Visual Journey #12

Reach for the STARS

Following last weeks pages that reminded me of the on-line 52 card pickup workshop, I decided to find out more about Stephanie Ackerman and found a 'Documented Life' video she made. I enjoyed watching her creative process and although I didn't follow all of her 18 layers but took alot from the recipe and made it my own. The background is similar to Tim's February tag and the two tags I have made recently here and here.

The stamped circles were all one stamp originally but I cut them into individual ones so I could use them singly. They are now far more versatile and great for projects like this.

I added some washi tapes and hand wrote three quotes around the pages.

I used Tim's faded dots stencil to add some texture .........

..... and die-cut some stars in blue card but finger painted them using DecoArt phthalo blue, cerulean blue and white acrylic paints.

Finally I typed and printed the main quote, cut it up and inked the edges before adding it to the page but also created shadows with a distress marker.

I'm loving coming round to your linked blogs and looking at what you are creating. I often come away with an idea or two stored to use another day. Thanks for sharing with me and each other. Please collect this code and add to your post if you want to share too.

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hugs Brenda xxx

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Using Tim's 3x4 papers

Inspired yet again by Stephanie Ackerman's 52 card pick up online workshop I did last year I am applying some of the techniques I learnt in a different way. Tim's fabulous paper stacks have several different size papers in them and all the smaller ones tend to get left as the larger ones get used up, so I am on a mission to use up some of these gorgeous pieces - we might even start a new trend with 3x4's becoming the new ATC's or twinchies for 2015.

Here are the steps I used on my first four and of course I am using the gorgeous Wallflower stash.

Adhere paper to strong card with glue n seal, coating the top of the patterned paper as well.

Smear some white acrylic paint in random places.

Use Tim’s small talk stickers to add a quote.

Add some remnant rubs and small dark die-cuts.

Smear some glue n seal over the pieces you've just added and dry, then with a dark colour distress marker, (I use walnut stain, gathered twigs or black soot), create shadows and depth around the quote and small die cuts.

Sand the edges of each 3x4 and ink with walnut stain DI.

Use cut outs and embellishments that go with the theme.

Once it was all put together I went over with the white acrylic and distress marker again to finish off edges etc.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope I have given you some ideas as to how to use up those small papers that we often have left over.

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

Pablo Picasso

hugs Brenda xxxx

Visual Journey #11

Dreaming of the summer.

My visual journal today again just came out of nowhere. Is it that I'm off to California soon that my subconscious mind led me in this direction? I don't know. But whatever I was really pleased with the different results again.

I adhered tissue wrap to the double page spread and let it dry.

I splodged and misted picket fence and antique linen distress paints over and heat dried them and then blended mustard see distress ink over – the paints act as a resist so we get some mottled effects.

I have lots of quotes already printed off and kept in a file, so I rummaged around and found one I liked. 

Using the Tim Holtz rays stencil I blended fired brick and ripe persimmon distress inks through and stamped chicken wire in random places using potting soil archival ink.

The sun was cut from scrap inked card and I punched red circles from another piece of scrap inky card and began to design the pages.

The rays seemed rather squat so using my ripe persimmon distress marker I drew some scribbly lines out and rubbed with my finger and I used stormy sky distress marker to add some blue areas around the pages.

In my bits box I found a portion of a TH ticket and adhered another circle on it ........

and I went round edges of the pages with a vintage photo distress marker and added some tissue/washi tapes and remnant rubs.

Finally I finished by using walnut stain distress marker to add shadow and dimension to the circles and ticket.

This reminds me somewhat of the ATCs I made last year after following the 52 card pick up online course by Stephanie Ackerman. I seem to be going back to those ideas at the moment and applying them to larger projects.

Thanks for joining me again on another step of visual journey and if you want to walk along beside me then I would love it if you'd link your latest pages here. There's no pressure, no challenge, no theme, just a chance to see what other people are creating and to find additional inspiration. You can also go find the code to add to your blog post to share the collection with your readers too.



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hugs Brenda xxxx

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Wired Heart

This is my second piece for the current Country View Crafts Challenge where 'Anything Goes'. I thought I would share a little hanging I made when I attended Any Skinner's class at CHSI in Birmingham last month. The reason for choosing to share this here is that Susan will soon be getting DecoArt products in the shop, so those of you who already use this line of crafting paints and mediums might want to keep an eye open for them, I know I will be.

I am not sharing Andy's techniques because he does that brilliantly on a video made at CHA in January where he demonstrated this at the Stamependous booth. You can find the video HERE.

The base is made of chipboard and the rest of it, including the heart, is made from foamboard, so you can imagine this is so light to handle. The paints are from the new DecoArt media line and Andy's new stamps are produced by Stampendous

So watch this space as they say as there will be more mixed media work coming from me with these fabulous products and I will share some exciting news I've had here on Saturday.

I hope we will see you at the CVCC blog where there is a £20 voucher from Country View Crafts up for grabs for a lucky winner, please also pop over to see all the amazing inspiration coming out from the fabulous design team.

See you tomorrow with another double page of my Visual Journey diary for 2015.

hugs Brenda xxx

Expedition tag - Country View Crafts

It's my turn again to post on the Country View Crafts Project Blog and I have a tag for you today made from one of those extra backgrounds I made when doing my February Tim tag. If you missed them you can see them all here.

More details can be found over at Country View Crafts, if you have a moment to spare I would love to see you there.

Have a happy Sunday and listen to your heArt.

hugs Brenda xxx

UPDATED FROM CVC

You know I love making tags and I follow the Tim Holtz monthly tags he makes. Here I have used one of the backgrounds I made when making my Tim tag for February.  The details of how to do it are clearly set out here on his blog

With the ephemera piece and colours I had used it had to be nautically themed and ships and sailors came to mind. 

I randomly stamped the compass from Tim’s mini blueprints 3 set and smudged over a small amount of gesso to blend them into the background.

I gathered up some pieces that I thought might go together and set about altering and designing. (You will see I didn't use them all and added others in as I was putting the tag together).

The ship is stamped from the Travel Ways set in blue archival ink and I used a black pen to highlight some of the lines.

I made a custom fastener using a snippet of distress ink card and remnant rubs ......

..... and I added it to the photo booth picture of a sailor.

The expedition tag was swiped over with aged mahogany distress paint which was then wiped off again using my finger to leave the red writing ....

.... and I daubed a little of the paint on the star and again wiped it off to give a slight red translucent effect.

Some tissue tape and another ephemera piece finish it off.

Thanks for taking a look today.

See you again soon.

hugs Brenda xxx

Bumblebees and Butterflies

Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Expedition Ephemera pack Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Photobooth Tim Holtz Stamps - Travel Ways Tim Holtz Mini Blueprints 3 Tim Holtz Idea-Ology - Findings Word Bands Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Mirrored stars Idea-Ology Custom Fasteners Tim Holtz - Idea-ology Tissue tape - elements Tim Holtz Distress Paint - Aged Mahogany

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Birthday Celebrations at AVJ - Anything Tim

Today sees us celebrating our first birthday or anniversary at A Vintage Journey and we are celebrating in style. There are prizes galore, changes to our schedule and a new Creative Guide joining us - what more could we want? Well of course we would love you to join us too.

For my CG sample I have made a Correspondence book using Tim's new papers. Now you may well have seen the book I posted on Sunday for CVC, that was made from the off-cuts of this one and yesterdays journal pages uses up the last scraps.
This is a hard bound, hard spined book which will be one of the types I am teaching at my next workshop on the 30th March (details in my sidebar).

I'll show you some of the steps to preparing the boards.

Cut boards from mountboard and cover with tissue wrap. Put under heavy weighted books/box for a few hours or overnight to dry and flatten.

Daub with picket fence distress paint – heat dry.

Dab and spritz fired brick distress stain and spray a little gathered twigs distress spray stain, spritz with water and push the two boards together to distribute the colours on both. Heat dry.

Repeat with faded jeans distress spray stain and heat dry. The dampening and heat drying causes the boards to buckle a bit so put them back under heavy weights to flatten again.

Use picket fence distress stain and some white linen dylusions spray to mist over the colours and tone them down and blend them together more.

Sew pages together.

Adhere front and back end papers. Tear the front edges of the papers and ink them all round.

Put cover boards together with a spine and tape (I often use DIY gaffa type tapes.) 

On this occasion I used brown packing tape.

Glue pages in.

Cover the spine with tissue tapes and note a small piece of elastic added to the top of the spine.

I added a book plate tied to the arrow with rusty wire ........

..... a stamped postbox using the Classics #13 set ......

........ bits of idea-ology findings and ephemera .......

......... charms hanging down the spine. 

All the metal pieces were daubed with some antique linen distress paint and treasure copper rubbed over them.

Do you know - I might just make this into a Birthday book so I can keep a reminder of when I need to send cards out each month. Mmmmm birthday, correspondence, celebrations, wow what a day.

Because we are going monthly on our AVJ challenges there will be a monthly £20 voucher donated by our fabulous sponsors Country View Crafts and for today there are some very special birthday prizes to win as well. So please accept this invite to the party, we would love to see you there.

Have a wonderful weekend and here's a quote for you.

Don't just count your years, make your years count.

George Meredith

hugs Brenda xxx