A Vintage Journey–Step 1

For the opening challenge of ‘A Vintage Journey’ I wanted to make something very special that I could keep as a memento of this special adventure. These are the covers of one of Tim’s large configurations books and  I have a great idea for using the inside for a future challenge so watch this space.

The front page cover represents the creative journey we travel and Tim's world wide teaching, sharing his love of all things vintage and his ideas, techniques and projects.

I began  by painting. blending inks through Tim’s masks, crackle painting and stamping the outside of the box, just along the edges as I knew I was going to cover most of it up.

Then with Tim’s papers in hand I chose a 12x12 with the world on it suggesting travels and journeys and altered this with the masks and stamps. I just love Tim’s new latticework mask.

I gathered dies, ephemera and stamps together that would fit with the scene and started to make my dimensional details. The ruler was made a while ago using a faux leather technique it looks really grungy doesn’t it?

I used some of the vintage photos from Tim’s Lost and Found paper stash and inserted them underneath the openings of his picture wheel and then chopped up sections from the film strip and added over the top, the centre was made using a stamp from Classics #1 and a vintage brad from my supplies.

You can see the globe and camera made from movers and shapers dies, a Tim rosette and clock also from the Lost and Found papers.

The Framework dies are fabulous and I used the chevron one here just because it reminded me of tyre marks and the Route 66 is from the Thrift Shop ephemera pack.

Some metal ideaology, remnant rubs (one just poking out from behind the pointy finger) and chit chat stickers all played their part.

And the title letters were die cut using the typeset strip die, adhered to the paper and covered with glossy accents to make them pop.

The inside cover represents my fabulous teamies who are sharing this journey with me, you can see each of our photos inserted into Tim’s film strip using the mini filmstrip strip die.

Again I gathered the elements together that I thought would go together for this page.

Here I used another of the Framework dies, this one is called lattice and by cutting it several times from different papers I have lots of different coloured rhombus shapes to use and I inserted three of them here.

Enjoy the journey is from the stacked artful words strip die and you can see an arrow from the industrious stickers.

The pediment and key were both die cut using chipboard and then aged using distress embossing powders.

The hotel badge is another piece from the ephemera pack.

I couldn’t resist this elongated photo of the Creative Guides.

The very back page, which won’t be embellished so it can lay down flat, but still reflects the travelling theme.

So now the book is done, I will need to think of what is going into the body of it, but ideas are emerging lol.

My special thanks to Alison, Anne, Annie, Astrid, Candy, Chris, Jennie, Jenny, Terry and Trace for all their help, guidance, support and love whilst getting 'A Vintage Journey' ready to publish today, we have been super excited for weeks waiting to share our projects and begin our travels. I hope you will be able to join us sometimes.

Have a great weekend.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”
Anna Quindlen

New Workshop for Country View Crafts “Nature’s Garden”

At last I can announce my newest workshop for Country View Crafts which is bookable now on the shop website with full details of the day and venue HERE.

Thursday 24th April 10.00 – 4.00 at Flitwick Village Hall, Bedfordshire.

In this workshop we will make four different but co-ordinated burlap panels using a ‘Nature’s Garden’ theme. This day-long session is all about texture and dimension and we will use grungepaste, stamps, alcohol inks and acetate to create these four  mini hessian canvasses. The class has been designed to be instructive and practical and a lot of fun and I will keep to my vintage/shabby style but introduce some glorious colour. The completed works of art will be personal to you and you can choose whether to make them into a wall hanging, attach them within a frame or just leave them singly to display as they are.

We had a wonderful day at the last session I did at this venue, (see photos here) with people travelling from Surrey and Lincolnshire as well as local villages and towns in Bedfordshire. It has been chosen for it’s easy access to the M1 and to surrounding counties. It would only take an hour and a half from Birmingham.

Looking forward to teaching again here and hope some of you might be able to join me.

Don’t forget the exciting start of ‘A Vintage Journey’ tomorrow. All will be revealed at midnight.

Enjoy your day.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Chunky Vintage Telephone Tag for Crafty Individuals

A tag card from me today made for Crafty Individuals using one of their brand new releases.

The cream tag was layered with distress inks (antique linen, vintage photo and frayed burlap) using the wrinkle free technique and heat dried. I then used several different masks to blend some of the above distress inks through to create a layered background. I wanted to use different numbers to go with the telephone theme.

The main image was stamped in black archival on cream card and dipped in iced spruce, frayed burlap and pumice stone distress inks.

I found an a very old bingo card number, made of heavy card, and distressed it, a tiny pocket and tag that also had the distressing treatment and stamped and found some small numbers on various CI stamps to cut up and use to help give a balanced composition.

The quote on the tag was computer generated, printed off and distressed before adhering to the tag.

There are some more of these vintage images in the new CI release, so watch this space as they say.

Have a great day.

hugs Brenda xx

The Wallflower Collection

I was lucky to receive my Wallflower paper stash by Tim Holtz last week and couldn’t wait to have a play with it. It has fabulous nature inspired pages all done in a collage style and gorgeous patterned pages as well. If you are a nature lover I think you are going to love these 12 x 12’s and Tim has made great links with his new products. I can see a spending spree coming on lol.

A sneak peek at the card I have made and this is the page I used from the stack.

Hope you can spare a moment to go and take a look at the project at Country View Crafts.

I would like to welcome new followers who have come on board in the last few weeks, thank you for being here and sharing my creative journey. I always try to come and visit you too, but Blogger doesn’t always show your blog in my followers list, if I haven’t been over, please leave me a message with a link so I can come and see what you are doing too.

Have a wonderful week ahead.

hugs Brenda xx

Paper Chase 1 for Country View Crafts

Welcome to my blog where today we are celebrating Country View Crafts FIRST birthday in true traditional style and as is the custom for first anniversaries we are celebrating all things paper.

I decided to sign up for 52 card pickup after seeing several friends making these fabulous playing cards in a wonderful journaling style – I wanted to learn more so these are my first attempts at them and they will be used for something special which you will see in my second inspirational piece for Paper Chase.

This card uses music score script for the background and some Tim Holtz journaling tickets, tissue tape and chit-chat stickers.

The background for this one uses the ATC sized papers from the Shabby Vintage set of papers, also the remnant runs and label letters.

This one pleased me no end as I used an old AA map book of the British Isles for the background and I tore the heart from the music score paper which I distressed with paint and inks. This also included one of Tim’s stamps on the background as well.

This last one again used an old vintage photo from the Lost and Found stack, tissue paper, tissue wrap and I think the heart was a punched one – I found it in my box of bits.

Hope you like the style, I am hooked on these at the moment and will have some more to show you soon.

I hope to see you over on the CVC challenge blog – have fun.

hugs {brenda} x0x

InLinkz.com

A new blog on the block

Are you vintage or shabby chic inspired?

Do you like a good challenge?

Then there’s a new challenge blog that could be right up your street.

Starting Friday the 7th March ‘A Vintage Journey’ will open it’s doors for anyone who loves to make projects with a vintage, shabby chic or mixed-media focus and would like to join us.

We have the most AMAZING  Design Team of super talented artists to inspire you who all love to focus on the style, techniques, products and ideas of Tim Holtz, we will use distress inks, distress paints, distress stains and lots of Idea-Ology including metal trinkets and embellishments to help inspire you and of course rubber stamps, dies, embossing powders and folders. Our aim is to show you projects that have a Tim Holtz link or focus and demonstrate how these can be used with products from other companies that many of like to use too.

The challenges will be fortnightly and in between we will provide you with technique tutorials or step by step processes to get your creative juices flowing.

We accept all types of projects like cards, albums, 3D assemblage, scrapbook layouts and pages, tags, frames, shadow boxes and anything else as long it is in a shabby vintage style.

We have a regular sponsor – Country View Crafts - who will be giving the fortnightly winner a £10 voucher to spend at their on-line store.

So please do pop over and become a follower so that you can keep track of what we are doing in your blog reader. We are really looking forward to beginning a new creative and vintage journey with you.

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you on this vintage journey sometime.

hugs Brenda xx

Stencils and Texture for Frilly and Funkie

I was so surprised and pleased that my Valentine tag was chosen as a winner at Frilly and Funkie and that gave me the chance to be a Guest Designer for their new challenge – Stencils and Texture.

So here is my multi-layered collage that includes both of those requirements, lots of it in fact :0).

I began with a piece of white card, dictionary and music score paper and tore pieces of both and adhered to the card. I heat dried it and then added borders in both black and white to add some texture. I had already ‘planned’ the layout in my head so I knew where I wanted some of the borders to create part frames round the images. Once the borders were in place I painted a layer of gesso over everything to bring some conformity to all the pieces and heat dried it.

I stamped and painted my images with distress inks and then cut two pieces of paper roughly the same size so I could use them as  markers for where the images would go, and then I didn’t have to keep handling them as I began to build the layers further.

Next I began adding the block pieces of patterned papers’ cutting them to size and edging them all with walnut stain. I always like to do this as I feel it frames each piece and makes them stand out as part of the composition really well.

Once I was happy with the way the design was developing I began to add some tissue tape and then got out two of Tim’s masks and ‘painted’ decoart modelling paste through them, going over some of the patterned paper too.

I also used distress inks through one of Tim’s new masks – Lattice work …….

… and I used walnut crystal ink to splatter all over and drip over some of the textured areas.

The borders weren't stuck down fully so that I could tuck some other pieces beneath them if I wanted.

Then I glued in the images, adding more borders, lace and tape where I felt it was needed.

Now I started to gather metal trinkets to add as embellishments and I added a couple of little flowers from Linda’s shop. Once happy with where they were all going I lightly painted the metal pieces with gesso and stuck some of them together to layer up. I then adhered them into place and brushed treasure gold white fire over them all, this brings some conformity to them as they were all different metals.

Finally I stamped some Artistic Outpost words and used one of my own chatty words, a button, ticket and a glass dome over the #35 to finish off.

I made this piece on white card so that I could start a collage journal. I did a lot of collage oil paintings when I was at college (many moons ago now) and a couple of years ago I did a Claudine Helmuth on-line course in learning more about how collage works. Last year doing a 2 day workshop with Finnabair really ignited my passion for it all over again, so I am going to keep my samples and notes to go with them all in one place.

Thanks again to the fabulous team at Frilly and Funkie for choosing my tag and enabling me to be a Guest Designer, I have really enjoyed creating this. The Artistic Outpost stamps, Tim’s masks and the lace all come from Linda's Funkie Junkie Boutique, if you haven’t explored it yet as somewhere to buy from I recommend you go take a look at the fabulous products and competitive prices.

hugs Brenda xx

A fine romance

I am showing a collage for Crafty Individuals today. I started with the lovely new stamp (CI - 402) they released earlier in the year called 'Just be my Friend' and made a collage board.

I began with masks and texture paste and when dry added some watered down distress inks and also blended distress ink through a mask

I collected lots of ephemera and elements that I though I might use and kept to a black and white theme.

To create a more vintage feel I painted and blended some of the images with some walnut stain distress ink and I stamped the bicycle with distress paint and a text stamp.

 

I started to build the collage wanting to create a story and a scene of two young lovers, enjoying their time together .......

 

 ...... and being in love.

I included the Eiffel tower and postmark to represent the city of love, who knows perhaps they are on their honeymoon.

This is obviously a fine romance and a special moment in time.

There are still a few days for you to enter the challenge and once you have entered you can claim 25% off your next order.

Happy Sunday.

hugs Brenda xx