Tag Friday

Welcome to A Vintage Journey and this month there are five Fridays which means we have the opportunity to slip in a Tag Friday event. These are always very popular with the Creative Guides as it's an anything goes theme for them. I hope you will enjoy looking at their fabulous creations and I am sure you will find some inspiration to spark off your creativity this weekend.

Julie

With the Holiday Season in full swing I decided to make a tag which captured a holiday memory for this young couple in the photograph from Tim's Photo Booth pack. Please pop over HERE to Juliz Design Post to see more details on my tag.

Nikki

I needed to make a birthday card for my niece so decided to have a play with Tim's Scribbles and Splats thinlits. I have used them both as a die and a stamp on this tag card. More details over at Addicted to Art today.

Alison

I usually use Tag Friday as an excuse to go back to my first love - some simple inking and stamping.  I've been playing with a combination of new colours - Mermaid Lagoon, Twisted Citron and Hickory Smoke and, as you can see, there's a bit more to it this time.  If you'd like to find out why, do come over to Words and Pictures for some more details.

Jennie

I normally like a Tag Friday to try something experimental, but I am afraid all my old favourites are on this one! The fabulous Papillon background stamp, Tattered Florals flowers and my favourite distress inks - Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves and Vintage Photo. Hop on over to my blog if you would like to see more.

Trace

So for my tag today I have used all my Tim Holtz favourites , walnut stain, layering stencils, found relatives, plenty of idea-ology and all those yummy browns and greys that are firm favourites ..with the addition of the new hickory smoke...a yummy new addition to the distress palette. For all the details please hop over to inkypinkycraft . trace x

Jenny

In preparation for an upcoming visit to Paris I've made a start on creating elements to go inside a Large Portfolio and this tag will be one of those. My version of Tim's July 2015 tag challenge took it's own path as I followed his instructions and ended up with an imagined interpretation on the look of Paris in the evening rain... see more on my blog.

Annie 

Hi everyone....today I am sharing a tag using Tim's Paint Resist technique from Creative Chemistry 102. I didn't manage to complete this course but I love the fact that you can join/access it at any time ( as long as you remember your ID and password :-)

I also used Tim's Tattered Florals die as well as the Lattice, Frameworks die and the word beautiful is from Tim's Thinlits die set called Love. For more details you can click on my name above, which will take you to my blog x

Brenda

I recently did a tutorial at Bumblebees and Butterflies on how to create both a rusty patina effect and a galvanised tin effect using distressed products and I cut this rusty watering can to show how it looked when used for part of a project. 

Tag Friday was a great opportunity to make a home for the watering can and use more of Tim's gorgeous goodies.

Thanks for joining us and taking time to view our tags, I think you will agree you have a wonderful array of styles and designs to look at and if you press on people's personal names or their highlighted blog names you will be transported over to see what techniques and products they have used as well.

Because this is a five week month it means you still have another week in which to join in with our current 'Destinations' challenge, we have some fabulous entries but we would love to see some more.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda and the Team xxx

Departing Destination Inspiration Terminal 4

Hello & Happy Monday!!  It's me Shari (Ain't That Artsy Fartsy), and today, I'm your AVJ Creative Guide greeting you at Terminal 4 of this month's Destination Inspiration.  I've got just the barest of creative necessities packed in my overnight bag--

Product:  Any "Classics" Stamps

Technique: Shabby Chic - CC Vol 1 - Page 49

Color: Antique Linen

Substrate: Tag

 

--Let me show you how I used this month's DI 'Tim' essentials to create my tag. 

 

 I'm using a jumbo manila tag as my substrate which I have spritzed liberally with Antique Linen Distress Spray Stain. 

 

I applied WV Textured Crackle Paste onto the tag through the Flourishes Layering Stencil.  When the crackle was dry, I spritzed the surface with more Antique Linen DSS. 

 

We're using Tim's "Shabby Chic" technique found in his Compendium of Curiosities 1 and I'm using it with Tim's Classics #6 stamp set. 

 

I stamped this image onto black card stock with Distress Embossing Ink and covered with clear embossing powder then heat set. 

I rubbed Antique Linen Distress Paint over the embossed surface and let set, but not dry completely.  I then used a damp cloth and light hand to gently rub off the paint from the embossed areas. 

 

 I cut the scalloped border into petal shapes and curled around a pen barrel to help shape them and I edged each petal with Black Soot DP. 

 

 I hot glued the Shabby Chic petals together then hot glued a classic accoutrement in the center.  I let the hot glue set, then pinched and pushed the petals to give them a bit more shape.

I created the leaves for the Shabby Chic flowers out of pieces of cotton twill.  



I'm using one of Tim's Found Relatives cards for my focal image on this tag.  I lightly sanded the edges of the card then tinted her dress with my Antique Linen DM and her corsage with my Victorian Velvet DM.  When dry, I distressed the edges with my paper distresser then inked with Vintage Photo DI and my ink blending tool. 

 

I gave this lovely Found Relative a crackly heart to hold.  I had colored a piece of manila stock with Barn Door DP and heat set.  Then I spread a layer of Antique Linen Distress Stain tinted Textured Crackle Paste over the painted surface and let air dry.  When dry, I used a little heart punch to create the heart, edged with Black Soot DI then coated with Diamond Glaze. 

 

I added die cut ATC corners to the card then adhered onto the tag with matte Decou-Page.  I ran the tag through my sewing machine to add the stitching around the perimeter and along a couple of the edges of the Found Relative card. 

 

I cut apart a Small Talk sticker and attached to the Found Relative card.  I outlined with the fine tip of my Black Soot DM and my white gel pen. 

 

I distressed the edges of the tag with my paper distresser and inked with Black Soot DI and my ink blending tool.  I attached a Word Band to the tag with brads, hot glued the Shabby Chic flowers and leaves into place, then flicked Antique Linen over the surface with a paint brush.  It needed a little something more, so I spritzed Black Soot DM through my air art tool here and there and heat set. 

I hope you've enjoyed this leg of the creative journey we here at A Vintage Journey call, "Destination Inspiration".  I'm having the best time sharing this month's travel with Chris, Julie and Jenny.  We are now off to meet up with one more of our Creative Guides at Terminal 5--You'll have to meet us here next Monday to see who our 5th companion will be and what she's 'packed' using all of our Tim travel essentials! 

XOXO-Shari



Welcome special guest Cheryl Grigsby

Welcome everyone, we have another incredible Guest Creative Guide today who is sharing her amazing talent. Cheryl designs and creates the most fabulous projects and has kindly accepted our offer to share something today, let's take a look ...........

Destinations....  What a universal and inspiring theme!!

I was so thrilled to be invited as a Guest Creative Guide for A Vintage Journey!!  Thanks to Brenda, Terry Ann, Nikki and all the VJ team for the honor and for the creative challenge. One of the phrases from Tim Holtz Simple Talk sticker set is “out of limitations comes creativity” which I find completely true.  A “limitation” in the form of a theme, a defined challenge, a palette of colors, mediums, tools or embellishments that must be used in a project provide a beginning and set a range that tempt one to sneak over those lines.  Pablo Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Cheryl Grigsby
cherylspaperartz.blogspot.com

I was born and raised in Texas and in 1997 moved to Colorado with my husband and children.  Its hard for a Texan to leave, but honestly, we were moving to an amazing place!!  Estes Park, Colorado is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Who could complain about living in such a wonderland?  Still, my heart has always been torn and tugged between two places I loved.  “Destinations” gave me a pondering place to consider destinations not as a distant place but rather a place to return.  Destination: home.

I think all of us who have followed Tim's blog have been inspired and amazed (and exhausted!!) by his journaling of his travels.  But we are also touched by the sweetness of the pictures and messaging of the touchdown home.

But where is home, really?  This Vintage Journey helped me explore that.  Journey with me…..

I wanted to create a sort of hobo bag to collect ephemera that represent "home" to me.  A place to collect maps and clippings, pinecones and bluebonnet seed packets, pictures and lyrics.  I headed to my trusty ready-to-be-altered stash and grabbed this burlap bag that had contained an inner plastic bag of flour.  Gorgeous packing for spelt, no?

I gave the bag a foundation of gesso and then crosshatched a range of blues from Dina Wakley's Media paints: Lapis, Turquoise, Sky, and White.  I start with the darkest color, lapis, knowing that the next layers will cover and that the darker paint will peak through.  I added progressively lighter colors and then dry brushed the darker lapis at the very end, just adding touches where they were needed.

I tore some strips of white tissue paper and stamped some script, using Stamper's Anonymous Dutch Script stamp and Watering Can Archival Ink.  Archival Ink is waterproof and perfect for this step.  I brushed the strips with matte Glue N Seal, also waterproof. After applying to my substrate, I brushed another layer of Glue N Seal over the tissue paper. All of the tissue paper is adhered in this project in this same way.  I don't expect to be carrying this bag around in the rain, but  you never know....

I layered some bits of tissue paper with Embossing Paste and then added a bit of script stamping in the blank areas.  I have used Tim's Speckles and Cargo stencils here.  I began to work in some meaning with the layers.  The letters stenciled here are my husband's initials "RKG".  RKG = Home

The embossing paste got a wash of Hickory Smoke Distress Paint thinned down with water to tone it down a bit.

I have some tags I've cut out of heavy rescued canvas and painted them here with Old Paper Distress Paint.  Over that, I stitched down a gorgeous spoon made in Czechoslovakia I picked up at a yard sale.  It has tiny enamel images of birds and has been living on my desk for the longest time, patiently waiting to be added to some art!  Colorado has such an amazing variety of ever present birds that sing to us constantly.  Very faintly on the tag you can see the letters T, X and S, just how they appear on the stencil.

In this wider shot, you can see the tissue paper strips layered and crosshatched as a foundation for my embellishments.

The die cut word "destination" is adhered to a bit of tissue paper with Glue N Seal. Again, the tissue paper is then adhered to the bag and Glue N Seal is brushed over the top. Get it?  Glue AND Seal.  ;-)

I've used Tim's Foundry Frame (LOVE!!!) here to frame my "bluebonnets".  These are tiny ribbon roses I painted with Dina's Media paint in lapis and a kiss of white, and then wrapped them with floral tape to create bluebonnets.  The Foundry Frame got a rub of white paint for distress.  It is also stitched down with waxed linen and the stitches are hidden by the flowers and the ribbon at top and bottom.

More tissue paper layers, a Trellis On-the-Edge die from Professor Holtz, cut out of Wallflower Paper Stash scrap, painted lapis and then just finger touched with Brushed Pewter Distress Spray Stain.  The word band reminds me not to yearn and long for some other place, but to look around me and find my home in the hearts of those around me, in the everyday beauty found almost anywhere and to live in the moment.

This moment can be home.

The dominant message is created with Adventure Words: Script Thinlits dies, 

Word Play Alterations die, and Alpha Parts Framed arrow.

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I always love the texture of hessian / burlap and love using it in my projects too but this fabulous sack is a stunner and to have one altered in this way would be wonderful. Thank you so much Cheryl for joining us and sharing such a great project and your process steps with us. I have a small hessian pouch sitting on my windowsill in a pile of bits and now you have inspired me to have a go at making it into a cover for something. Ooooh I love it when I get excited to create and can't wait to get going.

Thank you all for stopping by to see our very gifted guest and please go take a look at Cheryl's fabulous blog and leave her some love.

Our July challenge is still open with a theme of Destinations chosen by Nikki and being hosted by Jenny and we have some fabulous entries for you to take a look at as well as the Creative Guide inspiration pieces. We will also be back on Monday with Terminal 4 of our Destination Inspiration articles.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda and the Team xxx

Next stop... Terminal 3

Hi everyone and welcome! It's Jenny (Pushing The Right Buttons) here (on mine and fellow CG Anne's birthday no less!) with the next stop on our July Destination Inspiration. I'm travelling light (for me!) with the essentials (and a few other little bits for good measure);

• Product - Any ‘Classics’ stamps
• Technique - Shabby Chic - CC Vol 1, Page 49
• Colour – Antique linen
• Substrate – Tag

And here's where those ingredients have taken me…

I love Tim Holtz 'Shabby Chic' technique and was even lucky enough to be able to share my take on it in December 2014's issue of Craft Stamper magazine for a Distress to Impress tutorial.

Reaching for that tag substrate I used this technique using Antique Linen and Barn Door Distress Paint in combination with the Distress Damask stamp set. Sometimes I find the top layer needs a couple of coats to get a really good coverage, especially when you use a very pale colour on top of something so vibrant.

The focal point was created on buff watercolour paper. I stamped the dragonfly image from the Classics #1 stamp set and painted the focal images with Hickory Smoke and Fired Brick Distress Stains. These were then covered with Distress Micro Glaze (applied with a fine brush - LOVE this stuff!) and heated before I dipped the whole lot into more Hickory Smoke Distress Stain. The dragonfly was finished with acetate packaging stamped wings and a pen nib, and I added a separate sentiment strip from the Life Quotes stamp set. It was back to the words from the Classics #1 stamp set to top and bottom the whole composition, before I added an Idea-Ology button, altered Heirloom Rose and Mirrored Star (dulled slightly with Alcohol Ink Pearl Mixative).

So that's the creative journey this Destination Inspiration has taken me on.

For now 'All aboard'! Terminal 4 awaits...

Pinworthy Guests

I love seeing all the new creations every week both from the amazing Creative Guides but also from our guests who always provide us with a wonderful variety of styles. Today is no exception and we have three amazing ladies sharing their projects.

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Hello Everyone, I am Shilpa, from Bangalore, India. I started blogging in 2013 but was always dabbled with paper and paints. Mixed media is my favourite right now and I love to make art journal pages every now and then. I share my creations at blog - Neon Diary

I am super excited to be a Guest Designer at AVJ today and would like to share with you a Journal Page with Jenny's fabulous theme - Destination

I've used stamps from Stampers Anonymous.

I've used my large journal book. To start with I adhered Tim's Postale Tissue wrap on the surface, gave it a base coat of gesso. Next I applied Mermaid lagoon, stormy sky vintage photo and antique bronze Distress paints randomly on the surface. Let it dry completely. Next I used Tim's Star stencil to layer blue stars with Mermaid Lagoon distress ink.

We all are crazy about crazy birds, don't we? I stamped earth, airplane and bird crazy and colored them with distress inks. I've also added Ruler ribbon, Remnant rubs, ideology framed parts.

I stamped all these images with Tim's Americana Blue print stamp set.

With all Tim's stamps and accessories it is easy to put together any project.

I would like to say thanks to whole Vintage Journey Team for this opportunity.

Thanks so much for your visit.

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Hello, my name is Deb Riddell and I am thrilled to be here at A Vintage Journey again as a guest designer, thank you so much to Brenda and all the Creative Guides for this wonderful opportunity!

I live in British Columbia, Canada on a small acreage with my hubby and our three beloved dogs and have been crafting for many years. Mixed media and the amazing art of Tim Holtz are my newest passions and I'm honoured to be able to share some of my work with you today.

When I first heard of Jenny's theme for this month, Destinations, I had a moment of panic since with three large rescue dogs in tow my hubby and I aren't able to jet off to exotic locales! But then Jenny said to let our 'favourite destination inspire you' and I knew what I was going to make, an art journal page celebrating our favourite vacations spots.

Every year we pack up our truck, trailer, hound dogs and fishing poles and head off into the wild blue yonder on a trek to one of the many lakes that surround our home here in B.C. No matter which lake we end up camping at, it is my favourite destination since I get to spend weeks on end relaxing and fishing with my hubby and our pups, heaven!

For this journal page, I used Distress Inks and Stains in blues, greens and yellows and then did some stenciling with texture paste through Tim Holtz's 'Blossom' and 'Tracks' layering stencils around the edges. The stamped image of the young man with his catch of the day was mounted onto a Memo Pin with a Typed Token as Tim had done on his May 12 Tags of 2015 and I added more Idea-ology embellishments from my stash. I printed out some pictures I'd taken on our fishing holidays (love the picture of our Big Dog kissing the fish!) and adhered them in place with matte medium.

The fisher gal and pickup truck were stamped onto manila cardstock and the trailer was an image I found online and resized to fit behind the pickup. More Idea-ology embellishments were added to this page along with another picture from one of our holidays of a beautiful sunset after a rain storm.

The 'Gone Fishing' sentiment was created with some of Tim's Alpha Tiles and says it all about my favourite destination; as long as I'm in the great outdoors with my hubby and my pups at a beautiful lake it is definitely my favourite place to be!

If you'd like to see more details about how I created this journal page, please stop by my blog, Paxton Valley Folk Art, for a closer look. I hope that you'll join in the fun here at A Vintage Journey and share your favourite Destinations and thanks again to the Creative Guides for giving me this opportunity. Happy creating everyone!

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I am thrilled to be back (back-to-back) as a guest guide at A Vintage Journey. Welcome to my summer Destination; 50°, 114°. We are very fortunate to have 12 undeveloped acres of land; wrapped by the Crowsnest River at the foot of the majestic Rocky Mountains: no running water (other than the river itself), no electricity and no cellular reception – Paradise! There are beautiful views of Burmis Mountain, Tallon Peak and a portion of the Turtle Mountain slide (an eerie reminder of what has devastated the town of Frank). This is historically a mining area; rich with outdoor activities, historical sites (haunted and haunting) and lots of amazing things to discover, "hello adventure". I grew-up camping (tenting) all over this area with family & friends, it is our second home. The spring run-off bring a new assortment of treasures every year; there are wild flowers and wild berries (saskatoons for my campfire pancakes); rocks - quartz, “fools gold” and lots of coal; bones and teeth; and if we’re lucky (and we have been for the past two years) some fossils. I’m already [t]here as this post goes live.

This little book will be collecting this summer’s treasures.

The faux plastic dust jacket is tim-spired by a Travel Journal made by Richele Christensen (see it here). I've loved this distress paint-ed plastic technique from the moment I saw it and have incorporated it in more projects, more times than I can count.

I have made tiny tags – one for each day we will be on vacation – for journaling and/or collaging with vacation ephemera, pressed flowers and foliage. I will be posting updates to this book's 'treasures' on my instagram as we periodically head to town to restock ice, water and wood – cellular connection co-operation pending.

If you want to see exactly how I put this book together you can see the step-by-step photos on my blog [dig] that crazy chick.

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Wow wasn't that a fabulous read through these gorgeous creations? Thank you so much ladies for sharing your talents with us and for making something unique for our 'destinations' challenge. I'm off to your blogs to leave some love for not only providing us with something so special but for inspiring me, I know I shall be back to our Vintage Journey Pinterest boards to be reinspired in the future.

If you would like to enter our challenge at A Vintage Journey you can find it HERE.

Have a great weekend and hopefully some fun crafty time.

hugs Brenda and the Creative Guides. xxxxx