Tic-Tac-Toe for AVJ

What is tic-tac-toe?

Wikipediea says -

Tic-tac-toe, or Noughts and crosses, is a paper-and-pencil game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The player who succeeds in placing three respective marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game. So this is how this challenge title came about.

Annie is our lovely hostess this week at A Vintage Journey and she has described your challenge thus-

With so many Tim Holtz/Ranger and any other similar products we would like you to choose at least three items from the grid below and incorporate them in your projects. You can choose items horizontally/vertically or diagonally, it's your decision. Please, please include the name of the items you are using within your post, not just in the link to the challenge.

Idea-ology or any metal embellishment	Sprays	Ribbon/twine
Paint	Ephemera	Die cuts
Foil tape	Texture fades	Stains

For my Creative Guide sample I have taken the diagonal line from top right to bottom left. My Idea-Ology component is the ‘Found Relative’ photo, to embellish the collage I used Tim's Expedition ephemera pack and I used distress stains on the background (see below process steps).

Get yourself a cuppa and have a wander through the post, be warned there are quite a few photos.

Process steps – I dipped into Tim’s background technique as demonstrated on his July tag of 2014

To bring the piece together and add details -

 Alter the bookplate, this simply has some antique linen distress paint dabbed on it. Simple but lovely effects.

Ink the edges of chosen ephemera pieces ....

... and know exactly where you are putting them on the collage.

 Add some sewing and die-cuts......

..... and make charmed embellishments.

As this is such a large collage I built the lower with the large layers first and put it to flatten under a heavy box. When it was dry and flatter I added the next level of smaller elements and flattened it again. 

Finally I adhered the bulky elements to finish it off.

The altered clip board was made quite quickly -

I covered it completely with tissue wrap - this paper is so forgiving

I again used distress paints to alter the look of the clip (which was bright silver to start with).

Finally I glued the collage to the board - I couldn't resist taking a picture of the other bulldog clips all round it.

 The little charm was added to the clip.

Finished.

I've just noticed I haven't shown you how to get the exra mile out of your Found Relatives cards. Can you see the gorgeous patterned piece that looks like a playing card. Well carefully peel the back off your relative card and you too can have an additional element to add to your projects.

I am really happy with the way this turned out and have bought several more clipboards so that I can experiment with other designs.

I hope you will pop over to the AVJ blog to see all the amazing creations from the Creative guides and hopefully find some time to join in the challenge.

Have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend, I am off to London tomorrow to see 'Memphis' at the Shaftesbury Theatre and we are going to stay overnight, this is our Christmas present from our gorgeous kids Ben, Bev and Maddie.

hugs Brenda xxx