Collection Folio Journal in work in Progress

Hi everyone and lovely to see you here!
After having completed a little folio  from my stash for A Vintage Journey two day ago, I was excited to see that the Compendium of Curiosities 3 challenge blog's current challenge was to use a collection folio. I had been hoarding one for ages, so this was the perfect chance to have another go.

This one is in a very different style from my previous one, and even though it is the smaller size of the two folios Tim Holtz has brought out, it is way bigger than the last one I did. Now one of the things I vowed I would do this year, is spent more time journaling and playing just for my own fun, and this was the perfect opportunity to have just another play. I am going to treat it as a journal, and there are still many more "pages" to fill.

I am not going to do a full step by step for this project, there are plenty of tutorials and videos out there on how to do it. I'll just show  pictures, and  tell you a bit of what I used.

The front was made with a piece of paper from the Hometown collection by Ken Oliver. I love the colours and played around with the paper with texture paste, stencils and dies from Tim Holtz's new Mixed Media thinlets dies. The butterfly was cut from a really old Prima collection. Here are some close ups:

Stencilled through one of Tim's stencils.

Two pieces of honey comb, die cut with the mixed media die.

An altered bit of Dusty Attic chipboard, I used Decoart paints, Antiquing Cream and Treasure Gold.

Here is the flap to close the folio. I used another piece of the same paper and added  two pieces of the Trellis die by Tim. I then added two metal pieces from my stash to embellish, again altered with Decoart products:

I left the back of the folio quite simple

This is a piece of paper from the 7 Dots Studio North Country collection. I used my Indigo Blue stamps by Limore Webber (through out this project here and there) and used a mix of Cracked Pistachio and Pumice Stone Distress inks, to match the colours of the Hometown papers more.

Here are the side flaps, all done in similar style. I forgot to take a photo of the inside, but it's just more of the same.

Now to some of the "pages" of my folio journal. I photographed before adhering them to the inside of the folio's waterfall thingy (can't remember for the life of me what Tim calls it, but it's so clever).

A die cut piece of chipboard. For the front I covered it with texture paste and while wet stamped into it with various stamps, then coloured with Decoart paints, and decorated with various bits and pieces from my box of scraps. I was really just experimenting and having fun, that's what journaling is all about for me.

The back of the same piece, collaged and stamped. Such a great way to use up some of these bits and pieces I always seem to be collecting.....This is what I love about projects like this. No pressure, just fun.

More collage fun with scraps, and below the inside of the same Kraft card card, (I had two of these in my scrap box, leftover from making Christmas cards), so now I have finally put them to good use.

Like I said, the inside of the same card, this one is a Paperartsy stamp, the background was book paper, gesso, Gelatos and some Kaisercraft texture stamps.
And another double sided card of the same size:

The front

And the inside.. The stamp is from a Lynne Pyrella stamp set, stamped on tissue and then adhered to an old book page and colour added with Gelatos. Oh, used some gesso too.

Here finally is the front and the back of a little tag  still:

And here finally you can see it all inside the folio, that is getting quite fat now....

So far though, I have only filled two of the inside waterfall flaps, so there is a ton of space for more "pages" still, but those will be shown on another day soon I hope.

One of the things I really like about these folios is, that because of the elastics, which are of course removable, you can either have the side flap on top (like in my first picture), or tucked inside, like here, so you can see the butterfly better.

I am adding this to the Compendium of Curiosities challenge #23, which this time is sponsored by the
wonderful Inspiration Emporium 
I am also going to add it to the Simon Says Monday challenge where the theme is "A Hint of Clover". Well there is plenty of clover green here, so I think it will qualify...

Well that's it for now, thanks for dropping in have have a great week ahead!

A compendium of fun

Hello everyone and thanks so much for dropping in here.

I am cutting it very fine, but I was determined to play again in the Compendium of Curiosities 3 challenge. Time has flown so fast, it's challenge 16 already, and after actually winning challenge 9 and getting Tim's amazing parcel, I have just not managed to play again, so it was high time to do so.

Days are busy right now, so all I have managed to make was a humble Christmas card, but I had great fun doing so. Of course all the rules are on the COC 3 blog, so I won't repeat them here, but the technique for this one can be found on page 50 of a Compendium of Curiosities. The generous sponsor for a random winner this time is the other wonderful Linda from the Funkie Junkie Boutique.

I followed Tim's instructions pretty much exactly using clear embossing powder and his lovely Holiday Knits layering stencil and then inked with various blue Distress Inks, - Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans plus a little bit of Chipped Sapphire.

I had great fun with the snowflake. I cut the Stacked snowflakes, but then put them one by one the embossing  folder of the Layered Snowflake die. If you center them carefully it works great and I am really happy with the result. The centre is just a little rusted metal snowflake.

I have tried really hard to keep my cards flat this year and not to add to many embellishments, but with this one I could not help myself, I just had to add a little Christmassy flower cluster.

Many people have asked me about the edge of my card base and how I did it. Well the truth is, I bought a pack of cards with this edge on it in Hobby Crafts. (The UK equivalent of Michaels).

The inside of the card was done in a similar colour ways:

The sentiment here is from Stampendous, seems to be my favourite this year, I have used it over and over again.

Anyway, that's it. I am obviously linking to the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge 16

Hope you are on track with your own festive preparations. I have about 5 more cards to do, but the main bulk has been sent, yay....

Have a good weekend and thank you so much for visiting!!

Paris Assembly

Thanks for visiting, possibly for the second time. Details of the project below this one can, be found at A Vintage Journey

Having been away for most of July and a good chunk of August, I have been unable to play along with the Compendium of Curiosity challenges, so this time round I was determined to join in again. It's challenge 9 already, how time flies... I am sorry also to be posting twice on one day, times are so busy.
Here is my second make, I just had to fit it in quickly:

This time round, the Curiosity Crew are  playing with those cool Sizzix Alterations Framelits!  Tim explains this technique on page 63 in  A Compendium of Curiosities, Vol.3, for the details, you will have to check there.

I am lucky enough to own a few of these sets but for this challenge decided to play with the French Flight one. As the Frilly and Funky challenge blog are running an ATB challenge right now  and are doing a blog hop together with Eileen Hull's Art with Heart challenge where the theme is anything goes, I thought I'll kill 3 birds with one stone (well not really, I would never kill a bird), but you know what I mean, so as you can see, I made another ATB.

I cut the block from thick black card. Next I created my panels, using one of my favourite collage techniques. Below I'll show a quick step by step:

1.Cover your substrate with scraps of paper, I used various bits from Tim Holtz's ephemera and papers.

2. Use a stencil to add texture, I used Wendy Vecchi's Crackle Texture Paste and Tim's Harlequin stencil, then add a thin watered down layer of Gesso. Wipe away some of the gesso using a baby wipe so parts of the papers come through again. I actually love how it looks now, and could have left it, but on this occasion took it a bit further:

3. Adding colour, using Distress inks, further collage elements and some of the stamped and die cut framelets,  after all that is the theme of the CoC challenge and finally adding shadow with Distress Markers..

Below you can see what the other sides finished up as:

This is going to be the front panel, I used 3 different stamps of the framelets set.

One of the sides

The other side.

The lid, using another one of the framelits.

For the Eiffel tower I stamped the image twice and cut it out with the matching die. I then cut loads more, both from Kraft card and corrugated card and glued them all together until the tower was fat enough to stand. I then glued it down on a large circle die cut with some greenery and flowers.

Below you can see how fat the tower is, it's actually completely free standing.

I then put the two things, tower and block together and that was it. Originally my idea had been to put the tower on top of the box, but it looked kind of weird so in the end I solved it like this. I fancied the lid of the box up a bit still by adding a piece cut with the Tim Holtz Pediment die and embellished with a little paper clay ornament which I had painted black with Black Soot DP. I high lighted the raised bits with Treasure Gold.

Hope you like it, - I had great fun making it. The Compendium of Curiosities challenge is sponsored this time round by the wonderful people at the Inspiration Emporium. And of course the wonderful Tim and Mario are offering a big prize packet as well for one lucky winner.

I am linking this project to the following 3 challenges:

Compendium of Curiosities #9

Frilly and Funky Hip to be Square

Art with Heart Anything Goes

Have a great week

Compendium of Curiosities Layering Stencils and Texture Paste

Hello everyone, thanks so much for dropping by! A warm welcome to you all!!
Just a quick post from me today to show you my project for challenge 4 of Linda Ledbetter's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge.

I love working with layering stencils and texture paste and decided to do another page in my journal:

I had great fun basically playing around with bits and pieces that were flying around on my desk.
The blue page was waiting in my journal already, so I grabbed some of my layering stencils and some Dreamweaver texture paste. I decided to leave the texture white as I quite liked the contrast with the blue.

I did some more stenciling in various corners with different Archival Inks: Maroon, Plum and Jet Black. Above you can see how I also used some stamps from the Mercantile set.

Here is another little corner using a rub on from my stash.

The word Fly was added with the little chip board letters and for the center of my page I used a mop up tag and some other bits and pieces that were flying around my desk and just added some further stenciling to tie it all together. The butterfly was made from paper clay.

I added some shading around the edges with a dark brown Gelato and that was pretty much it.
This fourtnight the challenge is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique and the over all winner will get loads of goodies which Tim and Mario have donated, how generous is that?

Anyway, hope you like my page, I had great fun playing in my journal, it's been far to long since I did some journaling.....

Thank you so much for visiting and see you next time! Have a good and creative week!!

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 3

Hi everyone and lovely to have you drop in! Today I am showing you the project I made for the latest challenge of the Compendium of Curiosities Volume 3 crew, hosted by Linda Ledbetter.

This fortnight the challenge is all about using Tim's fabulous Faux Tea Rose Technique.
This technique can be found on page 65 of the book.
Like in previous weeks Tim and Mario have donated a huge prize packet for one lucky winner and in addition The Inspiration Emporium are offering a $50 for the overall winner of this week's contest.
Well, onto my project: I made a fancy card and I'll give you a quick step by step:
I started with a piece of white 6 x 12" card and scored it at 3 and 9" along the 12" side. I then cut the two end bits with Tim's Tattered Doily die.

Next I cut a frame with the Cabinet Card die and insert, I kept the frame as was but cut the insert in half length wise

I wanted to use them as pretend shutters, so made two paper hinges to attach them to the frame:

I used those to attach my shutters to. Next I took a piece of 6 x 6 vintage scrapbook paper and attached it to the middle section of my card. I then cut the small cabinet card insert again from similar paper and attached that to the shutters on the side that would show. I coloured the window frame with vintage photo and adhered it to my card base.

Onto the roses, I'm not going to tell you how I did them, you'll just have to get the book if you don't have it, but here you can see them, I made three from white card and then coloured with a mix of Victorian Velvet and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.

As you can see, I also made a central cross in my "window" from two strips of card and did a bit of stenciling on my window shutters.
I mounted it all onto a piece of Cored'nations card from Tim's Nostalgic collection.

A little banner from the new Curvy Tattered Banners Decorative strip die and a butterfly finish it all off. I added Rockcandy Distress Glitter to the butterfly and the sentiment words are remnant rubs. I saw that cool idea on Paula Cheney's blog.

The butterfly is from the Butterfly Frenzy strip die. After I glittered it I drew a "body" with a Walnut Stain Distress marker and then went over it with a wet brush and inked around the edges. I'm really happy with how it turned out.. I just tucked it behind the banner.

Well hope you like my card and thank you for visiting like always.