Destination Inspiration : Terminal 4

Hello everyone, Jennie here with you today, your AVJ Creative Guide waiting to welcome you at Terminal 4 with this month's travel bag. Let's have a peep in the bag just to refresh ourselves as to what we are using:

Product: Something Metal

Technique: Rust Effects (perhaps using rusting or embossing powders

 or rust coloured paints)

Colour: Lilac or Pale Purple

Substrate: Board (e.g. greyboard, coaster board, cardboard)

I decided to use my travel bag goodies to make a chunky ATC. I love being able to cram a lot of items in a small space and by using thick cardstock this meant I could really go to town with paint and embellishments.

My greyboard ATC was first coated with gesso and then some crackle paste added with a stencil. I used Dusty Concord Distress Spray Stain and LOTS of water to get this faded look.

Next, a little overstamping with a text stamp and Dusty Concord Distress Ink (second generation stamping to get a faded look). It was still needing something else and the new Tim Holtz Metallic Rub Ons are just a perfect size for an ATC and provide a bit of "class"!

Then I started playing around with different embellishments. This greyboard heart was painted in gesso and dabbed with Dusty Concord Distress Ink and then overstepped with a crackle background stamp. I really love this effect.

For my rusting element I decided to again "rust" a piece of paper clay with DecoArt paint and Antiquing Cream. If you missed my tutorial for this at the beginning of the month click HERE to go the post on my blog.

 

This really is a fun technique and no-one would ever know it was paper clay!

Finally I added a little more metal in the form of a picture brad and a pin.

A little project but still using all the travel bag goodies. 

Three of my fellow Creative Guides have already shared their inspirational pieces with you this month as part of the Destination Inspiration journey, but in addition, as the Travel Bag is also this month's theme, you have been treated to a huge array of inspirational projects from the rest of the Creative Guides and our Challenge Winner and Pinworthies.

If you are still inspired but haven't entered you still have a few more days to get those projects in. And I hope my little ATC shows that it doesn't have to be a big project - even small ones can cram in all the goodies !!

As we are  now at Terminal 4 it is time to share with you the four projects made by the Creative Guides with the March Travel Bag - all so very different and yet all based on the essential craft items in the bag.  

Next Monday there will be a new set of crafty items in our Travel Bag so do join us again next week to see what the Creative Guides are working with!

Thank you for joining us today.

Jennie x

Terminal 1 : Brenda

Terminal 2 : Tracy

Terminal 3 : Jenny

Terminal 4 : Jennie

March Challenge Inspiration - Pinworthy Guests

Happy Friday everyone. Nikki here to introduce our monthly inspiration post from previous pinworthies. This month's challenge is to use our Destination Inspiration Travel Bag... here is a reminder of the contents:

Substrate – Board (eg - grey board, coaster board, cardboard, chipboard) 

Main Colour – Lilac or pale purple 

Technique – Rust Effects (perhaps using rusting or embossing powders or rust coloured paints) 

Product – Something metal 

We have already seen how this can be interpreted in so many ways by the Creative Guides and our first guest of the month - Sara Emily. Don't forget we now welcome a number of genres - vintage, shabby, mixed-media, art journaling, industrial and steampunk - so you have great scope to express your creativity.

Let's see what Autumn, Nicola and Alicia have created!

Autumn

I am married to an amazing man, and my biggest supporter.  We have four children, yes four!  I work full time as a church secretary.  I have been stamping for over 15 years.  Creativity is my outlet, passion and purpose.  I define my style as grunge meets elegance.  Though I love to distress everything, I like to balance my work with a touch of pretty and neat.  In addition to stamping, I love to draw and paint and have found that mixed media allows me to blend these skills and create rich artwork, filled with depth and texture.  I couldn't be happier to be joining A Vintage Journey for their birthday celebration!  Happy birthday AVJ and thanks to the DT for the brilliant inspiration thus far!

I used Tim Holtz's darling little girl as the focal point for this watercolor collage on canvas.  She is layered on burlap and a "rusted" corrugated panel.

I used one of Tim's tiny layering stencils to create texture and depth in my background.  This new floral stencil is quickly becoming my favorite!  

A scrap of hymnal page brings in some vintage warmth.  My Grandmother and I used to sing this song together often growing up...

A close up of the rusty treatment, with all the details to be found on my blog, SewPaperPaint. 

Nicola

Hello. I'm Nicola (aka Paper Profusion) and I'm thrilled to be a guest designer again here at A Vintage Journey. It's always wonderful to have the opportunity to feature at one of my favourite blogs - very many thanks to Brenda and team for inviting me. I was delighted to have won the first ever AVJ challenge so it's additionally pleasing to feature again in the month of it's 2nd Birthday.

I was a tad alarmed when I learned the travel bag 'ingredients' to include in my project. Metal item, rust effects and board substrate were no problem but lilac! Yikes! I'm not overly fond of that particular shade. I was happy though to learn that AVJ have broadened their guidelines so that inspiration may be taken from any artist, provided that the vintage genre etc. is adhered to. I'm not sure how I ended up making this particular project but I set out to create in the style of Frank Garcia (Prima Designer) whose projects I love.

My final result is a Marie Antoinette Shoe...

I've used cardboard, for both the shoe sole and the ornate stand, sandwiched between layers of paper by Maja Design and SEI Velvet. The shoe upper is made from Tim Holtz grungepaper as it was ideal to hold all the layers of gesso, inks, sprays, beads and glitter that were applied, as well as being easy to shape.

Added oodles of lace and bling, including a lovely metal bezel that I've aged faux silver.

The 'heel' was white polymer clay and the stand feet are chipboard diecuts that I've altered to look aged and slightly rusted. Painted some of the paper surfaces with Twinkling H20s as it gives a satin like shimmer - similar to fabric shoes from the Marie Antoinette era. Tim Holtz's flourish stencil worked a treat with crackle paste.

Unfortunately shoe comfort and safety levels cannot be guaranteed - despite the centuries, some things never change!

Huge thanks again to the über-talented ladies at A Vintage Journey for inviting me to guest design. Whilst I worked on this piece I mostly thought that I never wanted to see the lilac hue again but the strange thing is that it's started to grow on me!

If you would like to see more photos and details, including shoe template source, please pop over to my blog.

Happy 2nd birthday AVJ! Warmest wishes,

Nicola x

Alicia

Hi, My name is Alicia O'Bryant and I am a wife and mother to one son, one stepson, one dog and 2 turtles. I live in the U.S.  I have been crafting since childhood.  For many years I created and sold beaded jewelry, in more recent years I have moved to paper crafts.  You can see my latest work on my blog Golden Goddess Designs.  I enjoy mixing media as you can see on the project I made for A Vintage Journey today. 

I started with a harlequin piece of Tim Holtz grunge board this month's substrate.  I inked it with a multi color pigment ink pad, Brilliance twilight a combination of pearly lilacs and lavenders, perfect for the color in this month's travel case.  Two ingredients down and two to go.

The next two ingredients are metal and rust.  I took a cue from last month's tutorial and created a butterfly with Judikins Rustique embossing powder.  I have more detail on my blog post about this project.  I started with heavy duty aluminum foil die cut and embossed with a Tim Holtz matching set.  I used embossing ink and layered two different colors of Judikin's rust effect embossing powder: azure and jade. 

I then needed to find a way to combine the two parts of my project.  I thought a nice frame might work and rummaged through my stash.  I love this old frame and I am so happy to give it such a nice new life!  It also gave me the idea of a "garden" since it was already full of greenery and flowers.  I cut down the grunge board to fit the frame and started to embellish.

I wanted to pull more of the colour in this month's travel case so I added several different lilac ribbons and fibers.  I tied them together with a pretty button and stuck in some pins I received in a swap.

Thanks so much to A Vintage Journey for having me as a Guest Designer this month!

Alicia

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Thank you ladies! Two beautifully created, but very different canvases from Autumn and Alicia and the elegance of Nicola's shoe - just goes to show how this theme can be used in so many ways! 

We look forward to seeing your creations! We will be back on Monday with another Destination Inspiration post. 

Have a great weekend everyone.

Nikki

xxx

The new A Vintage Journey and our Birthday Celebration Challenge

Welcome to a very special AVJ Birthday challenge. Today sees us changing things round a bit and introducing new ideas. We are very pleased to announce that we are extending and broadening our challenge themes and also the influences on our styles. Please take time to look at our 'Travelling Instructions' and 'Guide to interpreting our preferred genres' to get a clear understanding of what we try to achieve in our challenge projects and what we hope to see in your entries. You can get a quick feel by reading the explanation under the new blog banner above. 

 Image courtesy of the Graphics Fairy

Just before we move onto the new challenge we sadly have to say goodbye to one of our original Creative Guides, our dear friend Annie. We will miss her talent, her friendship and her wonderful personality as part of the team but wish her well in new ventures and as we say farewell to one inspirational artist we welcome another Julia Stratford-Wright from Julia's Stuff. Julia is a fabulous mixed media artist who loves bright colours and has a wealth of knowledge at her fingertips. If you haven't seen Julia's work before I can say that a visit to her blog will be a wonderful inspirational experience.

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March Challenge 
Destination Inspiration Travel Bag

Hi everyone, Nikki here, and it is my great pleasure to host the first challenge of our new year and new challenges. For our birthday celebration and new style we have a slightly different challenge this month.

In March 2015 we introduced our new look Destination Inspiration posts. Each month, four Creative Guides play with the same ‘travel bag’ as each other, and create very individual creations which have hopefully inspired you.  The travel bag always consists of one substrate, one colour, one technique and one product. 

We have enjoyed this so much we thought it would make for an exciting challenge this month! So our challenge theme for March is to use the Destination Inspiration Travel Bag for this month which consists of: 

Substrate – Board (eg - grey board, coaster board, cardboard, chipboard) 

Main Colour – Lilac or pale purple 

Technique – Rust Effects (perhaps using rusting or embossing powders or rust coloured paints) 

Product – Something metal 

Of course other products and colours can be used but the project should be focussed around these four areas. Please do visit any of our Destination Inspiration posts from the last year (every Monday) to see how the Creative Guides have utilised the travel bag contents in the past. 

We have a fabulous sponsor for this challenge -  
Andy Skinner.
Andy's mixed media creations are sensational - if you are not familiar with his work do check out his website. Andy has kindly donated a fabulous package to this month's lucky winner which will be made up of his brand new stencils and stamps.

As usual we will have the lucky random winner (who wins our sponsor's prize) and our three pinworthies selected by the creative guides who will be invited to rejoin us as guest creative guides for a future challenge. 

Let's see how the Creative Guides have used the travel bag.

Nikki

To celebrate our new style I have combined my love of Tim Holtz and Andy Skinner's styles to create this industrial style canvas. I have more details over at Addicted to Art today.

Julia A.

I made an Adirondack chair for the Easter Bunny using the March Travel Bag Supplies.  I embossed the chair, die cut out of matboard, in purple, added embossed metal flowers to the chair and used the Eroded Metallic Technique on the matboard die cut bunny.  

If you'd like to see more photos and a brief 'how to' - please visit my blog post here.

Jennie

Having recently been converted to drinking tea I thought I would celebrate by using the Travel Bag goodies to make a hanging with all things tea related, including this gorgeous little spoon. If you would like to find out more  (including the brew which has made me a sudden convert!) then please hop on over to my blog where I will share all.

Deb

Happy birthday AVJ!  I wanted to do something extra special for our birthday celebration this month so decided to make my very first ATB (artist's trading block).  With Spring in the air here in British Columbia, the prompt of lilac's in Nikki's challenge theme and some newly purchased Tim Holtz Idea-ology that I was itching to use as inspiration, I ended up making this Lilac Spring ATB.  Come on over to my blog for a closer look.

Brenda

Any shade of purple/mauve/lilac is not usually part of my colour palette so it was really outside my comfort zone to use it, but I have to say when I had finished the project I really was quite pleased with the effects I had achieved - with some deep purple, lilac and pink I think I made it work for me. I also used distress embossing powder for my rusted effects and the bow and chain is made from metal. All travel bag contents present and correct!! Now as I had to do it all a second time I hope you will pop back on Monday to see my Destination Inspiration post. Have a wonderful weekend. xx

Julia S-W

Purple is a colour I usually shy away from for one main  reason - it can be difficult to photograph! I love the grungy, crackled look and I was pleased with the finished piece. I love to rust anything really but I have to confess that the gorgeous heart was bought ready rusted. I'm so excited to be here on AVJ's birthday post with my introductory piece. I look forward to many more challenges!

Astrid

I loved the idea of Nikki's challenge theme, but in the end found it quite a challenge, rusting technique and pale lilac are not two things I would normally combine. But a challenge is a challenge and so this is what I came up with, a large card that uses board for the central layer. If you want to see how this came together, you can check it out HERE

 Amanda

 I'm sure you all know by now that I love 'wall art' , especially if it has meaning so for this months Challenge theme I have created a wall hanging using the contents of the Destination Inspiration Travel bag. A typed token provides the message for the rusty old heart to 'never, never give up!' 

If you would to see more you are more than welcome to stop  by my blog

S@ndy

This challenge came at just the right time for me, I've been opening my travel bag from CHA.  I just received some of the new items that were introduced and had a small chance to play.  I'm showing my first go at the new Distress Crayons.  What fun they are to use, I hope you will come over to my blog - My "Crafty" Life on the Internet - to see more.

Julie

I thoroughly enjoyed making my project for Nikki's challenge, as this certainly took me out of my comfort zone creating with Purple shades. Close up photos and info on techniques can all be seen on my blog HERE. Love to have you stop by.

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You can see how the travel bag can be interpreted in so many ways. We look forward to seeing your creations. This challenge is open until Thursday March 31st and we will announce the winner of our fabulous prize and pinworthies on April 8th.

Do pop back on Monday for more inspiration from one of the team.

Nikki, Brenda and the Creative Guides

xxxx

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