Card tutorial for A Vintage Journey, some journal pages and a collaboration freebie

 Hello friends,

Today I am posting an extensive card tutorial on the A Vintage Journey Blog. This is what it looks like:

For the focal image of the card, which in fact turned into the cover of an Autumn journal I am working on, I used one of the girls from the freebie you can find at the end of this post. This freebie was created in collaboration with my friend Marjie Kemper. She is a wonderful mixed media artist that runs a number of online classes including a recently started Mixed Media Art Membership Group in which she offers a resource library too. It was for that resource library that she asked me to create the freebie, which links to one of the monthly challenges that are also part of this group. There is currently a waiting list to join, but if you are new to mixed media, I'm sure it would be worth joining the group. (I am not a member myself, but have done classes with Marjie in the past and have met her in person, and can assure you she is a wonderful person and amazing artist).

Below I will show you how I used the card in the end for my journal cover, and also some pages, using some of the freebie images and other pages from last week's freebie and my latest Etsy collection

Here you can see the cover, created with strong Kraft card and covered with some paper from my stash. And below some of the inside papers, decorated with a whole mixture of things, some altered journal cards using bits and bobs from my stash, some stamping and some elements from my collection on Etsy. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Well, that's it as far as the journal is concerned, so here is the freebie, and like usual, if you want to get a high resolution copy, just email me.

If you are interested to find out how I made the journal topper, do head over to A Vintage Journey

That's it for today, thanks for your visit and happy creating!

xxxxx

Mixed Media playtime fun

Hello all, - hope you are having a good week!
I am still on my last two days of holidays and had some  fun playing with different stuff and experimenting really for another project. Here is the result:

I have no step out photos, but will give you a quick run down on my process. It all started with playing with some Bister powders in combination with Walnut Ink crystals by Tsukineko. I splattered them around on watercolour paper. sprayed with water, tipped and tilted and watched the stuff play and intermingle.

I was not too happy with the middle section, so covered it  with some gesso streaks, a few splatters and finally with torn strips of paper from the  Prima Time Traveller 6 x 6 collection, making sure that the white edges showed.

Next I die cut Mr Rainman (Tim Holtz for Sizzix) from the same collection, choosing a darker piece and then overstamping with white Snowflake Fresco Finish paint and an old script stamp.

Some words die cut from the same paper, using the Tim Thinlets Adventure die set.

Some back ground stamping with Black Stazon Ink

And finally mounting it on black card and then grey thicker card.

That's it, like I said, just a bit of experimenting and fun, but having fixed a little easel on the back, it will stand up and might just land up becoming a birthday card for a male friend.

Thanks for dropping by like always and have a great week!

Happy Birthday AVJ

Hello all and welcome. It's the first Friday of the month and that means a new challenge over at A Vintage Journey. But this is not an ordinary challenge month, it's our second birthday and there are lots of changes afoot!!! For details do hop over to check it all out! So what have I made and why?

Let me start by explaining our theme this month: The lovely and multi talented Nikki is our hostess and she chose a very clever theme. Those of you who know AVJ will know that for the last year we have been publishing so called Destination Inspiration posts. Each month we pick 4 things, a substrate, a technique, a colour choice and a product, and then members of the team create a project with those 4 items for the month.
Well this month Nikki chose as her theme that everyone should use the 4 things for this month, and this is what she had to say:

For our birthday challenge we thought it would be fun to challenge you to use the products in our DI Travel Bag this month. You’ve seen how the Creative Guides have used the products in the past and you will see how they use them this month too. So join us in using the following products and enjoy the journey!

Substrate: Board (eg grey board, coaster board, cardboard)

Main Colour: Lilac or Pale Purple

Technique: Rust Effects (perhaps using rusting or embossing powders or rust coloured paints)

Product: Something Metal

Time for some honesty, - I thought this was quite a challenge, rust technique together with lilac or pale purple??? But, nothing like a challenge right, so this is what I came up with. Below is a short step by step:

I decided to use mount board as my substrate and started adding some texture through a stencil and when dry, adding  some pale lilacy colours. I used Paper Artsy Mushroom and Moonlight Fresco Finish paints and mixed a bit of gesso into it too.

Next I added a couple of sprays, to add more interest, - Victorian Velvet and Seedless Preserves.

I also added a few drops of Shimmerz "Before Dawn" for some more interest and did some background stamping.

I think these are both old Prima stamps.

Time to gather some embellishments, the die cuts are all Sue Wilson dies, the flowers are from my stash.

Now for my metal and rusting technique. Well I layered up a little dragonfly over one of the trusty old Tim Holtz ornate frames and put some book paper behind the opening. I then gave it the rust treatment with a mix of paints and a bit of rusting powder too..

Now all that was left was to put it all together.

And here you are, but....somehow it all did not quite hang together for me, so I decided (and this was after it was all mounted onto card already) to give it a bit of mixed media treatment. So I pulled out my Shimmerz spray again as well as the Hickory Smoke spray and carefully sprayed over the diecuts and flowers. I also added some gesso splatter still, so here is take two:

There is not much difference but I'd love to know which version you prefer, so below you can see them side by side:

Here's a close up of the spraying and splattering:

I added the word Friendship still, because all of my fellow design team members have become my friends, many of whom I have met in real life, so a Vintage Journey will always be special to me.

Well, that's it, and sorry for this rather long post.... do make sure to visit A Vintage Journey to see what wonderful new things we have in store for you, (including a fantastic new sponsor for this month yay!!!!) You want to know who it is? Andy Skinner!! And for those of you who don't know him, Andy's mixed media creations are sensational - if you are not familiar with his work do check out his website. Andy has kindly donated a fabulous package to this month's lucky winner which will be made up of his brand new stencils and stamps. But aside from that trust me you do not want to miss the inspiration pieces my team mates have created.

Thanks for your visit here today and stay crafty and creative!!!