Discovering - Use a Cavas for A Vintage Journey

Hello friends, today is the start of a new challenge over at A Vintage Journey and the lovely and talented Nikki has chosen the theme "Use A Canvas". Here is the canvas that I put together for the challenge:

Our sponsor this month is Shimmerz

One randomly chosen winner will receive a voucher for $25 to spend in their store!

I used a 5 x 7 canvas board, I love these as they can also be used as special cards for friends. I called it Discovering, because of the word from my quote and while using a canvas is hardly a new discovery for me, I discovered several things along the way. Below is the recipe and just a few step out photos:

1: Add some strips of vintage book paper to your canvas.

2: Cover it with a thin layer of watered down gesso.

3. Add some acrylic paint, I used two Paper Artsy Frescos, Vanilla and Buff and painted mostly around the outside of my board, making sure the paper kept showing.

4. Add colour with Distress Oxides, using a blending tool, I used Vintage Photo, Broken China and Cracked Pistachio and several Shimmerz sprays that match these colours to perfection:I Vibez\ Green Acres and Jeni B Bleu.

5. Add the tiniest bit of Infusions, I used "A Bit Jaded", plus a couple of sprays of Distress Spray in Ground Espresso.

6. Add some stenciling using a Distress Crayon, Vintage photo used here and Cracked Pistachio with some Tim Layering stencils.Follow with some background background stamping. Stamps used here are by Seth Apter and Wendy Vecchi.

7. Select some embellishments, mine came either from my scrapbox or were stamped, using Tim Holtz stamps. The gent is one of his paper dolls.

8. Arrange them until you are happy with the result and add some shadow around you focal image, - done :o). As you can see a couple of Ideaology pieces also found their way onto the canvas for a finishing touch. Below a few close ups still:

I added colour to the wander charm using a Distress crayon, - this works much better for me than using paint the way Tim shows, I always mess that up...

The sentiment was stamped on a piece of coffee stained paper left over from a previous project.

And that was pretty much it. Make sure you check out the wonderful canvasses my teamies have created over on A Vintage Journey, - and hopefully you will decide to play along, you can read all the details over on the blog there, and trust me, working on a canvas is great fun!

Thanks for your visit like always and have a wonderful month!!

xxxxx

Mixed Media Monthly - Show us your super power

Hello all and happy April!! This moth at Mixed Media Monthly we want you to show us your super power.....
Well to be honest, I did not find this an easy topic, so I decided I would let myself be inspired by nature, for to me, there is nothing more powerful then the magic Nature can display, especially at this time of the year.

Our sponsor this month is Stampers Anonymous, the winner will get a set of Bret Wedele stamps and he is our guest designer too this month.

Here is our grapic for this month's challenge, - be sure to include it if you are going to play along.

I decided to make a butterfly the central feature of my project, for butterflies certainly display super power when they emerge from their chrysalis at this time of year. Below a few step by step photos:

I started by putting down some texture through a couple of stencils, the one on the left is by Tim Holtz, the one on the right by Paper Artsy.

Next I added colour with my Oxide Distress Inks, pressing colour down on my craft mat, spritzing with water and then dipping and drying until I was happy with the results. Those inks certainly display super powers too, I just love them and they inspire me to step right out of my colour comfort zone...

I added some background stamping, using a couple of Wendy Vecchi background stamps, stamped in white acrylic paint. Raised bit were highlighted with normal Distress Ink.

I cut my butterfly from card coloured with Oxides, using a Spellbinder die.

I gathered some further embellishments and then put it all together. Below a few close ups:

A flower cluster,coloured with Victorian Velver Distress Ink and for the leaves using a variety of dies  cut from scraps of the same card the butterfly was cut from.

The word highlighted with some chipped sapphire distress ink.

And here at last, the finished card. The sentiment is one of the new Tim Holtz quote chips.

Well that's it for now. Hope you will decide to play along with our challenge and be sure to hop over, get all the details of the challenge and see what my awesome teamies have created to inspire you! All you need to do is click HERE

Thanks for your visit here today, always much appreciated because I realise how busy everyone is...

xxxxx

Spring Queen tag Friday at A Vintage Journey

Hello everyone, happy Friday and last day of the Month, - where did March go?....
It being a month with 5 Fridays, this means the happy team at A Vintage Journey are sharing tags for a bit of inspiration today and here is mine:

Like many of us it seems, I wanted to have a play with my new Distress Oxide Inks again. I had a number of try out tags flying around, so decided to use one of them. I'm sorry that I don't have step by step photos of how I created the first bits, but this is what it looked like when I decided to use it as the base for this project:

I think I used Cracked Pistachio, Faded Jeans, and Vintage photo. Spreading them on my craft mat, spritzing with water and then dipping my manilla tag into it drying between layers until I was happy with the result. I then used a couple of Wendy Vecchi's background stamps, Rectangle Collage Stamp and the Vintage Text, stamping in Black Archival. Finally I ran it through one of Tim's newer embossing folders and highlighted the raised bits with matching colours of Distress Crayons, Cracked Pistachio and Walnut Stain..

Next I selected a number of different elements I wanted to add to my tag: One of the new paper dolls, she was holding an American flag, which I cut off as I wanted to turn her into a Spring Queen, some elements from the new Botanical Layers and from the Snippets Ephemera.

As you can see, I added some further elements still, some tissue tape,  some new design tape at the bottom of my tag and other bits and pieces from my stash.
Below a few close up photos still:

I decided to add a bit of colour to the girl's sash with a Cracked Pistachio Distress Crayon, it looks much more silky in real life than on this photo. The little star is from the new Ideaology Findings stars.

I love these elements from the Botanical Layers, they save so much time fussy-cutting, and many of them go so well together.

The words are from the Quotations Metallic Stickers, I added it on top of some tissue tape.

Shadows were added around the main elements with a Stabilo All pencil to add more depth to the collage, and that was it.

If you would like to see some more inspirational tags, please go over to see what my teamies have created, - I am sure you will not be disappointed! Just click HERE

Thanks for dropping by here today. I know I have not posted very often lately, but life has taken me in other directions. Hopefully there will be more time soon again.

xxxxx

Words That Are Special

Hello friends and lovely to have you drop by! It's the first Friday of the month and that means a new challenge at A Vintage Journey

The lovely Jennie is our host and the theme she chose is Words That Are Special. This is what Jennie had to say about the challenge:

We often use words for cardmaking, scrapbooking, journaling, layering backgrounds, stamping, collage, in mixed media work, on our tags …. In fact words are often an integral part of our design processes for many of our projects. This month show us words that are important or special to you and how you incorporate them in your vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial or steampunk art.

Well I love words and decided to make a fold-out card with 4 panels with some of my favourite sayings. It's based on a project that I found on Pinterest. Here are the different panels:

I have written a quick tutorial of how to make this, and of course you can decorate it in whatever way you wish. The base of mine is Kraft Card. This is what you will need:

A3 card for the front, back an inside strip and the backing of your inside panels

White card for the front and back, inside covers and panels.

A selection of paints, inks, stamps etc

Method

1. Fold A3 card in half along the long side, this gives you an A4 folded card. (8.5 by 11 approx)

2. Cut this in half giving you a folded card panel that is 21 cm wide and 14.7 cm high (8" by 5 3/4 approx)

3. From the remaining card cut a strip along the long side about 4 cm high (1.5" Approx)

Fold this strip concertina style.

4. The inside panels can be any size that fits inside the covers, I made mine 11.5 cm high and 9 cm wide (4.5 x 3 3/4 " approx).

5. Create panels for the covers, inside covers and inside cards in what ever way you wish

6. Adhere to covers and insides.

7. Glue concertina fold strip in place and then adhere your 4 inside cards.

Hope my description makes sense. Below I will show you how I decorated mine with paints, inks, stencils and stamping.

Front cover using stencils by Tim Holtz and Andy Skinner, Decoart Media acrylic paints, Distress Crayons and Infusions.

Stamps by Tim Holtz, coloured with Big Brush Pens

Back cover, using similar techniques.

Stamps by Wendy Vecchi, some doodling with white pen and a Tim word sticker.

Inside left , using Distress inks and stamps and stencils by Tim and Andy Skinner

Inside right  same thing. These insides will be mostly covered by the fold out cards of course....

And here some close ups of the inside cards, all done in a similar way, using Distress inks and stamps from various sets by Tim Holtz.

I changed the colour ways subtly to go along with the background of the covers.

Well, that's it, I had great fun putting this together and will definitely make more of these, you could use it and put tags inside, or even use the panels as photo mats and make a little brag-book or something.

Do make sure to check out what my talented teamies have made for this challenge if you have not done so already and get all the details of the challenge this month, all you need to do is CLICK HERE

Hope you will join in with our challenge and have a wonderful weekend!!

Stencil it for Countryview Challenges

Hello everyone, welcome specially also to new followers, it's wonderful to have you follow along for my crafting journey.

The first of the month is always terribly busy as several challenges start on that day, so this is one of two projects showing on my blog today.  This one is for the Countryview Crafts Challenge blog. The theme there is Stencil it, so make sure to check it out. All you need to do is click HERE

Stencils are so popular and I had great fun creating a special card and matching envelope, using both inks and texture paste.

I started by making an inky background using Dylusions Inks and then sprinkling them with kitchen salt when still wet. When the salt crystals have dried you scrape them off and get this:

Don't you just love it, - and it's so simple!
Next I added some subtle background stamping using the text stamp from the Mercantile set with some teal Stazon ink.

This was followed with some stenciling using some of Tim's Layering stencils using Archival Ink:

This was followed by some further stenciling with texture past through a Crafters Workshop stencil (not available from Countryview Crafts but Dylusions do a very similar one which I will link below. The texture paste was coloured with Distress markers and I also added some more stenciling with a Layering Stencil along the side.

The final touch to the card was to stamp and fussy cut the 3 butterflies from the Classics 17 set and to adhere them to the embossed vine

The card was then mounted first on some white and then olive green card.

The envelope was made with an envelope punch board out of green Core d''nations Kraft core papers and stencilled and stamped in a very similar way:

The bee was stamped separately (it's an Artjourney stamp) and fussy cut.

Hope you like this little set, not sure who it is going to be for yet, but I am sure it will come in handy at some point.

Thanks for dropping in and have a good month!!

Dylusions	Dylusions	Dylusions	Layering Stencil Honeycomb
Layering Stencil Measured	Layering Stencil Cargo	Layering Stencil Shattered	Leaf Flourish stencil
Classic 17	Tim Holtz Mercantile	Archival Ink Coffee	Archival Ink
Texture Paste	Distress Markers

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