Tag Friday at A Vintage Journey - June 2017.

Hi Everyone and Welcome

Today over at A Vintage Journey its Tag Friday ! I'm sure many of you are familiar with this tradition but for those of you aren't let me explain . When there are 5 Fridays in a month, the 5th Friday sees some of the Creative Guides create and post a tag .There are no rules or themes just a chance for us to follow our muse, go with the flow and create using a tag.
So I am here today to share with you my 'Tag Friday' tag.
Believe it or not I set out thinking I would make something bright and summery but I guess my subconscious mind thought otherwise and led me to to create a deep and meaningful tag.

I cut a panel from a much larger wrinkle free background that I had created at some point in the past and added a touch more colour using Distress inks with a blending tool.
I then die cut a tag from the panel and added some stamping using Indigo Blu's 'Rain Droplets' stamp with Jet Black archival ink and some stencilling using Tim Holtz 'Rays' layering stencil with DecoArt crackle paste and Black Soot distress paint. The cracks once formed were enhanced with gilding wax and the tag mounted onto cream and black card stock.

The focal image taken from an Invoke stamp set- 'Face blocks' was stamped on cream card stock using Jet black Archival ink and then water coloured with Distress inks.
To frame the face I used the outer part of the circle from Seth Apters Wood Chip set. I altered it using Deco Art texture sand paste and Back Soot distress paint. The framed face is adhered to a thin strip of mount board altered in the same way as the circle Wood Chip. As with the cracks the texture is enhanced with gilding wax.

I love this image - to me it is so emotive, it tells a story

maybe  a story of someones own personal journey experiencing some bright 'sunny highs' and extreme dark 'rainy lows',
experiences which have helped them start to belief in themselves....
........Maybe........

Be sure to stop by A Vintage Journey's blog, if you haven't already that is, to see all the other fabulous tags some of my talented teammates have created .

I would like to enter this tag into the following challenges: 
Stamps and Stencils: 'Words With Meaning'
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: 'Stencil it' 

Thank you so much for stopping by today and for all the lovely kind words you leave for my art. Your visits, comment and follows are greatly appreciated .
Hope you all have a lovely weekend
Take care

 and

keep on the 'happy' side

Amanda 

xxx

Destination Inspiration : Terminal #4 at A Vintage Journey

Hello Everyone and Welcome
Its lovely to see you all again and Thank you so much for stopping by today. Hope you all had a great weekend and ready for the week ahead.

I start my week over at A Vintage Journey where I am all ready to greet you at Terminal #4 with the project I have created using the contents of our travel bag.
Just one more click (here) and you're there.
Hope to see you soon ......
Amanda
xxx
I would like to enter this  into the following Challenge :
Mixed Media Monthly #37 A Year of Choices ( I have chosen #36 'Put a Stamp On it' and my twist is stamping in Gesso rather than ink to create a resist effect) 

Canvas- A Vintage Journey June 2017 Challenge

Hi Everyone

Hope you are all doing good and have had a great week - the last one in May - this year sure is passing by quickly!  So, as we head into June we have a new Challenge starting today over at A Vintage Journey. It's our lovely Nikki hosting this month and she has chosen the Challenge theme
'Canvas'
"Let's work with canvas this month in our vintage; shabby; mixed media, art journalling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk style. It doesn't matter how as long as some canvas is a dominant feature of your project. Perhaps you may use a canvas in the traditional way or use the reverse to create a shadow box? Canvas boards are fabulous to work on or perhaps you have some canvas sheets which can be cut and adhered to another surface."

Despite having a large collection of canvases in a whole range of sizes amidst my art stash (I'm Amanda and I'm a canvas collector haha) I decided not to disturb the "pack" so to speak and instead used canvas sheet on my 'Broken Maze, Hidden Gem' project.
It was Seth Apters a'MAZE'ing die that provided the inspiration for this project and one that no doubt you will see again in my work as I already have a couple prepped in various guises all 'good to go'.
 I'll start from the base up with the detail, sharing some close ups, mainly of the finished project as I got so involved in the creativity that I forgot to 'point the lens' during the process.
The base
  A 15x15 cm wooden box frame I found in my large stash of alterables (yes,I collect them too haha) primed with gesso and painted with black acrylic paint. For this project I worked on the back of the box frame.The sides are decorated with designer tape by Tim Holtz (Chatter)


and the top, a piece of textured wallpaper cut to size, lightly coloured using Distress inks (Iced Spruce, Tumbled glass, Faded Jeans) with some paint splatters too.

The larger Circle panel . 
 An MDF circular panel covered with Canvas sheet, primed with gesso and then painted with Distress paints (Iced spruce, Bundled Sage, Broken China, Mermaid Lagoon, Black Soot) and a few Deco Art media fluid acrylics (Prussian Blue, Paynes Gray) using brushes and brayers. As per my usual - no set rules just layering up the paint, going with the flow and enjoying the process.

Love how the paint picks up the texture of the canvas, creating instant detail which I added to using stamps (Seth Apter's Dot Matrix, Tattered Screen) as well as textured paper.

The smaller Circle
An old CD (and dare I say it - I seem to have alot of these lying around too) altered with acrylic paint and gesso. Love the subtle detail picked up from the pattern on the paper towel I used to remove some of my over zealous application of gesso .

Further detail again came in the way of stamps (Seth Apters Word Chain, Dot Matrix) with Shadow grey and Jet black Archival ink .

The Broken Maze
created from Seth Apters Broken Maze die. This was die cut about 4 times from greyboard and then layered and adhered one on top of the other to give some dimension and rigidity but only enough to still be able to manipulate the Broken Maze into a dome shape once altered.

The Maze was altered using Tim Holtz Grit paste and then painted (Prussian Blue Media Fluid and Distress paints as already mentioned) using a dry brush with silver gilding wax used to help enhance the texture of the painted grit paste.
 

I die cut and adhered together a second batch of the Broken Maze using black card stock to act as a drop shadow when assembled. .

I adhered an Ideology faucet knob to the centre of the maze

topped with a black gem bead

underneath which lies a hidden gem (a glass bead altered with alcohol inks)

that can be seen glistening in the light

  but only found

once you have worked your way through the Broken Maze

I hope my Broken Maze Hidden Gem creation has offered some inspiration to at least some of you stopping by today and that you will join us in our Canvas challenge.
As always at the end of the challenge there will be one lucky winner chosen by Random Org who will receive our Sponsors prize which this month is a $25 gift card kindly donated by Shimmerz Paints

The Creative Guides will also choose 3 Pinworthy winners who will not only win a Pinworthy badge to display on their blog but will also be invited to join us as a Guest Designer for a future challenge .
Don't forget to stop by A Vintage Journey to see the gallery of fabulous canvas projects created by my very talented fellow Creative Guides.

Before I sign out for today I would like to say  "big thanks to Seth Apter for designing so many fabulous products, (yes, I am very happily collecting Seth products now too) for inspiring my creativity with not only your products but with your blog The Altered Page and your own creativity and amazing art! 

Many thanks to all of you too for stopping by today .
Your visits, comments and follows are very much appreciated .
Wishing you all a lovely weekend
Take care and  keep on the happy side
Amanda 

(the collector😉)
xxx 
I would like to enter this into the following challenges: 
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge- 'We're Going Around in Circles  
Creative Artiste Challenge #27 - 'Anything Mixed Media Goes'  
The Craft Stamper TIMI Challenge - June 'Anything Goes Stamping Challenge '