Tag Friday for A Vintage Journey

Hello friends and welcome, thank you for visiting today.
It is the last Friday of the month and that means it is Tag Friday at A Vintage Journey, when the Creative Guides share some tags they have made, just for fun.

I decided to make a tag that would fit inside a pocket that I can stick into one of my journals. It is made from old book pages. I found this idea on Youtube and will give you the link, this will be much easier than me trying to write a long tutorial. Of course I gave it my own twist, so below a few details:

The background to the tag was created with some rice paper by Stamperia. I stitched all around it and then decorated with a die cut by Tim Holtz and some fussy cut elements from some Etsy down loads I had in my stash. The lovely butterfly is from a junk journal kit by Artymaze.

The little birds were cut from a postcard from a set by The Old Design Shop.

The pocket was made in a similar way. The background was another piece of the rice paper and then I decorated with various die cuts again. Sorry I cannot remember who made the various dies.

I added some gold foiling to the fern die with the help of a glue stick and some foil paper from Pebeo. (hard to see on the photo) and finished with some old postage stamps on both the tag and the pocket.

Here you can see still how the tag fits inside the pocket. I left the back undecorated as it will get glued down anyway.

Well, that's it for now. If you would like some more tag inspiration, do head over to A Vintage Journey, and if you like making tags yourself, do share them with us, there is a link at the bottom of the post there.

Thank you for visiting here today and have a wonderful month of February when it comes.

xxxxx

Fly Free, - Mixed Media BeginnersTutorial

Hello friends, thanks for dropping by.
It's been a while since I have popped in here to share a full tutorial, but just for a change, here goes:

I think regulars know by now how much I love creating journals. Well today I will just share in detail how I made the cover of this one. My lovely Instagram friend Emilia, better known as Varalusikka, who recently invited me to join her design team, asked me if I would create a mixed media tutorial. (For those of you not on Instagram, she has a fabulous shop Paper Garden Finland) So here you go, starting from scratch:

1. Take a piece of strong card, - I took a piece of 12 x 12, to make like a kind of master board, and gather some old scraps of book pages, ephemera etc. (you could also use bits of scrapbook paper)

2. Next tear them into smaller pieces and adhere them to your substrate. While in the process I decided to also add some scraps of a paper napkin and some bits of lace. It does not really matter if there are some gaps here and there. I used just ordinary PVA glue for this, thinned down with a bit of water.

3. Next take a wide soft brush and some gesso. Using either a craftsheet or some kitchen roll, put a blob of gesso on there and then pick some up with your wide brush, and very lightly go right over the whole piece, but making sure the layer underneath is still visible. This is a bit like dry brushing. From the photo above it looks perhaps as if there is not much difference, but trust me there is, - the gesso really brings out the textures.

4. At this point I decided to cover the whole piece with a coat of clear gesso, this does not change the look at all, as it dries completely clear, but it gives everything a coating which protects it for any further inking or spraying you may want to do. As it turned out in the end I did not do too much of that, but it basically stops ink and spray soaking right into the paper, so also makes it easier to remove, if you want to lighten things up a bit.
5. Let everything dry thoroughly and then cut your piece to the size you want it. As I wanted my piece as a cover for an A5 journal, I kept the 12" width but cut a piece to 21 cm high.

6. I then scored 5 3/4" (14.5 cm) from each side, which left me 1/2" (1.5 cm) for the spine.

7. Here you see just the front. Time to start to decorate. I inked lightly around the edges, using a Vintage Photo distress crayon, which on the gessoed background is really easy to smudge out. I also added a few strips of washi tape and some light background stamping in black Stazon.
8. Create a focal point for your journal. I decided to make a shabby cluster, these are brilliant to use up all kinds of scraps and can be used both on journal covers or inside a junk journal. They are great fun to make, and easy.

Here are some of the scraps I used, some corrugated card, part of a tea dyed doily, some lace, cheese cloth etc.

I gave my corrugated card a quick layer of gesso, this is really the substrate of the cluster, and then glued some of my bits and pieces on top/ I always use 3-in-1 glue, it dries quickly and clear, but you could use any strong kind of glue or a glue gun.

Here is the finished cluster, you could finish them in all sorts of ways of course, this time I decided to add a butterfly, an old pen nib, some bling and a little sentiment.

And here finally is the finished cover, ready to have the inside pages sewn in, but that may be for another post.

Well, that's it for now, if you are still with me, thank you, hope you will have the chance to have some mixed media fun yourself soon and happy creating!

xxxxx

Happy New Year & We are all Getting Older for A Vintage Journey

Hello everyone and let me start by wishing you all the most wonderful, happy and creative New Year.
It's the first Friday of the month and that means a new challenge is starting at A Vintage Journey, hosted this month by the wonderful Alison from Words and Pictures, who I am sure is well known to most of you.

She chose the theme "We Are All Getting Older" and this is what she had to say about her challenge:


Time for weathering and distressing, or some ageing and antiqueing. Make a project using techniques for making the new look old, whether that's paper projects, altered art or mixed media. Just remember to ensure that you create in one of our preferred styles of vintage, shabby,mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

Well I decided to make a Midory sized notebook/journal in vintage junk journal style, but with plenty of space for actual journaling. So let me take you on a little tour of how I created the cover first of all and then what is inside:
The cover was made from a piece of very old 8 x 8 scrapbook paper. I collaged several elements, labels, diecuts, dried flowers and a wax seal, inked the edges and then sewed around them for extra strength when opening and closing the journal.

The closure is made with a large brad and some hat elastic and the handy thing is, that as the journal gets fatter it can also be closed lenthwise as you can see from the photo below.

The inside pages are a mix of tea and coffee died papers, textured papers etc, sewn together with a simple pamphlet stitch. In total there are 24 double pages, with numerous pockets, belly bands, tuck spots etc. I will take you on a little photo tour without too much explanation as I think the images will speak for themselves.

Pages are only minimally decorated with some stenciling and stamping to leave plenty of room for writing.

I designed most of the graphics used in the pockets and journaling cards myself in Photoshop Elements, making use of some of the wonderful images from the Graphics Fairy etc.

I have tried to give the whole journal a kind of wintery feel, with some nature inspired elements included also.

There are many more pages still, but this will have given you some idea of what is inside, so I will finish with a close up of some of the journaling cards and tags etc. I made still.

Well, there you have it. Do hop over to A Vintage Journey, if you have not already done so, to see what my talented teamies have created and if you feel inspired by our theme this month, we would love to see what you create!

Thank you for your visit today and happy creating!

xxxxx