Vintage Tag Journal Workshop

I thought I would record and document the tag journal workshop I taught at Flitwick in Bedfordshire on Thursday 23rd January, it was the most amazing day, I really loved every minute of it.

We had 11 lovely ladies who had travelled from as far as Lincolnshire and Surrey as well as surrounding villages and towns in Bedfordshire.

If you would like to look through all the photos here you might like to grab a cuppa as this is very photo heavy

Our fabulous participants

In the background is Jane and Alex and on the right Lyn and Dinah.

L to R is Cassie, Gill, Lorna, Sheila and Heather.

Gill

Sheila

Heather

Jane

Alex in the foreground.

Sue

Lyn

Marilyn, Dinah and Lyn

Dinah

Heather and Jane

L to R Jane, Sheila, Alex and Susan from Country View Crafts

The journals evolve as the day moves on and what great choices the ladies made with their colour combinations.

Many of them brought their own photos to use so that they finished with a tag book that was personalised and full of their family memories.

Jane took some photos and has given me permission to use them - thanks Jane

 Yours truly demoing

HIghlightinmg the techniques and layouts....

 

... and generally being available to help and support.

The venue was perfect, it was light, airy and warm and there was a kitchen close by where we could make refreshments all day.

Here Marilyn and Susan were making a cup of tea and you can see plenty of goodies to keep our energy levels up during the day.

I hope you’ve enjoyed  my gallery of workshop photos. I am now working on the next project we will do as this lovely group want me to come back again. So now we are looking at the beginning of March I think for the next one. Thank you ladies I am so looking forward to coming back to Flitwick.

xx

Rebel Journal Page

I am teaching a whole weekend of workshops to a craft group in Wales at the beginning of April and on the Saturday I will be repeating my vintage tag book but on Sunday they would like a day of journaling, so I am preparing some things to take with me.

This is a page made on card and then stuck into my large Dyan Reaveley journal book.

I had fun using Dylusions sprays, Dyan’s masks …….

….. and stamps ……

I also used a large Pronty alphabet mask and picked out the letters to spell REBEL, painted them in with white paint and outlined them with black pen. Just the way I felt at the time I guess and I am a bit of a rebel at heart you know.

… oh and I added a Dina Wakely stamp for the focal image.

Well we've got more rain again today, the garden is saturated and boggy, I am so looking forward to some dry and sunny days. My dear friend Terry in California keeps teasing me by sending 'warm' hugs, which are lovely, but I need the sun to go with them lol.

It's my murder mystery party tomorrow, the one that couldn't go ahead on New Year's Eve because of illness. I am looking forward to hosting this as I have written it myself and have re-themed it for a Valentine party, so fingers crossed the murderer doesn't get recognised too early!!!

Hope you have a good weekend xx

Tim’s Tags #1 January 2014

Taking Tim’s advice I have sat and created my January tag to just enjoy the creative process, not to think of how to do something completely different but to practice and hone the techniques I learn through joining in with these fabulous monthly doses of inspiration.

All of the details for making this tag can be found on Tim’s blog HERE so I am showing my photos only.

Spring is on it’s way and I think that will be the theme of my next Country View Challenges workshop. I had such an amazing time on Thursday but I will give you more details and show you some photos when I get some off of Susan to add to my collection.

I hope you have got some creative time planned in the coming week.

Take care. xx

A new flexible journal

I am still loving creating journal pages and canvases Finnabair style and after making the fabulous journal at Finn’s workshop at the end of August I found a way to recreate my own journal covers that will bend over and around the pages allowing you to embellish with lots of metal and 3D trinkets.

My journal is 18 x 15 cms and I used canvas and interfacing from the fabric shop. I stamped with matte medium and sprayed to get the colours then stamped over the top of that, I also sewed around the edges.

Both for the front and back I created layers with canvas, lace and patterned card ….

… and I adhered the embellishments over the top.

I have made one set of pages of my youngest granddaughter…..

… creating the photos within a collage ….

…. using a glittery patterned paper for the background.

Using a paperclip, stamped butterfly, ruler ribbon and other letters and ephemera, the pages came together.

The colours I used reflected the colour of Maddison's jumper.

Just to let you know I will have been blogging for  four years on Wednesday and I think a giveaway will be in order, keep your eyes open.

Hope you've had a great weekend
Brenda x

12 x 12 Layout – Family Memories

Before Christmas my friend Sue and I had another day together making a Finn inspired layout for a shadow box frame. These look lovely under glass and on the wall. I need to do a few more to get a collection together for the dining room.

This is my beautiful Mother who sadly passed away 2 years ago on New Years Eve. She loved butterflies so of course I had to add one to this layout. The one you can see is metal and was silver but with some distress paints and treasure gold was transformed into something quite different.

As in the Finnabair workshop I did last year, I used lots of metal embellishments mixed with paper flowers, card flourishes, lace and some wooden elements too, and I used several different sprays over the top.

 My Mum was an inspiration to me in many ways, hence the choice of word to use.

 These are very much her colours, she loved oranges and browns mainly so her autumn garden was a joy to see, but she also loved her fuchsias in the summer so some pinks and magentas were also evident too.

Here you can see the dimension of the double wings on the butterfly and the conical silver bead that became it’s body.

Just one little heart to represent my love for her.

This is Sue’s finished frame. She used a photo of her and her sister when they were young and gave the finished frame to her sister for Christmas. It made a very lovely personal gift and was very well received.

This frame holds the layout I did at Finn’s workshop last year but it held a vintage photo of someone I didn’t know. Luckily I was able to remove it and add one of me when I was about 9 or 10 years old.

Thanks for looking, enjoy the rest of your week. I am teaching my Vintage Tag Journal at Flitwick in Bedfordshire tomorrow and looking forward to meeting a new group of people. Susan from Country View Crafts is coming along too so I am sure we will have a fun day.

Take care.

hugs {brenda} x0x