Tag Friday for AVJ

It's Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey where we have a fifth Friday in the month and fill it with tags of our choosing. No themes, no constraints just free time to play and experiment with whatever we choose.

At the last Ministry of Mixology I did a 'Make and Take' using a media board that Di at Tando Creative cut for me and this tag started it's life there. I didn't get any further than the first few layers of the background and so I have cut it down into a tag to use as a base for today's Tag Friday sample. You can see the M&T design on my blog post here.

Having stamped with Andy's Tech Traumer set onto greaseproof paper, I adhered it to the greyboard, added some tissue tape and then a random watery wash of cerulean blue and prussian blue.

Texture white gesso using the flat of a palette knife.

Add some black gesso stencilling.

Spray Amsterdam acrylics - burnt umber and greyish blue.

Collect collage elements together.

Distress numbers (they come in the kit), distress central label (see below), paint chipboard pieces with black acrylic and assemble the dial.

Adhere pieces onto the tag and distress the edges to finish.

I hope you can pop over to see the fabulous designs from the Creative Guides and go visit their blogs too.

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy your designing and creating.

Click image to enlarge. Right click press save.

Please give acknowledgement to this blog if you use the labels.

Thank you.

Panel 3 - Coiled chambered fossil shells - Freebie

Number three in the fossil card series and this shows one of the gorgeous ammonite shapes that Andy has in his new set of stamps with Stampendous. My previous post has more details about them which you can find here if you missed it.

Process steps

1. Seal the panel with tinting base.

2. Brayer watery titan buff mixed with raw umber over the surface.

3. Using Andy's 'shedded' stencil blend through some sap green and titan buff.

4. Stamp ferns and small ammonite at the base of the card using leaf green, coffee and dandelion archival inks.

5. Dip, spritz and dry watery washes of cobalt blue mixed with titan buff.

6. Stamp some text with titan buff and quinacridone gold.

7. I had a dried mop up piece of kitchen roll which had some lovely bright autumnal colours on it so I stamped the ammonite on it using coffee archival, wet the edges around it and pulled it out to get a soft distressed edge to the shape.

8. Adhere this to the panel with matte medium and cover the whole panel with it.

9. Add your words.

I love the text stamped in the paints they bring all the colours together.

Like the title of my post says I have a freebie for you. If you want to use the words I have made up for myself click the image below to enlarge it and save to your computer. This is a jpg image and A5 size. Enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Free Pumpkins

Happy Monday - I hope you have a fantastic week and are not too busy with work.

I have to go into school today, in fact I have to go into Oxford to a planning application meeting at the County Council but I will be back later to catch up with all my blogging buddies and do some commenting - I am so behind with that.

I have just treated myself to some new Halloween stamps, but I wanted a pumpkin one without the face drawn in so I decided to draw my own. I have used it on this tag which has a Halloween background but is very much made with autumn colours.

The button is plastic but I managed to stamp on it and I have added lots of bits and pieces from my box of bits. You can see the Halloween images in the background on this photo.

This is my drawing and I coloured just enough of the pumpkins for my tag.

This was printed on cheap photocopy paper and coloured with Promarkers.

If you would like to take the pumpkins digi, please do so. I made it in Photoshop Elements and saved it as a jpeg file. If you use it please be courteous and link it back to me on your blog and if you leave me a message I will come over to see what you have done. Click on it and enlarge it to get the best file for downloading.

Thank you for looking today and a special thanks if you are a regular and leave me all those wonderful messages I get, I so love reading them.

Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with - 

Ink on my Fingers - Autumn/colours of autumn.

Gingerloft - Halloween or fall.

Opus Gluei - Halloween.

Crafty Pad - Halloween.

Sugar Creek Hollow - Colours of fall.

Fashionista Friday - Halloween and/or fall.

CCEE Stampers - Fall/autumn.

Little Red Wagon - Fall.

Stampotique - Tag Time.

Deep Ocean Challenge - Fall colours.

Halloween Printables

Are you having a Halloween party or are you making projects for challenges like I am. Well having made a couple of my own bottle/jar labels I then find there are a number of freebies on the internet.

If you would care to share any Halloween project you make with me, then please scroll right to the bottom to link it up. I would be so pleased to see it and leave you a comment.

These I found here and here.

And more here.

These were the ones I had made.

Have fun with your Halloween projects. Please link back to me if you use any of these labels, or in fact any Halloween project at all, and show me what you have created. I will come over and take a peek.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Leave your Halloween project link here. You have until the 1st November. I look forward to coming to see your creations.

Ribbon Booklet Freebie and Tutorial

Hi Everyone

Do you like making Mini Albums? Well today I have a free mini album cover for you and a tutorial on how to put it together. It is a booklet designed by myself and Chris Warner about 5 years ago and was destined to go on one of her CDs, I don’t think it quite made it as she no longer designs or makes CDs due to illness.

If you saw my Millinery Catalogue (click to bring it up), I made it using this template but this one already has patterned covers for you. It can be printed onto A4 paper and away you go.

Supplies needed
1. Front and back cover plus one of the spines. (There are two available to you depending on whether you want a plain or patterned one).
2. Ruler, scissors, knife, scoring tool, sellotape and glue.
3. Ribbon to tie the book up with.

 Ribbon Booklet Front Cover

Ribbon Booklet Back Cover

Ribbon Booklet Patterned Spine

Ribbon Booklet Plain Spine

To make the booklet up -
1. Print off both covers and spine.
2. Score folds for both covers.

3. Cut into fold to create a gap for the ribbon to go through and secure with sellotape. 

4. Fold flaps and glue down – you have created pockets for your pages to go in.

5. Take spine and fold where score lines are shown. Fold and glue side flaps to create an even edge on the covers.

6. Glue covers to the spine and line up centrally. Cut slight angles into the flaps at the top and glue them over the spine.


7. You have now created your ribbon booklet. I distressed the edge of mine with some Walnut Stain distress ink.


The pages are going to be in the next tutorial I post, very soon.

I hope you enjoy making your album and please link yours back to me so I can see any you make.

Please respect the copyright and again link back to this tutorial if you post about it on your blog.

Have fun and I can’t wait to see what you make with this.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox