Creative Guide - A Vintage Journey - Home Sweet Home

I am absolutely thrilled to have been invited by Brenda to join the team at A Vintage Journey; I am so pleased to have been invited along and to be joining such a talented team. This journey is inspired by Tim Holtz techniques, products, designs, ideas etc., and as a great follower of Tim's work this makes this journey even more rewarding for me.

This month our host is Jenny and her challenge is:

"For most of us the summer holidays are over, schools are back and it is nice to be home and back in the usual routines. So for this challenge let's create a project which sums up "home" for each of us (either past or present), using Tim's fabulous array of products and techniques. Just make sure Tim's style is evident in what you make".

This is how I was inspired by Jenny's challenge theme:

I took some time out to think about this piece, especially with it being my first post for A Vintage Journey. My inspiration came from one of Tim's sentiments "Enjoy The Journey". I feel creating a piece of art should be all about enjoying the process, the journey and having fun along the way. I also wanted to incorporate new products with some older pieces to, highlighting how easily the range all works together.

I began by cutting a piece of canvas to fit my embroidery hoop and then colouring the canvas with Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn Distress Paints, blending the colours with a baby wipe. I then added a touch of Salty Ocean Distress Paint to Texture Paste and mixing together and then applied over the Hearts Layering Stencil and I then set this piece aside to dry..

Whilst the canvas was drying I then set to work on decorating the hoop. I applied a coat of Gesso, allowed to dry and then applied a coat of Picket Fence Distress Paint and dried with a heat tool. I then used my finger to apply touches of Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn and Tarnished Brass Distress Paint to the hoop and then dried with a heat tool. I then set the hoop aside and began work again adding layers to the canvas piece. The next layer was adding Fired Brick Distress Ink over the Dot Fade Layering Stencil, adding random stencilling around the canvas. I also added pieces of Tissue Tape to the background for added texture.

I tore a heart from scrap paper and then drew around the shape onto 300gsm card; applied water to the heart shape with a paintbrush and then added Fired Brick, Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks to an acrylic block and picked up each of the colours with a wet paintbrush and painted the heart and then dried with a heat tool. I then flicked the coloured heart with more water, allowed the water to sit so that the inks could react and then dabbed up the excess water with a piece of kitchen towel and then dried with a heat tool. To add a further layer of interest I added random stamping to the heart using the background stamp from Tim's Ledger Script stamp set; inking the stamp with Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn Distress Ink. I also added touches of Tissue Tape to the heart, Chitchat Stickers, Industrial Stickers and Mini Paper Clips. From this picture you can also see that I added Remnant Rubs to the backdrop using part of Tim's Remnant Rub Resist technique

I used one of Tim's older dies the Artful Dwellings to die cut houses from mountboard, decorating each Dwelling with Tim Holtz Correspondence Paper Pad. I then die cut a heart from the centre of one of the Dwellings using the Mini Hearts Die Set, adding shading around the die cut area with Ground Espresso Distress Ink. I also added Chitchat stickers to one of the Dwellings and mini hearts to the second cut using the Heartfelt die. I also included a Salvaged Doll which I coloured with Distress Paints.

To complete I added delicate splatters of Fired Brick and Mowed Lawn Distress Paints and added a touch of Brushed Pewter Distress Paint to the stencilled hearts.

Our sponsor Country View Crafts offers one randomly drawn winner a £20 voucher to spend in their fabulous on-line shop. 

I would also like to enter this into the Craft Stamper Take it Make it challenge which this time around is "Take A Stamp" Anything Goes. I have used a Tim Holtz text background stamp on the torn heart.

Thanks so much for stopping by, hope you enjoyed my first piece. Tracy x x