Destination Inspiration Terminal 4 Vintage Christmas Card

Hello friends and welcome to the 4th and final stop of this month's Destination Inspiration posts. Astrid here with another Christmas card. In case you missed the previous posts, this is what we have in our travel bag this month:

Product : Distress Oxide

Technique : Faded Layers

Colour : Blues

Substrate : White Card

Well this was the first time I tried the Faded Layers technique (you can read all about it in Tim's Compendium of Curiosities Volume 3 page 58). And like my teamies, I did not find it easy....

Like all of us this month I decided to make a Christmas card:

I started by making the Faded Layers panel, choosing 3 bluetones of Alcohol Inks and Yupo paper

I used Denim and Cloudy blue for a first layer and then deepened it with a second layer adding a little Silver Mixative to it too for some sparkling effects.

I mixed in some Aqua  to deepen the colour still further and then used Tim's snowflake stencil to create my faded layer next:

On to the rest of the card, I die cut a snow flake from white card and the word Peace from copper metalic Kraft core and dabbed them lightly with Oxide Inks in Tumbled Glass and Faded Jeans for the snowflake, and a little Black Soot mixed in on the word die

I also added a little Distress Glitter to the snowflake for some extra sparkle.

Next I gathered some further diecuts and embellishments and then it was almost time to assemble my card, when I decided I had not used the Oxide Ink ingredient sufficiently. So I took a Kraftcard card blank and used Faded Jeans and Walnut Stain Doxides all around the edges.

I used a piece of white card to mat my faded layer panel, arranged my embellishments until I was happy with the composition and then I was done.

I put some Stampendous Ancient Silver embossing powder around the edges of my card

Well there you have it, and as this is the last stop on our journey this month, just as a reminder, here are the incredible projects my teamies created, using the exact same ingredients:

                           Anne                                             

                  

 

Sara Emily

                                                                                  

Nikki

I am always amazed how using the exact same products and techniques, 4 different people can come up with such different projects. Nikki and I even used the same stencil and yet our cards are so different from each other......

Well that's it for now, - there are still just a few days left to join in our Mini Marvels challenge. If you have not yet done so, we would love to see you there!

Thank you for your visit and happy crafting!

Astrid

A Mini Marvel Guest ........

Welcome Everyone, it's the fourth Friday in the month and I'm really ........ extremely ...............

and positively HAPPY to introduce our Guest for November .........

a fabulous journaller and designer, Kate Crane.

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Hi everyone, Kate Crane here, and I'm very happy to be here! Not only do I have a passion for all things mixed media, I also have a passion for creating anything small and tiny so when I was asked to be a guest designer for this challenge I was delighted as I knew it would be right up my street.

I have been creating mixed media art and art journaling for about nine years now, and regularly teach classes both in person and on-line. You can find details of all of my projects as well as my classes on my blog, where you will also find links to other social media platforms.

Small is beautiful, and although it can be tricky working on such a small scale it is so worth it for the cute results! I created a journal using small greyboard shapes, and then stitched tiny signatures in-between.

I began with eight small greyboard pieces from a Tando Creative grab-bag measuring just 3.5 x 5 cm each. I  coated each piece in black gesso on all sides, allowed it to dry, and then added a coat of white gesso on one side only. I scribbled into mine a bit while it was wet which is an optional step.

I also used a small heart and a washer and added a coat of white gesso to those too.

Once the gesso dried on my small boards I added some scraps of patterned paper using matte medium.

For colour I used DecoArt Fluid Acrylics in Quinacridone Red, Cobalt Turquoise Hue, Green Gold, Carbon Black, along with some Decoart Tinting Base. I painted random patches of colour (making sure the colours did not overlap) on just seven of the pieces, and then used my fingers to add light amounts of Tinting Base where the colours joined. The patterned papers can be painted over or you can allow them to show.

Using coordinating colours of Archival ink as well as some black, I stamped all over the backgrounds using a selection of stamps by Andy Skinner, The Artistic Stamper, and Paper Artsy.

To finish these off I added some doodling with a white gel pen, and some touches of DecoArt Fluid Acrylic in Metallic Gold with the edges of an old credit card, and also painted all of the edges in gold.

Now, on to the cover. I used Tinting Base along with two shades of blue to paint random patches of colour.

I also used Quinacridone Red to paint the heart and then added stamping using an Andy Skinner stamp.

To complete the base of the cover I added a layer of DecoArt one-step crackle, and then added DecoArt Antiquing Cream to really highlight the cracks. The Antiquing cream is added to the whole page and then wiped off with a dry cloth allowing the colour to settle in the cracks.

Once dry I added the heart, and then painted the washer in Metallic Gold and added that too.

I cut several pages for the inserts in cartridge paper measuring 6 x 4.5 cm, and then aged them a little using Distress ink in Walnut Stain.

Nearly there! A length of ribbon or tape is all it takes to hold this little book together. I laid all of my pieces along the tape and then marked the tape where I wanted the signatures to go. The folded signatures will fit just in-between the greyboard pieces. This enabled me to stitch the signatures in the right place along the length of ribbon before gluing all of the other pieces into place.

I love using acrylic paints as you can get such vibrant colour. They are also a very forgiving medium ... if things don't go according to plan you can just paint over it!

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Wow, how's that for a magnificent mini marvel of a project? Thank you Kate, it's beautiful, such a delightful little journal and fabulous process steps for us to see exactly how you put it together. It may well have been a bit tricky but the care and attention to detail was worth all the concentration you put in, just to see it in the photographs it looks perfect, but I can imagine it's even better in real life and holding it in your hands. We really appreciate you making this for our challenge this month and for being our wonderful guest.

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We have some fabulous creations linked to the Mini Marvels challenge and we hope we will see some more of you there with your small creations, remember anything up to 4 x 4 inches. ATCs and similar are perfect, so are small canvases, small journal pages and even toppers that you have designed and made for your cards. Lets see what you are creating at the moment. You have till next thursday to get it linked and don't forget there is a fabulous prize from Southern Ridge Trading Company and you might be chosen as one of our Pinworthy Guests too.

Take care and have a great week.

hugs Brenda, Kate and the Creative Guides xxx

Destination Inspiration - Terminal 3 - Alcohol Ink Christmas Card

Hello and welcome to our third stop of this month's Destination Inspiration. Nikki here to share my creation with our selection of product, technique, colour and substrate. 

Product : Distress Oxide

Technique : Faded Layers

Colour : Blues

Substrate : White Card

We have seen some fabulous designs from Anne and Sara Emily and now it is my turn! I think we have all struggled a little bit with the Faded Layers technique!

I began with my Faded Layers panel, at this point I wasn't sure where I was going but just wanted to make sure I could get an effect! It is subtle but hopefully you can see it.

I added a few blue toned alcohol inks onto glossy card - I added a tiny bit of a rusty colour after this photo for a bit of contrast. Next I selected a stencil and worked on removing to reveal the 'fade'!

I then moved onto my distress oxides - I now had a plan to create a layered Christmas card.

A little bit of background stamping in archival before some oxide was added to my craft mat and spritzed. I lay my card into it to get lots of lovely splodges!

Next I added a some pumice stone DI all over the card and spritzed with water and threw droplets on the card to remove some of both inks.

I then stamped with distress oxide ink and spritzed again to soften the stamped images.