Dreams, Thoughts, Moments

Hello all, and thank you so much for stopping by.  I'm in denial about the date (moving is imminent), but I can't deny that it's Friday and time for a new challenge at A Vintage Journey.  The wonderful Toni is our host, and she's looking for Pairs, Trios and Sets.  This is definitely a challenge after my own heart - I create in pairs, trios and sets more often than not, so here's what I came up with...

There's obviously a wealth of inspiration from my fellow Creative Guides over at A Vintage Journey, but before you go, let me share a few close-ups and details of this leafy tag trio.  I'll try to keep it short, as I don't have many spare moments as I try to bring my dreams and thoughts to fruition by moving to a new country in the middle of a global pandemic!!

I'm mostly crafting in quick sessions and then throwing things together from those sessions.  So the backgrounds were from some quick inky playtime to start the day before packing.

There are both Distress Inks and Oxides here - a range of colours, not sure I can be comprehensive with a list of colours...

... but somewhere in there are definitely Vintage Photo, Crackling Campfire, Faded Jeans, Broken China, Walnut Stain, Rusty Hinge, Stormy Sky.

And then just lots of dipping and smooshing and water-spritzing, always drying between layers to get the inky splotches I love.

The other crafting session was one inspired by Tim Holtz's Saturday demo on leaf-making... not that I need any encouragement to make autumn leaves, as anyone who's been paying attention around here lately could tell you.

But I did have a lovely time playing with inks, dies, embossing folders, stamps, mica sprays, and gilding wax to create this pile of leaves ready for shushling through.

Many are cut using the Fall Foliage Thinlits dies, some of which have stamping to give the impression of vein texture while some have the wonderful 3D Leaf Veins embossing folder adding glorious actual impressions.

Some come with their own embossing built in - the dark Impresslit leaves, for instance...

And some come with their own embossing folder included with the die - these large Layered Leaf ones, which have been longtime favourites.

The shimmers of Treasure Gold White Fire gilding wax add to the burnishing of the Distress Mica Spray which you can see gleaming in places.

So, with the backgrounds and the leaves all ready to go, it was just a question of grabbing a couple of other bits and bobs to create my little collages for each tag.  I try to position things so that it creates a nice journey for the eyes travelling from tag to tag as well as looking at the whole set.

Photobooth photos often seem to do the trick.  They're really useful when you're creating a set or group because you have an element which is the same, but always different because each face, each personality is different.

Though I will confess I deliberately sought out some nice cheerful expressions for this particular trio... trying to keep my own chin up as moving day draws closer and there still seems to be a LOT to do.

The cheesecloth scraps serve a double function - creating a pale layer between the leaves and the background, so that they show up better...

... and creating lots of movement and delicious organic randomness with the frayed threads escaping all over the shop.

The film strip offers great vertical architecture to give the otherwise organic and scruffy collaging a sense of structure.

It also catches the light beautifully - which, as regulars will know, is an ongoing obsession in my creative journey.

There have to be words - this is Words and Pictures after all...

... so I did a bit of snipping of some Quote Chips to get individual words to suit my mood and the look of the tags.

And a bit of Rusty Hinge/Crackling Campfire/Vintage Photo blending around the edges makes them pop as well as tone in with the autumnal theme all around them.

Some simple fine twine to top things off, and we're pretty much there, I think.

I hope you'll be inspired to create some Pairs, Trios or Sets this month with us.

There are some wonderful projects over at A Vintage Journey to help kick you into action so do take a look.

As always, we'll be picking some of our favourites to feature on our Pinworthies Pinterest boards at the end of the month.  So I hope we'll see you somewhere down the road with your group projects!!

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Stay safe, stay well out there - or even better, stay in and stay creative.  See you all again soon.

How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and colour are their last days.
John Burroughs

Country View Challenges are playing Anything But A Card this month so I'd like to play along

At Tag Tuesday the new theme for this fortnight is Texture - plenty of that going on here!

Almost all these leaves are dry Embossed so I'm sharing them at Try It On Tuesday