Paris Memoir–A Vintage Journey

‘Use every stamp in a set’ is the new challenge to get stuck into at A Vintage Journey and it’s a fabulous one to get the old cogs working. I have used Paris Memoir by Tim Holtz which has four stamps and I have also combined it with the Sizzix Fleur de Lis and Eiffel Tower die and the Boardwalk and Eiffel Tower texture fades.

I began by collecting together the main supplies and elements I imagined would be on my piece – here’s the rambling that was going on in my head as I got started.

“Corrugated card to make a hanging, acrylic paint to seal it, colours – what colours should I use? I want something different, mauves and greys would definitely be different for me.

Coredinations and textured papers for the die-cut images and letters, great sanded down and inked over lets use the die-cuts of the Eiffel Tower and Fleur de Lys with the embossing folder – haven’t tried that before and I can stamp and cut out the French gent and use the other stamps in the background.

So how will this all fit together? Let’s see a small quote would look good too, ah here’s an Audrey Hepburn one, that fits well I will type and print it out. OK so here’s how my ideas are starting to build and I wonder what the end result will look like?

And as I moved on this is what happened -

The background was made with Fresco Finish paints and the Fleur de Lys and Eiffel Tower stamped with FF too. The Paris text was stamped in black archival as I wanted it to stand out and I sprayed it with some spray and shine to seal it and make it pop more, then added the holes and hanging wire.

You can just see the shine on this photo and I was pleased when all the elements were added as it brought the background forward making it a real part of the whole piece.

I coloured and inked all the elements I thought I was going to use, but you will see a couple of things missing in the finished composition, they just didn’t work in the end.

The arrows added some extra texture as I used the TH crackle paint with the Fresco Finish paints.

I added the tag to make the Parisian gent the focal image otherwise he just mingled with the Eiffel Tower and the fleur de lys. I also used the Papillon stamp set here and Tim’s latticework stencil.

I even lined the arrows up with the vertical corrugations as I felt it added to the long, lean look lol.

So you can see although I had an idea in my head of what I thought this would look like it metamorphosed somewhat at the end.

So have a great weekend and I hope we will see you hopping aboard this Vintage Journey using all the stamps in a set of your choosing. Have fun.

hugs Brenda xx

Tim’s tag for June #2 with frameworks die

When I made my June tag (#1 as it turned out to be), I had experimented with different types of paper and card with the gorgeous stencil technique that Tim showed us on his blog. I showed the different ones I had made on my post and I though they all looked fabulous, so today I decided to have another play with one of them and came up with this.

I wanted to to use completely different elements than the last one and I gathered a few things that I thought would go together including the background made on canvas textured acrylic paper and decided not to waste any of it and have used it on a long card, which I think will be perfect for a wedding anniversary (I have a special one in mind for later in the summer).

I’ve used one of Tim’s ‘Found Relatives’ cards and trimmed it to fit

The flower is also made from bits left over on my desk and are coloured with Dylusions sprays which gives this wonderful bright luminosity to the card and blends beautifully with the distress inks on the background.....

..... and the remnant rubs work beautifully on both the film strip and the textured paper -  I used the ‘Botanical’ sheet for the words I wanted to use.

The 1 and 0 are plastic clock numbers and given the altered surface treatment taught by Tim in Creative Chemistry 102 last year, plus I added a spray of  dirty martini dylusions ink spray to the mix …..

…. and the trellis framework was cut from left over watercolour paper coloured with Dylusions sprays and painted and sprayed card which gives the different effects with the frame itself and the inserts.

As the background was made specifically for Tim’s June tag I shall enter it to the collection of fabulous makes appearing at the end of his post. If you haven’t seen Tim’s tag yet you really should pop over and see the fabulous step by step tutorial he provides to show exactly how to do the technique.

Sorry I am still not around much, with the sun shining more often the garden beckons plus I have been prepping and preparing for workshops and I also had the grandchildren this weekend for a sleepover (as they love to call it), so all in all life is rather busy.  I hope this finds you all well and enjoying some crafty activities.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xx

Only Men Allowed 2 – Country View Crafts

My frame today has been made for a very special man in my life (dear hubbie) and later this year we celebrate a very special wedding anniversary, so I made this just for him as my second contribution to the Country View Crafts challenge.

The frame itself came from a well known supermarket earlier in the year and was reduced at the end of a sale and of course who can’t resist a bargain?

I rubbed it down with a sanding pad and scratched it with the prima distresser to get the shine off of it and then simply rubbed over it with my blending tool and walnut stain distress inks and a dry paper towel ….  love that grungy, aged look to it now.

I took the card frame from the inside and mixed three re-inkers with distress paint and using a plastic palette knife I daubed it ion and left it to dry – hoping for some cracks to appear.

Whilst it was drying I cut a piece of Tim Holtz paper from the Wallflower stash as the main background and added one of the photos that Ken had taken while we were on holiday in Hawaii. He loves birds and took pictures of the different species there that we don’t see at home.

I added a small birds nest, some floristry moss and some feathers as 3D embellishments and I also added some Tim Holtz remnant rubs. I hope he will like it.

hugs Brenda xx

Things with Wings at A Vintage Journey

I was really happy when I saw that S@andy was hosting this challenge as it meant I could show you two of four burlap panels I designed for my workshop I taught last month for Country View Crafts (who are the fabulous sponsor for all our AVJ challenges).

Preparing and making the panels

- Tear dictionary paper and adhere to the panels and heat dry

- With palette knife spread some grungepaste randomly in central panel and over the top and bottom as well and heat dry.

- Leave to cool and finish drying and start to prepare the butterflies, dragonfly, flower and bird (see below).

- When grungepaste is dry on the panels give them a wash of picket fence distress paint, creating additional depth and a key for the remnant rubs.

- Stamp images onto white tissue paper with black archival and with paintbrush and water draw a line around images and tear carefully.

- Adhere images to panels using matte medium.

- Add some remnant rubs, industrious sticker trims, chatty words and text stamp.

- Adhere the card and acetate details into place and leave to dry.

Making the acetate embellishments –

· Stamp dragonfly onto acetate with black archival ink and leave to dry.

· Wrinkle free a piece of card using dragonfly wing colours and stamp the dragonfly and cut out wings and head only.

· If the acetate dragonfly is dry, cut out the wings and drip alcohol inks on the reverse side.

· Stamp butterflies on acetate with rose madder archival ink and leave to dry.

· Cut out the butterflies when dry.

· Using alcohol inks drip colours onto reverse of butterflies.

· Edge them with black alcohol marker (i.e. promarkers).

- heat the wings carefully with a heat gun and without burning yourselves shape the wings so that they look as if the dragonfly and butterflies are going to take flight.

You can see how the heated and reformed acetate adds so much dimension to the wings.

 

We look forward to seeing you over at A Vintage Journey with your take on the challenge. Please remember you don’t have to use Tim Holtz products, use whatever you have in your craft room but do tell us what the inspiration is from Tim Holtz in your project. It’s a great way to join in a Tim Holtz challenge without having to buy lots of new supplies.

 

hugs Brenda xx

Tim tag for June

Tim has a fabulous tag this month (as always) but here in the UK we don’t have the sizzlits stamps and dies he used (hopefully next month) but that hasn’t stopped me playing with the stencil monoprint technique that he has used. In fact I played with various stencils and different types of paper to see what effects I could achieve before making my tag.

This is the background I used for my tag and the print is on smooth cartridge paper.

Canvas textured acrylic paper.

Card bought from Ally Pally in my last visit.

Oil sketching pad ……

… and the second generation stamp of the previous one on the same paper.

Bockingford watercolour paper 140 lb.

Direct to a tag.

I used the Merchantile stamp set ….. stamping several of the stamps twice, painting the image with distress inks and adhering over the stamped image on the tag.

I used the alphabet stamp for some background interest ….

covering the inked and painted bottle in glossy accents and adding a vintage pen nib,

Tim shows how to tie this lovely bow on the tag.

Tim shows all the details of how to do the techniques on his blog and I will be entering this into his monthly collection..

It's a busy week for me this week now, visiting my sister today, doing the Dylusions and journalling workshop for Country View Crafts tomorrow and then Friday morning off to the Isle of Wight Festival for the weekend, Biffy Clyro, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The Kings of Leon here I come. Weather looks promising too, mind you the forecast changes every day.

Have a great week yourself and see you Friday with the new challenge starting at A Vintage Journey.

hugs Brenda xx

Field Notes tag - Country View Crafts

Happy Monday I hope everyone had a good weekend.

I have been out in the garden when I can getting bedding plants potted up and clearing up, weeding etc and it's now looking lovely for the summer again, in fact we were able to have a BBQ yesterday and eat outside which was lovely.

This is just a sneak peek of my tag today, so if you'd like to see more please pop over to the Country View Crafts Project Blog to see how I put this one together.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the week ahead.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tag You're It–Crafty Individuals

Jean has launched the new challenge at Crafty Individuals with this opening -

Yes its Challenge time again everyone, and this time the June Challenge is in the very capable hands of Helen Chilton, who has chosen the theme for us, which is (drum roll) 'Tag You're It'.  Based loosely on a children's playground game this theme gives you mountains of scope to do your own thing - as long as something within your entry vaguely resembles a tag!!  So keep it simple or make it complicated the choice is yours, but we will be truly delighted if you could play along.

There are some rules to abide by which are to make the usual links that all challenges seem to look for and to use a minimum of one Crafty Individuals products. There will be five lucky winners at the end of the month, each of whom will win a CI rubber stamp of their choice, and don't forget that as per usual, once you have linked in your creation, you can also claim a lovely 25% discount code to use on anything you purchase from the CI Website, which will be valid until the 10th of July.

So here is a tag made for this challenge using a brand new stamp called ‘A garden of flowers’. I used distress inks and distress paints for the background starting with the DP resist technique and layering, different colours of DIs and then stamping the focal image.

I used a water brush to remove some of the ink from the flowers and then painted them back in with ripe persimmon, picked raspberry and mustard seed. To get the white petals I painted with picket fence DP and used pens to highlight areas.

I stamped the butterfly, dragonfly and bee from another brand new set called ‘Butterfly Mornings and Wildflower Afternoons’ using various backgrounds before cutting them out and adhering to the tag. I finally stamped the tag with a ‘French Script’ stamp and ‘Large Elegant Swirl’ using black archival. The sentiment is computer generated.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xx

Tag Friday at A Vintage Journey

We had a great opportunity to add some inspirational tags to the Winner’s post at AVJ today and this is my contribution.

This is Tim inspiration through and through but also a bit from Alison (Words and Pictures) who did a great Destination Inspiration post using distress paints and distress inks and the paint resist technique. I have used that on this tag as well as lots of other layers as demonstrated by Tim – Here.

Two layers of paint resist, lots of distress ink colours and some stamping with black archival creates a fabulous mixed media look.

Do pop over to AVJ to see some other beautiful tags and the winner and Pinworthies from Anne’s fabulous ‘All About Him’ challenge.

Have a great weekend and hopefully enjoy some creative time.

hugs Brenda xxx