We're All Getting Older Pinworthy Winners

Hello all, and a huge thank you for sharing your aged, weathered, distressed, antiqued projects in last month's We're All Getting Older challenge.

The Creative Guides had a great time visiting all your new-made-old creations and it was really hard to whittle the selection down to three Pinworthies.  It was a very close run thing!  But a team's gotta do what a team's gotta do, so here, without more ado and in no particular order, are our Pinworthy choices.

#7 Empire of the Cat

What a great mixed media technique to create that background, which looks like aged, mottled mercury glass - like a mirror which Marie Antoinette herself might have looked in!  And the gilding is perfect for the historical period look too.  You can see how it was done over at the Empire of the Cat blog.

#27 Henriette

A real labour of love this one - there's such attention to detail with the parchment scrolls, each of the glass bottles and jars aged and weathered in different ways, and every individual label distressed for an antique look.  There are lots of close-ups at Henriette's blog... it's well worth a visit to see all the effects.

#29 Susanne

Again, there are so many ageing effects and techniques here, but we particularly liked the scratched "metal" lettering and the crackled edging added to so many elements, really making them look as though they're being eaten away by time.  See how it was done over at Susanne's blog.

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Congratulations to all three Pinworthies.  You'll be receiving your badges shortly, and your projects will appear on our Pinterest board.

We're so grateful for all the amazing entries... honestly, there were so many which were entirely worthy of pinning, and I'm sure more than one of us has pinned them independently!  Thank you to everyone who played along.

We hope you'll be inspired to come and join us on the Vintage Journey again this month, with Sara Emily's Against The Grain theme.  Check out all the inspiration from the Creative Guides, and then let the woody creativity begin.  Happy crafting all!

Alison and the Creative Guides xx

We're All Getting Older! Tutorial

Hello all, it's Alison here with some details of how I created my aged parchment for this month's We're All Getting Older! challenge theme.  There have already been some lovely entries showcasing ways to make something new look old with mixed media supplies - weathering, distressing and antiquing.  There's still plenty of time to play along, and hopefully these simple techniques I'm sharing today will give you another nudge to join us on A Vintage Journey this month.

There are plenty of close-ups of the finished tags to be seen over at Words and Pictures, so here I'll focus on the how-to steps I took to create my torn and weathered parchment papers, as well as a few notes on my "pressed" flowers accompanying the love letters.

I had planned to do my ageing with the help of tea and coffee.  I knew I had a whole heap of already tea-stained tags somewhere, but could I find them?  Could I heck!  So, in a bit of a huff, I decided I would go for a Distress Ink version instead.  I used plain size #8 manila tags, and started with a smooshing of Antique Linen Distress Ink.  I spritzed quite a lot of water on the inky craft mat before pressing my tags down multiple times, drying in between.

Next step was to add some Old Paper drips and smooshes to the mix.  (Of course - Old Paper has to be the perfect Distress Ink colour for old paper!)  I also folded some creases coming in from the edges of the tags and blended on Vintage Photo and Walnut Ink Distress Inks to make them look like the creases have been weathering and cracking over the years.  (Apologies - my camera is playing up at the moment, randomly ignoring various pictures I've taken, so I don't have photos of each of these stages separately.)

I'd also done some inking around the edges of the tags by this point, and now it was time to add some vintage script.  This is a lovely PaperArtsy stamp I got as a little freebie, so I'm afraid I can't tell you what set it comes from.  Maybe some PaperArtsy fan out there knows!  I added random bits of script in Potting Soil Archival, just rolling the unmounted stamp onto the tags in partial stampings.

For extra wear and tear, I did a bit of careful ripping right at the edges of some of the creases.

The "parchment" was looking pretty old and worn by now - though there are some more stages of mouldering and mottling to come in a bit - so I decided to move on to the pressed flowers.  Again, I started with some simple wrinkle-free distressing, smooshing Old Paper, Antique Linen and Bundled Sage Distress Inks onto a large piece of off-white card.

From that I cut some of the gorgeous Wildflower Thinlits stems to go on each tag.

I used Distress Oxides in the same ink colours and a water brush to add extra tinting to each of the flower stems - adding a touch of Stormy Sky now, in both Oxide and Ink form.

Once I had those blues in the flower stems, I decided I'd like the same tones to echo onto the parchment.  I used the Stormy Sky Distress Oxide, spritzed with water on the craft mat, and then flicked onto the tags with a paintbrush to create areas where the paper has been damaged by moisture over the years (the bluish tint has a feeling of wateriness about it).

Mostly I dabbed the Oxide colour up with paper towel before it dried too strongly blue... leaving just a greyish blue hint of tears shed over these long lost "love letters".  And yes, maybe it has gone just a little bit mouldy or mildewy too.

The sharper-eyed amongst you will have noticed I'd added some extra stamping by this point too... the lovely rambling tendrils from the Rubber Dance Weed Love set, stamped in Potting Soil.  This pictures also shows those mildewy splotches in contrast to the warmer background really well.

There are some real vintage pen nibs, altered with Picket Fence Distress Crayon to highlight the lettering.

The final step was to add some still legible words of love to the fading letters, courtesy of my Love Edition quote stamps from PaperArtsy.  They're stamped in Stormy Sky Distress Oxide - a lovely delicate blue.  I just had to work out the exact placement for the panels in relation to the stems and to each other across the triptych of tags.

Believe it or not, those driftwood planks the quotes are mounted on (cut from woodgrain paper using Tim's Planks die, and tinted with DecoArt's Vintage Effect Wash) have been sitting around on my craft desk since summer 2018.  I'd planned some sort of beachy, summery creation, but it didn't work out, and they've been looking for a home ever since.  See... you can just never throw anything away!

I'm happy with my aged parchment, and those weathered driftwood planks add another new-to-old element to the whole project.  I like the contrast of the warm sepia and the cooler blues of the flower stems, especially with the mildewy echoes in the background to balance the overall look. 

I hope you've been enjoyed seeing the steps along the way to this aged and weathered trio of tags, and I hope it will inspire you to turn something new into something old, or create some vintage antiquing effects, and share your project with us this month at A Vintage Journey.  After all, We're All Getting Older! ... so we might as well travel that path together!

And just a little cheeky heads-up that I've got another project full of ageing, weathering and distressing coming up at Words and Pictures.  So if you're still in need of inspiration for the challenge, there'll be some more for you there tomorrow!  Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy crafting all.

Alison xx

We're All Getting Older! January Challenge

A very happy New Year to all our fabulous followers and participants here at A Vintage Journey.  We hope 2020 will bring you lots of joy, good health and prosperity and, of course, plenty of creative inspiration and playtime.

It's Alison here, and I'm delighted to announce the theme of our January challenge: We're All Getting Older!  The good news is that it's nothing to do with your age, it's all about making things look older... time for some distressing, antiquing, ageing and weathering.  You can use inks, mixed media products or old favourites like tea and coffee, but however you do it we'd like you to make something new look as though it's old.

There are so many possibilities with all the Distress products, or weathered crackle, or rusting, or worn patinas, or other paint effects for a grunged up, ancient look...  I hope you have lots of fun with it.  As always, the Creative Guides have been pulling out the stops to provide you with some inspiration to start you off.  Take a look at how we've all been "getting older"...

Alison

I've got a trio of aged parchment tags, love letters with faded flowers pressed between them.  I'll be sharing the how-to details here at A Vintage Journey in a couple of weeks, but if you hop over to Words and Pictures now, you can see lots of close-ups and hear some of the stories behind these tags.

Jo

For Alison's fabulous challenge, I created a worn and distressed Art Journal page of Paris making the collaged papers look old using Distress Inks. Please pop over to my blog, Let's Art Journal, to see how it all came together.

Nikki

I have created a notebook using Eileen Hull's Notebook die for this challenge. Starting with some Tim Ideology patterned paper I have altered the cover to create a vintage feel. For more photos and details do head over to Addicted to Art.

Astrid

 As I am getting older most of the time I spend at my craft desk is taking up by journaling and creating journals. Not art journals in the traditional sense, but decorated journals that leave plenty of space for actual writing. So for the challenge this month I created one that is full of vintage pages with pockets and numerous journaling cards. For a little tour of what is inside, please come and visit me.

Annie

I decided to alter a canvas for Alison's fabulous challenge theme. To age the background I used coffee, distress inks, rusting powder and splatters of gold paint as well as some aged/torn papers and ephemera from my stash. To view the step by step  you can visit my blog by clicking HERE

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How's that for some inspiration to get you going?  We hope you'll join us on A Vintage Journey this month and share your projects and techniques for making things look older.  It seems like an appropriate theme for the start of a new year, don't you think?!  There's no escaping it... We're All Getting Older!

We're really looking forward to seeing what aged, weathered, distressed or antiqued projects you come up with.  As always, we'll be selecting some of our favourites as Pinworthies to go on our Vintage Journey pinboards.  Thanks so much for stopping by today and happy crafting all!

Alison and the Creative Guides xx

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Creative Card Making with Alison

Hello all, it's Alison here with this month's Creative Card Making post.  Regulars over at Words and Pictures will know I almost never make cards.  For some reason I find them very difficult to get going with.  But a Creative Card Making post requires a card, so here it is...

For this, I borrowed my inspiration from a tag I made in which I borrowed inspiration from one of my fellow Creative Guides, the lovely Jennie of Live the Dream.  And at three removes of inspiration, I found that it wasn't so hard to make a card after all!

I started with a pre-cut kraft card and envelope, 6x6 inches, and gave it a rough coat of gesso as a base.

Over that, I added some Idea-ology Tissue Tape and Design Tape strips and then smeared some DecoArt Crackle Paint in places.  (I know I took photos as I was going, but my camera seems to be playing up, and decided not to keep them.)

Over the dried crackle, I added dribbles of Distress Stain in Weathered Wood and Stormy Sky...

... and I smeared some Peeled Paint DI and Shabby Shutters DOxide onto my craft mat, spritzed with water, and added that to the mix too.

I chose those colours to go with the tag I cut the Tim Holtz flower out of.

This one is from the Wildflower Stems #2 set.

I'd done some wrinkle-free distressing with those colours onto the tag, and had just enough to be able to cut the strips of paper lace too.

This is one of the two designs from the Lace Thinlits set released a couple of years ago.

Most of my butterfly Design Tape had become invisible under the crackle, so I added some more of that...

... as well as some actual lace from Tim's Idea-ology Lace Trimmings.

There's a bit of script stamping done in Stormy Sky Oxide.

And I used the leftover blobs from cutting the lace to add some extra detailing.

A few ivory sequins dotted around catch the light rather nicely.

And the Idea-ology Quote Chip gives me the necessary words to finish things off.

In the end, I really like this mixed-media card.  And it's flat enough to go through the post without extra charges!

I hope that's given you some card-making inspiration.  Thanks so much for pausing in your journey with me today.  There's still plenty of time to join in with our current Book It! challenge so do come and join us.  Have fun on your crafting travels.

Alison x

Creative Card Making with Alison

Hello all!  I'm here to share a card with you, as part of the new timetable here at A Vintage Journey.  Regulars at Words and Pictures will know I really don't do cards.  There have been maybe five of them in the whole six years of Words and Pictures' existence.  (By the way, come and celebrate with my 6th Birthday Blog Candy if you'd like to.)  So this was a proper challenge as far as I was concerned, but by keeping it very simple I managed to get there.

As luck would have it, I needed a card to act as a voucher for my brother's birthday back in April - one that would link to the old-fashioned lightbulbs he likes, and let him know he could go shopping for some.

I really don't like making cards, but I had a lightbulb moment and decided to employ one of the many inky Oxidey background tags which I have lying around.  The tag itself was a combination of inks and Oxides, smooshed in the wrinkle-free distress technique.  I think there's some watery Picket Fence Distress Spray in there too.

I stamped Tim Holtz's wonderful vintage lightbulbs from the Inventor 2 plate in Jet Black Archival and clear-embossed them.

I love to emboss a stamped image.  Not only do you get the lovely shimmer in the light (perfect for a lightbulb)...

... but you also get a touch of texture and dimension.  I inked around the edges for a nice vintage look.

I had a pack of kraft cards with envelopes.  Pre-folded cards always seem like they might get me moving on the card front, so I pick them up when I see them on offer, but mostly the packets just sit around.  (And now that I've discovered I can make books with them, I'm guessing there won't be any left for card-making!)  But for this occasion they were the perfect solution.  I snipped the top off my tag and re-inked the new edge.  Minus the tag hole, the standard #8 tag fitted perfectly onto the 6x6 card.

I used my little Hero Arts alphabet to stamp the text, and cut it out and inked it before glueing it in place.  And of course there's plenty of white spatter... beams of light darting around the space.

It's not my best piece of artwork ever, but it did the job, and with a pre-inky tag it was also so quick to make.  And given that I was able to pretend it wasn't really a card but just an altered tag, it was even a pretty painless process!

I hope this might inspire the non-card-makers amongst you to start adapting your tags, and if you add in some stencilling you can come and join in with Astrid's brilliant Stencil It challenge this month too.  We hope to see you there!

Alison xx

A little extra musical inspiration...

Hello all!  It's Alison here, your tuneful host of this month's Words and Music challenge.  Our new itinerary means that in the third week of our challenge month we stop off for a while with the host for some extra inspiration.  It might be a tutorial for their challenge project, or a whole new creation.

I pretty much shot the bolt with my step-by-step for Under the Greenwood Tree over at Words and Pictures, so I'm here with a fresh bit of musical inspiration for you... a quick tag full of melodies and musical thoughts.

For my main project - Under the Greenwood Tree - I went for some song lyrics as the inspiration, so this time I've taken the other approach to the theme and used both music paper and some words about music on my tag.

I started by gluing down some vintage music paper onto a standard #8 tag.

I applied Versamark ink through the Tim Holtz Harlequin stencil and then a couple of coats of Seth Apter's fabulous Vintage Beeswax powder.  Just look at that glossy dimension, and the warm honey-coloured tone.  It's lovely.

I spritzed some Pumice Stone Distress Spray, followed by Broken China, and then flicked water droplets over the top, and sanded the edges for a more distressed look.

I added a wash of white paint, wiped back, and then splattered tiny droplets, and used a lid to add some circle shapes in a couple of places.

These Sizzix Coffee Marks die-cuts had been hanging around on the table for a while after being rejected from some other project, but I decided their time had come.

I stamped the quote from my PaperArtsy EAB03 Music and Silence stamp set, cut it into sections, and doodled around the edges with a fine black pen.

The wonderful Paper Doll dancer was also asking to come and dance amidst the music.

And just down by her feet, you find out who wrote those words.

I mounted the tag on some white card, just to echo all the white accents going on, and doodled some more fine black lines around the edges of the tag.

The whole thing is topped off with some Distress Ink-dyed crinkle ribbon and curly paper string.

I don't use black very much, but it was already there in the printed music, so I went with it - but to me this doesn't look very "me"... what do you think?  It's always good to experiment though, right?

I hope this has given you an extra nudge to come and get musical with us this month at A Vintage Journey.  Check out the details of the Words and Music challenge as well as the fabulous inspiration from my fellow Creative Guides and then come and join us on the journey.  We'd love to see you there.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Alison xx