Vintage Birthday Celebrations

Hello all!  Can you believe we've been on A Vintage Journey for a whole year?  Nope, me either... what a milestone on the journey.  We're celebrating the birthday with an Anything Tim challenge as well as a few changes to how we travel.  Check out all the details over at A Vintage Journey - as well as exciting news of the fabulous prizes on offer this month - our regular sponsor Country View Crafts are there with their always generous contribution, and there are prize packages from Tim and Mario as well as from some of us.

The main thing to know about the changes is that you now have a whole month to share your creations with us.  We'd like to see Anything Tim this month, and as usual, my fellow Creative Guides have created wonders to inspire you, so make sure you check them out, but before you go here's my offering.

Yup, it's a card... a birthday card, if you like!  And it's in a different style than usual - though this does seem to be what happens when I try to make cards (you may remember these Simple Cards for Artistic Stamper), and I was really guided by some of my new Tim toys.  I mean, with a sentiment like that, it would be pretty silly to be in my usual mixed media, multi-layered mode, so I'm exploring the art of simplicity this time around!

This glorious Wildflower stencil was one of (far too many) must-haves for me from this winter's CHA releases.

I spritzed Peeled Paint, Mowed Lawn and Shabby Shutters Distress Sprays through it onto watercolour paper, and then used another piece to "print" the leftover inks onto.











I was really pleased with the watercolour appearance as well as with the level of detail, as I really had got a bit too much ink on it!













And now I have another background awaiting my attentions some time soon.












I blended on some complementary colours around the torn edges and used a water brush to soften them, before adding some spatter with my Distress Marker spritzer.












I stamped the sentiment from the new Perspective set onto another small piece of Distress Watercolour Paper, and blended and coloured using inks and markers to create a matching panel.

It's mounted on two strips of padded tape with space for the twine to go through the middle.








And the twine continues its journey on the inside of the card, through a hole to the back where it's taped down.

I stencilled the Wildflowers again on the inside, in Vintage Photo, and added a neutral echo of the sentiment (leaving plenty of space for a personal greeting of course).








And having done that, it seemed only right to create some interest on the envelope too - more Wildflowers, more Vintage Photo, and another chance to appreciate the words.











So, a very simple make from me but, as I say, I was following where the new goodies led me!  I hope you'll hop over to A Vintage Journey and see what my amazing team mates have created, and we hope you'll come and join us with Anything Tim at some point in the next month.  Our generous sponsors Country View Crafts are simply itching to share that prize voucher with somebody!









I'll be back at A Vintage Journey on Monday to set off for a brand new Destination Inspiration, so I do hope you'll join me then.  In the meantime, thank you so much for your visits and comments - every one is so much appreciated.  Apologies if I'm not around as much as usual, but I'll hope to be back on the Craftyblogland road soon!

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Walt Whitman

Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Isaac Newton

In The Garden

Hello all... how did it get to be May already?!  I can hardly believe it...

But it is May 1st, and that being so, there are new challenges starting left, right and centre.  I have two for you today here at Words and Pictures alone.

Later today I'll be sharing the new Our Creative Corner theme, but right now it's time to find out what's on the cards at The Artistic Stamper this month.

Our challenge to you this month is to share with us what's In The Garden.  You can make any kind of project; it doesn't have to include Artistic Stamper stamps, but if it does then you'll get two entries into the prize draw at the end of the month.

Do hop over to The Artistic Stamper to see inspiration from some more of the Design Team, and check out the full rules and guidelines, but here's my starter for ten.







No mistaking my inspiration - I'm still playing with the lovely double-stamping technique Tim shared with us in March, but the stamps I've used this time are from Katy Fox's Encyclopaedia Botanica.

I coloured the flowers on the stamp using Distress Markers and stamped onto to two manila tags in succession.









I used a little ink and a water brush to gently colour in the petals, while not disturbing the stamped lines too much.















Then I stamped the flowers again on a spare bit of paper and cut a mask.













I used my marker spritzer (sadly an ancient bright red one, not the new sexy black TH one!) over the mask to create the speckled sky "behind" the flowers, layering on several different colours.












The little beetle is again stamped with Distress Markers, coloured straight onto the stamp... 














... Pumice Stone, Frayed Burlap and Black Soot if memory serves.












The little butterfly perched on the Idea-ology linen ribbon has been created the same way...















... and cut out to create a dimensional embellishment.












And I used Distress Paints to alter a couple of Word Sticks...













... to add a touch of metal to proceedings.














Simple raffia and a little knot of linen ribbon - well frayed of course - finish things off...














... providing an echo of the linen ribbon around the middle of the tags.






So what's In The Garden round your way?  Do pop over to The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog and see what's at the bottom of the garden for my team-mates, and then we'd love to see your take on the theme over the course of the month.  

As I said, I'll be back later in the morning with the new Our Creative Corner challenge but, until then, have a lovely few hours!!

Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden?
Robert Brault

I'd like to enter these in Not So Mellow Yellow at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  It's not a colour I use very often, but it seems to come out in Spring!!
And at the Stampotique Designers Challenge, they're playing with Flowers this week.  I haven't had much chance to play this month, so I'm leaping in at the last minute with this one!

Spring Quartet

Hello everyone, thanks so much for dropping in.  It's lovely to see you - well, you know what I mean!

I'm here with my creations inspired by the glorious March tags Tim Holtz offered us at the beginning of the month.  I was completely bowled over by his inspiration tags this month - so, so beautiful! - so I went for a pretty close version to start with, learning from the subtle techniques on offer.  Here they are...

But I had such fun doing it (plus I wasn't happy with my Distress Marker colouring on the nests) that I decided to do a whole other pair, and this time I stuck to a mainly neutral palette, with a touch of honey, just to see how that would be.  So here are those...

You don't need me to tell you how it's done - all of Tim's clear and detailed instructions are right here.  So I'm just going to do some compare and contrast photos of some of my favourite bits.

It was love at first sight for me for the new Wallflower vibe in all of the Holtz collections (across the Alterations, Paperie and Idea-ology).  

I'm afraid there's been some heavy spending (thank goodness for the discount earned at The Funkie Junkie Boutique by playing along with Linda's 12 Tags of Christmas!!), and this stamp set was right at the head of the list.  I was so happy to see it in action on Tim's tags.

The layered egg is beyond cool!  I love it.


I love that you can have any colour you want as the base layer.


And then speckle with other colours to your heart's content.


Not perfect over-stamping... but I'm thinking there'll be lots of practice in the future, and we all know what that makes!















I loved the multi-colour stamping on the feather...


Blending ink colours on one stamping is something I quite often do (did it on the eggs too!), and I love the effect of doing it with bolder colour contrasts than I would usually go for.


Though, of course, on my neutral tags, it was back to business pretty much as normal!


I'm one of the people Tim mentions when he's demoing the marker spritzer - the ones who picked one of them up, somewhere, at some point, and have had it hanging around for years, with very occasional use.  


Sadly mine's bright red rather than sexy black!











Not quite happy with the string on my "ghost" versions... 











I wanted to use a paler colour, but this is more heavy-duty than the regular twine, so the effect is a bit heftier than I'd like.









The Stormy Sky DP of the colour version of the word band becomes Antique Linen on the neutral tags.









And I picked the smaller fonts for the "ghost" tags, which have a lighter appearance than the larger letters of the single word Word Bands.










I used the matching twines at the top to secure some strands of raffia for a natural look.

So there you have it, my Spring Quartet (apologies for the abysmal pun, but I'm sure you'll understand that it was irresistible!).











These were such a joy to make - smudge-stamping, shadow-stamping, spritzing and all.

Thank you, Tim, for another outstanding month of inspiration and education - what a killer combination!

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever.

Mahatma Gandhi

I'd like to enter these as my March tags in Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2014.