then printed. Like I usally do, I then added some background stamping, inking and stencilling.The pocket was made with a spare bit of card covered with more of the papers and finished with some lace trim.. The left side panel was enhanced with die cuts and a vintage image I puchased on Etsy.
If you are interested, just click the link to find the shop.

 The front of the folder was finsihed with an image from the same set.

And here finally you can see the back of the folder:

Well, that's it for today, but before I leave I want to apologize for the quality of the photos, the light here has been terrible, and my camera isn't the best anymore...

Do check out the fabulous tags my teamies have created over at A Vintage Journey and we would love it if you share a tag you have made.

Thanks for visiting today,

xxxxx

Tag Friday at a Vintage Journey

Hello all, hope you are doing well.
It's the last Friday of the month in a month where there are 5 Fridays, so that means the Creative Guides at A Vintage Journey are sharing tags and everyone is invited to join in.
I decided to go shabby chic this time and used some tea dyed stuff, in keeping with our monthly theme.

Below a quick step out of how it came together:
1. Take a size 10 tag, and paint it with some strong tea, then add some gesso with an old credit card.

2. Add some background stamping with different brown tones of ink, also ink around the edges using Tea Dye and Gathered Twigs Distress Inks.

3. Create a little pocket, using a scrap of card, coloured in the same way.

4. Add some stamping, inking, lace and fibres to your pocket and attach it to your tag.

5. Create a second tag to put into the pocket, (I used a recently purchased punch to cut mine) and again colour and stamp to match the larger tag and decorate with some washi, lace and home made emphemera.

6. Finally create some further smaller ephemera pieces to also tuck inside the pocket, and you are done.

This project was inspired by the wonderful Arty Maze.
She has a fabulous Youtube channel, full of tutorials and process videos, as well as a wonderful Etsy store where she sells downloadable journal kits, one of which I used for some of the additional embellishments you can see in the photo below:

Well, that's it for now, thank you so much for your visit and do check out the tags my fabulous teamies have created HERE, and if you love tags like we do, do share your tags with us!!!

xxxxx

A Cup of Tea for A Vintage Journey

Hello all and welcome, happy August to you all! It's the first Friday of the month and that means the start of a new challenge over at A Vintage Journey. The lovely Jennie is hosting this month and has chosen the theme A Cup of Tea. This is what she has to say about her challenge:
Pour yourself an extra cup of tea 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.
I had super fun making my project, here it is:

It's is little folder, made out of two tea dyed envelopes. It has pockets inside and will be filled with some home made tags and ephemera to be sent to a pen friend who is also into vintage journaling, like I am.

The two envelopes were simply slotted into each other as you can see below:

You then glue the remaining flap on the other side, - simple...

I then gathered some vintage style papers, mostly digital downloads from various Etsy shops and had fun creating the cover, inside pages and ephemera. I'll let the photos tell the story:

Here for the front cover I created a collage from a piece of tea dyed paper, some stamping, die cuts, washi tape and a wax seal.

I created a closure from a punched tag, attached to the back, folded around and then it closes with a couple of magnets.

                                                  The inside pages were created in a similar way

I printed the pages on lightly tea dyed paper and then deepened the colour still further with a little sponge dipped in a cup of very strong tea. I also did use Distress Inks throughout though to age the edges of my papers.

The lace at the bottom was also dyed in the same cup of tea

Here you can hopefully see some of the tea splatters which I added by dipping a brush into the cup.

Next I created and envelope that will be tucked inside one of the pockets and will be filled with little tags and other ephemera, all using tea dyed paper.

The front of the envelope

And here finally is a closer look at some of the ephemera and tags.

Well, that's it from me for now, I am usually more of a coffee drinker, but had great fun using my tea in this way. Thank you Jennie for this great challenge! And of course, like always, do make sure to check out the fabulous projects my teamies have created, hopefully you will feel inspired to brew a cuppa or two and join us for the challenge!

Thanks for visiting here today. I'll be on holiday in Germany when this post goes live, and I very much hope you will have a good summer as well. And if you are in the Southern Hemisphere, well then you know that Spring will soon be around the corner...

xxxxx

 

Christmas in July...

Hello friends, hope life is treating you well. I was recently contacted by Hunky Dory Craft and they sent me an enormous parcel of their latest Christmas products, so today I am featuring a project using some of them.

Let me start by explaining what I was sent and what I made: My parcel contained two of their brand new Christmas collections:the Christmas In Style Luxury Topper Collection and the A Wonderful Wintertime Luxury Topper Collection also included was a pack of 6 x 6 Christmas papers.
The topper collections are huge, including not only toppers but also fabulous card stock in matching patterns.

Now, to be honest, I am not really a cardmaker, and though I do usually make my own Christmas cards, I would never use ready made toppers really, - so what to do with all those amazing glittery goodies? I mulled it over for a while and then decided that my best option would be to get out my gesso, inks etc, and create a vintage style Christmas planner.
Above first of all, the cover, made from one of the A4 fabulous card stock pieces that are part of the collection. This is incredibly strong card (my guess is 360gms) so perfect for a cover. I inked and aged it and then decorated it with some of the images from the paper collection. The album itself was made from ordinary card stock using a simple 3 stitch binding. Each page was then decorated with elements from the card and paper collections and my own style added with the help of stencils, book pages, background stamping and washi tapes etc. But enough of the epxlanations, below you can see the results of the first part of the planner:

A close up from one of the images from the paper collection.

Day 1 and 2 and on the left one of the paper collection images, (you get 5 of each paper)

As you can see this is the 12 days of Christmas, I punched out the individual images to decorate each of my pages.

A couple more close ups to show how I used the various toppers and images.

And then below the following pages with further close ups.

 

Well, there you have it, the first 12 days of December and the first half of my planner. As this post is now well and truly long enough, I may share the rest of the planner on another day.

Meanwhile, thanks for your visit like always, and let's just remember, it's never too early to plan for Christmas....

Do check out the amazing Christmas collections on the Hunky Dory site there is plenty to choose from, no matter what your style!

xxxxx