A Merry Little Christmas and a sad announcement for A Vintage Journey

Hello all and welcome.

Let me start by saying this is going to be a somewhat unusual post in more ways than one, but sometimes we have to bite the bullet, so bare with me..

This time of year usually brings us festive cheer and a focus  on seasonal projects to inspire and motivate us leading into the winter and up to Christmas. 

2020 no doubt has brought us all many different kinds of opportunities and challenges and while many people are able to enjoy their hobbies and pastimes, others have suffered greatly as we all know on so many different levels. For me and many others, what has become particularly noticeable is how we, as a creative community, seem to have changed our habits using the internet and over past months a wider use of differing social media platforms has allowed many to reach into each other's studios and meet together to learn and share our creations in a fascinating variety of distanced ways. Internet relationships for many seem not to have suffered but blossomed allowing us to diversify and explore hobbies and interests we might never have had before. Even though personally I largely boycott Facebook and Twitter as poisonous places of polarisation, I do use Instagram as many of you know, even though it is owned by Facebook. My only design team in this past year has been A Vintage Journey, and as Brenda says in her post there, "AVJ has always tried to be a place to motivate, inspire and share creations within a likeminded community, a place to teach and learn, to excite and stretch the boundaries of our imaginations. But within this new world we live in and the changes to how we interact, blogging seems to be less popular than it was. It can be a very time consuming way to 'show and tell' whilst elsewhere 'like' buttons that are quicker and easier to express our feelings enable us to move around the community in much faster ways. It is, therefore, with great sadness that we have seen fewer visits, entries and communications on our very successful blog and feel it is time to close it down and give ourselves time to see out the pandemic and watch with interest how the community relates to the changes it has brought to how we will all operate in the future".

Reading the comments here, I am adding a quick post script, I am not closing my own blog, this is about the Vintage Journey Blog and challenges only!!

As the creative guides we decided to come together for one last challenge to share small ATC creations that focus on that Christmas cheer we look forward to and some nostalgic reflection in saying goodbye.

So I will share two different ATCs created for this challenge, the first just to say goodbye to the challenges at AVJ and the second as a contribution to the "Merry Little Christmas" theme.

For this first one, I pulled out some of my Tim Holtz stash, because in the first years of AVJ we were mainly a Tim Holtz inspired challenge. I created a mixed media type background and then collaged some other elements, the "found relative" paper doll girl, to symbolise the friendships we all formed in our years designing for the challenge, my fellow creative guides there really have become like a new family of friends.

I did some stitching around the edges, added some old book page and the word create, for more than anything that's what AVJ has done over the years, encourage us to create, just for the joy of it.

I added some shadow with a Stabilo All pencil to add some more depth, and finished the collage composition with a wax seal.

For my second ATC, I again created a mixed media background, but this time added some collage elements from one of my own paper collections on Etsy

This one was finished in a very similar way. I chose the word Peace, because more than anything I hope that this Christmas, fear, anxiety and uncertainty will be replaced by some peace in people's hearts and minds.

Well, that's it for now. If you would like more detail on the challenge or feel tempted to play along for one last time, please head over to the Vintage Journey Blog, where there is of course also loads of inspiration from my teamies.

Thank you for visiting here like always, stay safe and well, and keep crafting and creating!

xxxxx

Tag Friday for A Vintage Journey

 Hello friends, - it's the last Friday of the month and that means that when it's a month with 5 Fridays, like this one, we have a Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey.

Well, tags are always fun to make and as I was making a tag to add to a journal anyway, I decided to play along.

I started by creating the leave that I wanted to use as the focal point for my tag. On some strong card I played around with my Distress Inks and Sprays until I had more or less the colour I wanted, and then I cut and embossed the leave with one of Tim Holtz's 3D Embosslets (at least I think that's what they are called).

Next I glued a couple of old book pages together to give them some strength, cut out a tag shape and then zig zagged around it with my sewing machine.

The final steps were to add some scraps of paper and other collage elements that were flying around my desk, including the leave of course and then I just inked around the edges and that was it. I'll leave you with some more photos and if you would like to get some further tag inspiration, do head over to A Vintage Journey

to see the fabulous tags my teamies have created.

Thanks for your visit, stay safe and happy crafting!

xxxxx

Altered accordion file folder for A Vintage Journey #94

 Hello lovely visitors, the first Friday of the month has come round at that means a new challenge at A Vintage Journey. Our host this month is my lovely and talented friend Annie and she has chosen Numbers as her theme. I created a little file folder with accordion pockets inside and filled it with ephemera, all featuring numbers of course.

Here you see the folder and all the ephemera, mostly made from scraps, that fit inside. But before I go on, let's see what Annie has to say about her challenge:

"Numbers is our challenge theme for this month and we would like to see them being a focal point in your entries. 

You can use stencils, die cuts, fussy cuts or rub ons, rust them up, use texture paste or paint them, the decision is yours as long as the numbers are prominent. Just remember to create your project in one of our preferred styles: vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk."

Well, my little file folder started from a new collection on my Etsy shop, I cut it and sewed around the edges, so it looked like this:

Next I added some texture with the help of one of my Tim Holtz stencils and texture paste and when that had dried added scraps of rice paper, diecuts, some stamping and of course lots of inking with Distress Inks, so now it looks like this:

For the inside I added an accordion pocket folder, there are many different ways of doing this, but I used a very easy method: I folded 3 A4 pieces of paper in half length wise, laid them on top of each other and then cut them to the width and height of the folder, making sure the fold was at the bottom. I glued the the left and right side of each together, to form pockets and then glued them on top of each other by running a strip of glue around the middle of each. The first and last one were then glued to the folder, so it looks like this:

Then the real fun started, with creating all the pockets and ephemera that fit inside. I am still in the process of making more of them, but here are just some photos of a few of them.

The pocket of this one is made from a large circle, cut with a circle die. I found a tutorial on Youtube on how to make pockets like this, without using a die, you can find it HERE if you are interested.

Here is a different example, in a more shabby chic style. Because of the theme of our challenge, I added numbers of course as part of my embellishing, numbers really are so versatile and always add a fun touch I think.

This photo shows a little book I made to fit in one of the pockets. Below you can see the inside of that.

Here finally is a pocket made from old book pages. Again, there are numerous examples of how to do pockets similar to this on Youtube, so I won't write a long tutorial for that here.

I finished my folder by closing it with some ribbon and added a charm, it could make a lovely gift for someone who is into junk journaling.

Well that's it for now, hopefully you feel inspired to join our challenge and if you have not done so yet, do visit A Vintage Journey to see what all my talented teamies have created.

Thank you for visiting like always and happy October, - stay safe!!

Tag You're It for a Vintage Journey #92, a journal and a freebie

Hello friends, it's that time again, the first Friday of the month and that means a new challenge is starting over at A Vintage Journey.

Amanda is our host this month and her theme is Tag You're it, this is what she has to say about the theme:

 'We would love to see what you create with, or on hang tags. Your hang tags can be created from any material or be any size. We would just love to see that iconic 'hang' shape front and centre in your design. Just remember to create your tag project in one of our preferred styles: vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journalling, industrial,  timeworn or steampunk.'

Well, who doesn't love to make tags, I certainly do, that's why I made 3 of them while I was at it anyway and like usual they will be part of one of my journals.

The base of the tags are book pages, I collaged, layered and stamped on them and then backed them with card to make them more sturdy.

I used scraps of paper napkins, which I adhered to the book page with collage medium, making sure on this one that some of the book page showed still too. I then added a butterfly and little label (some of these art part of a new downloadable paper collection that is available in my Etsy shop). I glued some coffee dyed cheese cloth underneath the embellishments and along the bottom there is part of a so called snipped rolled, made by gluing bits of scrap lace, paper etc to a strip of book page. At the top I fixed some lace with a couple of tiny staples.

The second one is made in a very similar way, more snipped roll along the bottom and in the middle some stamped callico fabric glued onto some lace. I forgot to mention that I cut the original pieces in the tag shapes just by hand and then zig-zagged all around them on my sewing machine.

The 3rd one is again very similar, just with a slightly different lay out. The butterfly here is actually another piece of a paper napkin.

Here you can see how the tag will fit inside the journal which is a junk journal style travellers notebook. I'll probably  post more photos of that at some other point.

And here you can see how the final tag fits under a belly band.

Here are a few more of the journal pages using my new kit:

 And here finally is the freebie, it's for fussy cutting to embellish pages. To get the full resolution printable one, just email me. I often print mine out on sticker paper and then spend a happy evening fussy cutting away, very relaxing :o)

Well, that's it for now, do hop over to A vintage Journey to see the amazing tags my teamies have created and of course we hope you will decide to play along.

Happy Crafting and thanks for your visit.

xxxxx

Tag pocket tutorial and another freebie

Hello friends, welcome! Today I have a tutorial over at the A Vintage Journey blog, where I explain in detail how you can create a simple pocket for a tag, like the one I showed as part of our June challenge there. Of course you can use such a pocket for ephemera, gift or journaling cards or whatever you like.

Here I am showing just a few more ideas for such pockets that I mostly decorated with freebies I have posted here, including the one from today.

Each one is in a different size, and the beauty of these pockets is, they are super simple to make without the use of any expensive dies.

Below some close up pictures and brief descriptions:

The tag for this pocket was made from one of the papers in my etsy shop. I used a Graphics 45 die for it.

The pocket that it fits into is a matching bit of paper, I used another die to cut the aperture (before gluing it together obviously) and also did some stamping on the inside, to make it look more interesting when the tag is not inside. It is decorated with some elements from the freebie and a piece of lace.

This pocket is much smaller, again made with papers from my shop. The tag was cut with a large tag punch and decorated with another freebie. The butterfly on the pocket was pinched from another one of the papers.

This tag is more grungy. I used a Tim Holtz #8 tag from Mixed Media Heavy stock and used The Baroque stamps and distress spray inks and oxides to make the background and then more freebies to decorate.

The pocket to go along with it is made from Kraft card stock, sewn around the edges and collages with

scraps of paper.

The final pocket I am going to show is one made again from coffee dyed card and decorated with elements from my latest Etsy kit called Flower and Butterly Collage.

It is a kind of gift pocket with a decorative flap.

                                                      This is the front, the flap closes with a velcro tab

                                 And here is the back, the flap fits right over the opening at the top

                            and you just glue it to whatever side you want to be the back of your pocket.

                                        Here are some of the little tags and bits that fit inside.

And here finally is the freebie, it includes some little element from the new kit, but can be used with anything you like of course:

Like usual, if you would like a high resolution of this for printing, please email me. I am have been getting so many requests for these lately that I am now using "We Transfer" to send the files, as it is quicker and my internet is slow.

Well, that's it for now, - you can find the papers to go along with this freebie in my Etsy Shop, and if you want a description of how to make a pocket like this with several step by step photos, please hop over to A Vintage Journey .

Thanks for visiting like always

xxxxx

May Tag Friday for A Vintage Journey

Hello friends and thanks for dropping in! Today's post is going to be a super quick  you may be glad to hear😊.

It's the last Friday of the month, when over at A Vintage Journey, creative guides share a tag, just for fun and like always, if you like making tags you can share them with us there.
For my tag (which will be part of a larger project I will tell you more about at a later point) I pulled out some of my Oxide Inks and sprays, some Tim Holtz stamps and just had a play.

I used a little embossing folder along one of the sides, and highlighted the raised bits with Treasure Gold in the colour Pewter.

A few tickets, some lace, a mini doily and some fussycut flowers, finished it all off.

Well that's it for today, you can check out my teamies tags here and like always, we would love you to play along and show us your tags.

Thank you for visiting like always, stay safe and well and happy crafting!

xxxxx