Your Hearts Desire for A Vintage Journey

Hello all, - happy Friday and Happy February!
Today sees the start of a new challenge at A Vintage Journey, and no surprises, - there are some hearts and love involved in our challenge theme this month.

Our fabulous host this month is the talented Annie, and this is what she had to say about the challenge theme:

Since February is the month of love, include hearts as the main focus of your project. Just be sure your design is in keeping with our vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk styles we prefer.

Well, I decided to alter one of Tim Holtz's ETC tags, but started my project with a Graphics 45 tag and then cut some scrapbook paper with the matching G45 die. I love the shape of these tags.

I embellished the tag with another G45 die, it comes as part of another tag die. Instead of the clock hands I then added a heart cut with an old Movers and Shapers die.

I sanded the edges of the adhered paper for a distressed look.

The heart was cut from mettalic Kraft card and then treated with some alcohol inks and a crackle stamp stamped in black Archival ink.

Time to put it all together.

I covered the ETC tag with Gesso and then some buff acrylic paint. Next I added crackle paints and when then had created its crackle added a thin wash off watery dark umber.

,

I diecut some leaves, and added some flowers from my stash for a little cluster.

And finally added this happy couple from Tim Holtz's Paper Dolls collection to finish of my love themed tag, and also added a handlettered sentiment, using a dip pen and some Prima paint.

Well, that's it from me for today. Do hop over to A Vintage Journey to see what my marvellous teamies have created and we all hope you will share some heart themed projects with us too.

Have a great month!!

Fairydust minialbums for March minialbum makers challenge

Hello everyone and happy March, - the month Spring is meant to start here in the Northern hemisphere. As far as I am concerned, it can't come soon enough.
It being the first of the month, there are several new challenges starting today, so I will share another project later in the day, but here is the one for the Minialbum Makers.

I am off to Australia later in the month to spend time with family and my two grand daughters, and when I saw the gorgeous G 45 Fairydust collection, I knew straight away I wanted to use it to create something for them. 

So I made them each a little book with lots of the fairy images (they both love fairies) and photos of themselves from when they were babies up until now.

I used the Eileen Hull cardbox die to keep their minis in, and obviously created the minis themselves, so they would be the right size to fit inside them.

The albums themselves are very simple envelope minibooks. I used Kraft envelopes as the substrates.

These are very simple to make. You just slot the pointed bit of one envelope into  the opening of another one, like you can see above. I used 6 envelopes for each booklet. But rather than giving you a longwinded explanation of how to put it together, here is a link to a video, that explains it really clearly: Video

After I glued my books together I trimmed the sides so the finished booklets would fit into the book boxes. This also gave me side pockets to add photomats.

These are the products I used:

6 kraft coloured envelopes for each booklet, plus

 The Graphics 45 Fairy Dust collection 8 x 8 papers, the 12 by 12 Patterns and Solids, the Ephemera and Journaling cards and the chipboards and stickers, and I have still plenty left to decorate two wooden treasure boxes which they will also get, but that I will leave for another day.

Below some photos of the insides of the albums:

Here are the fronts, I made them identical, just using different colours.

Lots of pockets and tags. Behind the bellyband on the left is a photo mat with their photos. Inside the various pockets are also further folded mini booklets with more photos.

As you can see, there are plenty of interactive elements on each of the pages.

Inside this pocket is a little accordion booklet that closes with a magnet.

Here you can see it folded out, and on the other side are more little photos on each page.

Here is one that closes just with a belly band

And here some more of the little tags and accordions fitting inside all those pockets.

And here finally the two little girls themselves, having fun dressing up as fairies...

The spines of the book boxes holds their names, no confusions as to which book belongs to whom.

Alright, and because I know some of you will be curious what they look like,

This is Lucia the elder of the two, when she is not pulling a silly face

And this is Arielle, always cheeky and full of fun.

I realize this is not much of a tutorial but hope the pictures tell their own story.

So thanks for staying with me and do make sure to check out the wonderful books and albums my team mates have created, just click here. Our sponsor this month is no other than the amazing Seth Apter. And if you play along with our challenge you could win a full set of his new embossingpowders!!!

So, get your craft on create an album or minibook of any kind and join us for our challenge!!

Thanks for your visit like always

xxxxx

Planning my planner

Hello all, - hope your new year has started with a bang!! I am approaching 2017 full of hope and excitement for better days to come....

In the last days of 2016 I decided I was going to design my own planner, and today I will show you the first few pages and the cover. This is a project in process, and I will show more pages as the month (and year) progresses....

The base for the whole planner was a file folder that I trimmed to the size I wanted. I covered it with some of my favourite Blue Fern papers, strengthened the edges, and made the closure with a Grungeboard element and a Tim Holtz Hitch Fastener.

Here's the back, as you can see, I used some of Tim's industrial stickers as decorative elements. (One of my aims with this project is, not only to become more organised, but also to use up some long forgotten bits and pieces from my stash.... Grungeboard and stickers being the examples lol).

Here are the first inside pages, a pocket on the left for keeping important things to hang onto, and the January calendar page on the right.

I made tabs for each month and each of those pages will then be decorated with bits and pieces (these are from the Graphics 45 Place in Time collection).

Each monthly page is then followed by some other pages, below a quick run through some of them:

A weekly overview page, to write down  the main focus for each day page

Followed by  a page to detail other important things for that week. Here I am showing you the page of week 3, but each of the weeks has two pages like that.

 I am having great fun decorating them with die cuts, stamping stenciling etc. I hope this will keep me focussed in actually noting things down and getting them accomplished....

Each month also has a pocket with blogpost planners. I am keeping these loose, so I can use them as needed.

And finally my day planners, also kept loose in a second companion planner as the main one would get far too fat otherwise. I designed the backgrounds digitally and may well share these as freebies in the next few days, so stay tuned... They are kept under a belly band so they can be easily accessed. I'll use the back for additional notes etc, keeping them loose like that will make it possible to review things easier.

Here's the cover for the day planner, also made from a file folder in a very similar way.

And here the inside, belly band on the left and a side pocket on the right for additional notes etc.

There are also other pages still in the main planner , meal planners and grocery lists, health and fitness and expenses trackers etc, but by now this post is long enough, so I am keeping some for another day.

Well that's it, I am ready for the new year ahead, hope you are too. I love all the new ready made planners out there, but I really wanted to make my own, and so far I am having great fun with it!

xxxxx