Hello everyone, Deb here to announce our choices for the May Book It! challenge and for our May Tag Friday linkup! As is always the case you did not make the Creative Guide's choices easy, so many amazing entries and we want to thank all of you for joining in our challenges. First up, here are our Pinworthy picks for the Book It! challenge: #8 Jannet We adore how Jannet's wonderful cover opens up to reveal an amazing tea party diorama and who doesn't love Alice In Wonderland! #13 Cathy Cathy's amazing medical themed vintage book is incredibly detailed but the most wonderful part of all is how she dedicated it to her father-in-law who was a doctor. #23 Katrina The cover of Katrina's fab Dogs and Pups lap book has a wonderful vintage feel and her decision to donate it to a local dog rescue association (where she found her own beloved pup Luther!) was such a special and generous idea. And our Tag Friday winner was: #7 Beulah Bee Love that Beulah Bee used that wonderful vintage wedding photo and then showcased it so perfectly inside the Idea-ology Lace Frame with that lovely floral lace stamp and Perfect Pearls! Congratulations to all our amazingly talented winners, we will be sending you your AVJ Pinworthy badges to display on your blogs very soon. Thanks again to everyone who entered our May challenges and we hope that you will also enter our current Tissue Paper challenge for a chance to win your very own Pinworthy badge! Thanks as always for stopping by today and happy creating, Deb and the Creative Guides

Hi Vintage Journey Travelers, Thank you everyone who entered. We had a fabulous array of talent this month. Our winner chosen by random org is: That's #70 Aimeslee Winans of Paper-Paisley's Art Adventures with this lovely Artist Post Card featuring vintage German scrap images. Congratulations Aimeslee! We'll be in touch shortly with your winner's badge and details of your sponsor prize from the fabulous Andy Skinner. We had so many wonderful entries this month that it was very difficult for the team to decide on our Pinworthy winners but here are the results. Our talented winners are: Toni of Artistic Craft Dabbler https://craftdabbler-toni.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/festive-stamps-and-stencils-stamps-and.html Nicola of Paper Profusion https://paperprofusion.blogspot.ie/2017/12/merry-christmas.html Christine of Crafty Endeavours http://craftyfield.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/glistening-snow-and-winter-trees.html Huge congratulations to our three Pinworthies this month, you really did create the most wonderful Winter Wonderlands. We will contact you shortly regarding your Pinworthy badge. We hope you will visit again on Monday for our regular Destination Inspiration post, using the contents of the monthly travel bag, and we hope too, that you will join in our current challenge - Think Inside Or Outside The Box, details of which can be found HERE. Wishing you a creative weekend, S@ndy and the Creative Guides

Hi Everyone and welcome to our Winners and Pinworthies day here at A Vintage Journey! We hope you enjoyed our All Squared Up Challenge - we had so many fabulous entries - Thank You. The Creative Guides always have a tough job selecting their favourites. Now let's move onto today's winner drawn by the Random Generator: Congratulations To: Craftyfield - No 11 Your badge will be on its way to you shortly, and we'll be in touch about the sponsor's prize too. Congratulations! ___________________ The Creative Guides Selected Favourites to become our three Pinworthies, whose designs are pinned to our Pinterest Board and you are invited to be a Guest Creative Guide. In no particular order, we have chosen: No 9 - Lucy No 12 - Art and Soul (Julie) No 19 - Macarena Huge congratulations to you all. Your Pinworthy Badges will be on their way to you shortly and we hope you will join us here as guests for a forthcoming challenge. Many thanks again to everyone who joined in this challenge. Our current challenge Watercolour is currently underway - we look forward to seeing your entries. Check out the Creative Guide inspiration to see some of the diverse ways this theme has been interpreted. Until next time - happy crafting! Tracy xxx

WOW! You all have shared so many FABULOUS creations in our 'Baby It's Cold Outside - Winter' challenge! Thanks for joining in the fun ... we know how busy everyone was during the holidays and we appreciate you taking the time to come share your talents with us! Though not an easy task, our very talented group of ladies have shared their favorites and here are their choice. Our TOP 3 picks are . . . #39 Nick #16 Irene #23 Paper Profusion Congratulations! Please grab your Top 3 Badge from our sidebar to display proudly on your blogs. The TOP WINNER of our challenge goes to . . . #19 Martina CONGRATULATIONS! Please grab your WINNERS badge from our sidebar to display proudly on your blog! AND, Our Random.org PRIZE WINNER is . . . #31 Maura Congratulations ! I will be sending you an email directly notifying you of this win! Please be sure to email me back within 7 days and I will send out your prize as quick as I can! Email to: [email protected] Thanks again to everyone who entered our challenge. Please come back tomorrow for another fabulous challenge and gorgeous mood board! Hope to see you there!!

Hi Everyone and welcome to our Winners and Pinworthies day here at A Vintage Journey! We hope you enjoyed our All Squared Up Challenge - we had so many fabulous entries - Thank You. The Creative Guides always have a tough job selecting their favourites. Now let's move onto today's winner drawn by the Random Generator: Congratulations To: Craftyfield - No 11 Your badge will be on its way to you shortly, and we'll be in touch about the sponsor's prize too. Congratulations! ___________________ The Creative Guides Selected Favourites to become our three Pinworthies, whose designs are pinned to our Pinterest Board and you are invited to be a Guest Creative Guide. In no particular order, we have chosen: No 9 - Lucy No 12 - Art and Soul (Julie) No 19 - Macarena Huge congratulations to you all. Your Pinworthy Badges will be on their way to you shortly and we hope you will join us here as guests for a forthcoming challenge. Many thanks again to everyone who joined in this challenge. Our current challenge Watercolour is currently underway - we look forward to seeing your entries. Check out the Creative Guide inspiration to see some of the diverse ways this theme has been interpreted. Until next time - happy crafting! Tracy xxx

Hello everyone! Julia here today to announce our lucky randomly chosen winner and three Pinworthies for our February Melt It challenge. What wonderful and creative projects you all shared with us showing all the fun ways to 'Melt It'! The Creative Guides had quite the chore to narrow down their choices! First of all, we are pleased to announce our randomly chosen winner for the gift certificate generously provided by Country View Crafts. That's #8 Two Mad Dahlias, who created these phenomenally cool Mason jars, complete with captured fairies! Do hop over and visit her blog to see all the meltingly brilliant details. Congratulations! We'll be in touch soon with a winner's badge for your blog and details of how to claim your prize voucher from Country View Crafts. And now on to our three Pinworthy choices (in no particular order). Mona Pendleton What a beautiful canvas created with die cut trees, stampings and background coloring - all covered with thick embossing powder and white splatter! Jackie Neal A wonderful Asian theme design using crackle glaze, stenciling and the beautiful Deep Sea Embossing powder - gorgeous melted edges as well! Ann Barnes Such a sweet Love triptych using beautiful floral papers and rolled roses - with a lovely embossed edge heart front and center! Amazing creations one and all, we will be in touch shortly to present you with your Pinworthy badges and to invite you to join us as guest Creative Guides for one of our future challenges. Thanks again to everyone who entered our February challenge and we hope that you will enter our current Birthday Treasure challenge, you have until April 5th to link up your projects, can't wait to see what you create! To give you a bit more inspiration for our Birthday Treasure challenge, we'd like to share some projects with you that were created by our December Pinworthy Mentions; Christine of Crafty Endeavours, Nicola of Paper Profusion and Toni of Artistic Craft Dabbler. Enjoy! ******************************************* Christine Hi my name is Christine but I’m known as Craftyfield in the crafting world and I live in the south of England. I started making my own cards some 15 years ago and very soon fell in love with all sorts of crafts, from card making and Scrapbooking to jewellery and home decor. Now a confirmed stamp-a-holic, I love trying new techniques to use my stamp collection in different ways. Style wise… I love and try everything from CAS to grungy, and have been making more Mixed media projects recently as I love using paint to up-cycle household items. I am delighted to be featured on this fantastic blog as a Pinworthy guest and I hope you will be inspired by my treasure.... I approached this month's theme with excitement and dread in equal measure... using some of my Treasure!!! My precious...(think Lord of the Rings' Golem and you have the idea) but I am glad I have been pushed into using my beautiful resin frame by Prima. I made this 12x12 canvas taking inspiration from Finnabair dark and dimensional projects. I applied black gesso as a base over stencilled texture paste and die-cuts, then used paints, both matte colours and shimmers all over the canvas. I then added a bit of stamping, as I said, I am a stamp-a-holic... For embellishments, apart from my Treasured item I used home made embellishments with bottle caps and Vintage images as well as glitter, sequins and other shiny bits... I placed a pebble on top of the man image to magnify it. I used a transparent red embossing powder and the colour is different depending on what is underneath. I hope you will like my canvas, do hop over to my blog for a step by step and a list of supplies. Thank you so much to A Vintage Journey for inviting me, it's an honour and a pleasure. Nicola Hi there. It's wonderful to be a Pinworthy guest for A Vintage Journey once more. I’m Nicola a.k.a. ‘Paper Profusion’ living in Dublin, Ireland. I’ve loved handicrafts for as long as I can remember, probably inspired by my Mum who excelled at every single crafting technique out there. I’m now medically retired however during my ‘career / good health years’ my main creative hobby was photography especially travel/wildlife related. During a time of serious illness, I became hooked on paper crafting as a hobby to dabble in at my own pace. I’m particularly drawn to the vintage / shabby chic genres, usually adding lots of embellishments and ribbon. My favourite occasion to craft for is Christmas. I've been rather absent from crafting recently so it was a joy to dust off my crafty stash and make today's creation, especially for one of my very favourite blogs. I was initially flummoxed what to choose for Brenda's 'Treasure' theme (way too much choice in my stash!). In the end I decided to use items I treasure amongst the ingredients, as well as 'Treasure' itself being the subject of my project (or at least something we should treasure more!). A few years ago I held on to some gold foil packaging that came with a perfume. I reckoned that the gold would look well diecut using Sizzix / Tim Holtz mini Globe die, and then a sort of protest scene unfolded whereby lots of Tim Holtz paper dolls are carrying banners with suggestions as to how to help reduce climate change and treasure our planet more. The globe, placards and letters are cut from the hoarded gold foil cardstock. The whole scene is set in an altered chipboard shadow box that I turned into a 'galaxy'. The dolls are decorated with treasures of real Swarovski crystals and pearls that I only ever select for 'good' occasions! If you would like to see more of how I put this project together, plus details of all the ingredients, please pop over to my blog. Huge thanks to the truly very talented team at AVJ for inviting me to be one of their Pinworthies today. Wishing Brenda and all the team Congratulations and very Happy Wishes on your 4th birthday! Nicola x Toni Hi my name's Toni otherwise know by my blog name, the 'Artistic Craft Dabbler'. I'm delighted and honoured, to be here, in such prestigious company, as a Pin Worthy Guest Designer. I'm a retired teacher and have been loving the last eighteen months of freedom! I've been putting my time to good use though, attending pottery classes, making mixed media art, blogging and more recently attending a creative textiles group. Yes, there are some benefits to getting older ! I was very excited to read the details of Brenda's fabulous 'Treasure' challenge, and was more than happy to take part, as it has provided me, with the ideal opportunity to use a few of my favourite 'found' treasures........ The substrate for my treasure assemblage, is a Tim Holtz Vignette box. I chose the largest box in the set and applied a coat of Deco Art Crackle paste, to the outside, followed by of Cobalt Turquoise and Prussian Blue Media Fluid Acrylic paint to highlight the gorgeous crackles. To add further interest and frame the contents of the box, I painted the edges with black and white stripes. The 'treasures' assembled here, are the bottom of a rusty tin can, a piece of sea glass, a spiral car spring, and a lovely flying goose brooch I found in a charity shop. I love collecting interesting bits and bobs, so it was a real pleasure to be able to use some of them. I used a 'double' embossing technique to decorate the background panel. This gave me an opportunity to use another little treasure, in the shape of one of the new Emerald Creek & Seth Apter's Baked Texture, embossing powders. The Chunky Rust was perfect for creating the 'brick wall'. The half cog added to the top of the Vignette box was also given the Chunky Rust treatment. If you'd like to know more about any of the processes I've used, there are further details over on my Artistic Craft Dabbler blog. I hope you'll have chance to hop by. Finally, I'd just like to say a big thank you to the AVJ team for inviting me today. It's been great fun putting this project for such a fabulous challenge! xx ******************************************* Amazing projects as always from our Pinworthy Guest Creative Guides, thank you for sharing your wonderful work with us all! We invite everyone to join us for the March - 4th AVJ Birthday - Treasure Challenge! Julia and the Creative Guides

Hello everyone! Julia here today to announce our lucky randomly chosen winner and three Pinworthies for our February Melt It challenge. What wonderful and creative projects you all shared with us showing all the fun ways to 'Melt It'! The Creative Guides had quite the chore to narrow down their choices! First of all, we are pleased to announce our randomly chosen winner for the gift certificate generously provided by Country View Crafts. That's #8 Two Mad Dahlias, who created these phenomenally cool Mason jars, complete with captured fairies! Do hop over and visit her blog to see all the meltingly brilliant details. Congratulations! We'll be in touch soon with a winner's badge for your blog and details of how to claim your prize voucher from Country View Crafts. And now on to our three Pinworthy choices (in no particular order). Mona Pendleton What a beautiful canvas created with die cut trees, stampings and background coloring - all covered with thick embossing powder and white splatter! Jackie Neal A wonderful Asian theme design using crackle glaze, stenciling and the beautiful Deep Sea Embossing powder - gorgeous melted edges as well! Ann Barnes Such a sweet Love triptych using beautiful floral papers and rolled roses - with a lovely embossed edge heart front and center! Amazing creations one and all, we will be in touch shortly to present you with your Pinworthy badges and to invite you to join us as guest Creative Guides for one of our future challenges. Thanks again to everyone who entered our February challenge and we hope that you will enter our current Birthday Treasure challenge, you have until April 5th to link up your projects, can't wait to see what you create! To give you a bit more inspiration for our Birthday Treasure challenge, we'd like to share some projects with you that were created by our December Pinworthy Mentions; Christine of Crafty Endeavours, Nicola of Paper Profusion and Toni of Artistic Craft Dabbler. Enjoy! ******************************************* Christine Hi my name is Christine but I’m known as Craftyfield in the crafting world and I live in the south of England. I started making my own cards some 15 years ago and very soon fell in love with all sorts of crafts, from card making and Scrapbooking to jewellery and home decor. Now a confirmed stamp-a-holic, I love trying new techniques to use my stamp collection in different ways. Style wise… I love and try everything from CAS to grungy, and have been making more Mixed media projects recently as I love using paint to up-cycle household items. I am delighted to be featured on this fantastic blog as a Pinworthy guest and I hope you will be inspired by my treasure.... I approached this month's theme with excitement and dread in equal measure... using some of my Treasure!!! My precious...(think Lord of the Rings' Golem and you have the idea) but I am glad I have been pushed into using my beautiful resin frame by Prima. I made this 12x12 canvas taking inspiration from Finnabair dark and dimensional projects. I applied black gesso as a base over stencilled texture paste and die-cuts, then used paints, both matte colours and shimmers all over the canvas. I then added a bit of stamping, as I said, I am a stamp-a-holic... For embellishments, apart from my Treasured item I used home made embellishments with bottle caps and Vintage images as well as glitter, sequins and other shiny bits... I placed a pebble on top of the man image to magnify it. I used a transparent red embossing powder and the colour is different depending on what is underneath. I hope you will like my canvas, do hop over to my blog for a step by step and a list of supplies. Thank you so much to A Vintage Journey for inviting me, it's an honour and a pleasure. Nicola Hi there. It's wonderful to be a Pinworthy guest for A Vintage Journey once more. I’m Nicola a.k.a. ‘Paper Profusion’ living in Dublin, Ireland. I’ve loved handicrafts for as long as I can remember, probably inspired by my Mum who excelled at every single crafting technique out there. I’m now medically retired however during my ‘career / good health years’ my main creative hobby was photography especially travel/wildlife related. During a time of serious illness, I became hooked on paper crafting as a hobby to dabble in at my own pace. I’m particularly drawn to the vintage / shabby chic genres, usually adding lots of embellishments and ribbon. My favourite occasion to craft for is Christmas. I've been rather absent from crafting recently so it was a joy to dust off my crafty stash and make today's creation, especially for one of my very favourite blogs. I was initially flummoxed what to choose for Brenda's 'Treasure' theme (way too much choice in my stash!). In the end I decided to use items I treasure amongst the ingredients, as well as 'Treasure' itself being the subject of my project (or at least something we should treasure more!). A few years ago I held on to some gold foil packaging that came with a perfume. I reckoned that the gold would look well diecut using Sizzix / Tim Holtz mini Globe die, and then a sort of protest scene unfolded whereby lots of Tim Holtz paper dolls are carrying banners with suggestions as to how to help reduce climate change and treasure our planet more. The globe, placards and letters are cut from the hoarded gold foil cardstock. The whole scene is set in an altered chipboard shadow box that I turned into a 'galaxy'. The dolls are decorated with treasures of real Swarovski crystals and pearls that I only ever select for 'good' occasions! If you would like to see more of how I put this project together, plus details of all the ingredients, please pop over to my blog. Huge thanks to the truly very talented team at AVJ for inviting me to be one of their Pinworthies today. Wishing Brenda and all the team Congratulations and very Happy Wishes on your 4th birthday! Nicola x Toni Hi my name's Toni otherwise know by my blog name, the 'Artistic Craft Dabbler'. I'm delighted and honoured, to be here, in such prestigious company, as a Pin Worthy Guest Designer. I'm a retired teacher and have been loving the last eighteen months of freedom! I've been putting my time to good use though, attending pottery classes, making mixed media art, blogging and more recently attending a creative textiles group. Yes, there are some benefits to getting older ! I was very excited to read the details of Brenda's fabulous 'Treasure' challenge, and was more than happy to take part, as it has provided me, with the ideal opportunity to use a few of my favourite 'found' treasures........ The substrate for my treasure assemblage, is a Tim Holtz Vignette box. I chose the largest box in the set and applied a coat of Deco Art Crackle paste, to the outside, followed by of Cobalt Turquoise and Prussian Blue Media Fluid Acrylic paint to highlight the gorgeous crackles. To add further interest and frame the contents of the box, I painted the edges with black and white stripes. The 'treasures' assembled here, are the bottom of a rusty tin can, a piece of sea glass, a spiral car spring, and a lovely flying goose brooch I found in a charity shop. I love collecting interesting bits and bobs, so it was a real pleasure to be able to use some of them. I used a 'double' embossing technique to decorate the background panel. This gave me an opportunity to use another little treasure, in the shape of one of the new Emerald Creek & Seth Apter's Baked Texture, embossing powders. The Chunky Rust was perfect for creating the 'brick wall'. The half cog added to the top of the Vignette box was also given the Chunky Rust treatment. If you'd like to know more about any of the processes I've used, there are further details over on my Artistic Craft Dabbler blog. I hope you'll have chance to hop by. Finally, I'd just like to say a big thank you to the AVJ team for inviting me today. It's been great fun putting this project for such a fabulous challenge! xx ******************************************* Amazing projects as always from our Pinworthy Guest Creative Guides, thank you for sharing your wonderful work with us all! We invite everyone to join us for the March - 4th AVJ Birthday - Treasure Challenge! Julia and the Creative Guides

Hello everyone and welcome to our Winners and Pinworthies day here at A Vintage Journey for the February "Words That Are Special" Challenge. There were so many wonderful entries showcasing your special words that selecting the winners has been very difficult but as always we really enjoy seeing your creative projects and every entry was special and a winner in its own way. _________________________________ To start us off today, here is today's winner drawn by the Random Generator... That's #70, Neha of Happiness Handcrafted, with this wonderful dimensional tag. Congratulations, Neha! You'll receive your prize shortly, and we hope you'll join us on the journey as a Guest Creative Guide in the future. _________________________________ And now for the Pinworthies (in no particular order!) chosen by myself and my fellow Creative Guides Kasia : Papierowy Wymiar #54 Changes, Chances, Choices I loved the simplicity of Kasia's chosen words on three fabulously vintage, textured mixed media tags. Jan : Scrapbooking from the Attic #84 Dreamer Fabulous shabby vintage layers from Jan evoking the single word "Dreamer" Zelda : Out of Africa Creations #83 Africa Smiled Amazingly creative use of a poem very special to Zelda. I do hope you will take the time to visit the individual blogs to see more details of these wonderful projects. Congratulations to all three of you! Your Pinworthy Badges will be on their way to you shortly and we hope you will join us here as Guest Creative Guides at some point in the future. Many thanks again to all of you who joined in with the February challenge and for sharing your amazing creativity. I hope you are enjoying Brenda's All Aboard : Happy Birthday Challenge this month and of course don't forget our Destination Inspiration each Monday - there are some amazing goodies in the travel bag this month. Happy crafting travels! Jennie and the Creative Guides

Hello all, and welcome to Winners' day! Yes, it's time to announce the Winner and Pinworthy choices from November's Cracking Up challenge. There were so many fantastic crackled projects - you all did a cracking job! As always, you made our selection task very difficult, but it's a good kind of difficult... it's always a joy seeing what you all come up with. But before we reveal the winners, we are delighted to have one of our former winners joining us on the journey as our Guest Creative Guide today. Lisa of A Mermaid's Crafts was the randomly chosen winner back in September, and she's created some stunning Winter Magic for Deb's December challenge theme - you're going to love it. Let's hand over to Lisa so that she can introduce herself... Hi, everyone!! I'm so excited and honored to be a guest designer here at A Vintage Journey!! My name is Lisa from A Mermaid's Crafts and I've been blogging for almost six years. I live in Indiana in the Unites States and my day job is a writer. I've dabbled in several styles but my favorites are mixed media and shabby chic. I am in crafty Heaven when I can combine the two!! I love Deb's theme of Winter Magic!! For several years, I lived in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York and winters there were definitely magical (and covered in snow). I wanted to recreate that image of a wintry mountain town for my project. I started with a 6x6 canvas and covered it with Gesso. Next, I used a stencil and texture paste to add the snowflakes, covering them with a light wash of Bahama Blue. The layers were cut in watercolor paper and covered with Gesso. I used stencils and texture paste for the mountains, village and snowdrifts. They were then covered with another coat of Gesso. The trees were all covered with DecoArt Crackle Paste. Once they dried and the cracks appeared, I dabbed Brushed Pewter Distress Stain over the entire tree and then wiped away the excess so it remained in the cracks. The village and the moose were also dabbed with Brushed Pewter. I used DecoArt Snow Writer to create the dimensional snow, and while it was still wet, I covered it in crystal ice glitter for that freshly fallen snow look. You can find more pictures and instructions on how I created the canvas my blog, A Mermaid's Crafts. Thank you so much to the extremely talented design team here at A Vintage Journey for allowing me to design with you today!! _________________________________ What wonderful white-on-white crackle and texture in your dimensional canvas, Lisa. Thank you so much for creating such a beautiful wintry project. Now, without further ado, let's reveal the November winner chosen by Random Generator. That's #13, Cec of CW Card Creations with this lovely gilded canvas... Congratulations, Cec! Your winner's badge and prize voucher will be on their way to you shortly, and we hope you'll join us on the journey as a Guest Creative Guide in the future. ___________________________________ Now on to the Pinworthies, chosen by me and the Creative Guides here at A Vintage Journey. #17 Sara Emily of Sara's Closet #19 Lula of U Luli #20 Irina of Scrap Hobby Mania What great crackled projects, each so different, and well worth a visit to the individual blogs to see some of the close-up details. Congratulations to all three of you! Your Pinworthy badges will be on their way to you shortly, and we hope you will join us here as Guest Creative Guides in the future. ________________________________ Thanks again to all of you for joining us on this Vintage Journey, and for sharing your amazing creativity. We hope you're enjoying creating some Winter Magic for Deb's December challenge, and remember to stop off at Destination Inspiration with us on Mondays. See you soon! Happy travels! Alison and the Creative Guides

Hello everyone, Deb here to announce our choices for the May Book It! challenge and for our May Tag Friday linkup! As is always the case you did not make the Creative Guide's choices easy, so many amazing entries and we want to thank all of you for joining in our challenges. First up, here are our Pinworthy picks for the Book It! challenge: #8 Jannet We adore how Jannet's wonderful cover opens up to reveal an amazing tea party diorama and who doesn't love Alice In Wonderland! #13 Cathy Cathy's amazing medical themed vintage book is incredibly detailed but the most wonderful part of all is how she dedicated it to her father-in-law who was a doctor. #23 Katrina The cover of Katrina's fab Dogs and Pups lap book has a wonderful vintage feel and her decision to donate it to a local dog rescue association (where she found her own beloved pup Luther!) was such a special and generous idea. And our Tag Friday winner was: #7 Beulah Bee Love that Beulah Bee used that wonderful vintage wedding photo and then showcased it so perfectly inside the Idea-ology Lace Frame with that lovely floral lace stamp and Perfect Pearls! Congratulations to all our amazingly talented winners, we will be sending you your AVJ Pinworthy badges to display on your blogs very soon. Thanks again to everyone who entered our May challenges and we hope that you will also enter our current Tissue Paper challenge for a chance to win your very own Pinworthy badge! Thanks as always for stopping by today and happy creating, Deb and the Creative Guides

We really enjoyed looking through all the birthday celebration winners posts, thank you to everyone who joined in and some of you who shared more than one project with us - that is sooooo supportive and we so appreciate the entries you all make. Thank you also for all birthday wishes you left for us on your blog posts. So onto the three Pinworthy projects chosen by the Creative Guides and myself and you certainly made it difficult to narrow it down to just three, But after much deliberation these are the ones highlighted for this month and because you made it so difficult I made it four! Kerstin Hazel Tracey Irina Unfortunately we are unable to choose a winner for the Tag Friday post due to a lack of entries. We hope that more will join in next time. I would like to link back to our challenge post for April and ask you to share a project here focusing on "The Neutral Zone" where we are creating with the black, white, grey, beige, cream and brown colour palette. There are wonderful inspirational projects from the Creative Guides and a linky for you to add your project to. Inlinkz have changed their platform and ask you to register but they say you only have to ever do this once and in the future you will not have to repeat the process. In the challenge post you can also read about a call out for anyone interested in maybe becoming a new Creative Guide - that might be you, so please do go take a look to see how you can find out more information about the role and please email me if you are interested. Thanks for all the support we receive both in comments and entries and we look forward to another happy year of themes and wonderful creative projects. hugs Brenda and the Creative Guides. xxx Vintage picture courtesy of the Graphics Fairy

Hi Vintage Journey Travelers, Thank you everyone who entered. We had a fabulous array of talent this month. Our winner chosen by random org is: That's #70 Aimeslee Winans of Paper-Paisley's Art Adventures with this lovely Artist Post Card featuring vintage German scrap images. Congratulations Aimeslee! We'll be in touch shortly with your winner's badge and details of your sponsor prize from the fabulous Andy Skinner. We had so many wonderful entries this month that it was very difficult for the team to decide on our Pinworthy winners but here are the results. Our talented winners are: Toni of Artistic Craft Dabbler https://craftdabbler-toni.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/festive-stamps-and-stencils-stamps-and.html Nicola of Paper Profusion https://paperprofusion.blogspot.ie/2017/12/merry-christmas.html Christine of Crafty Endeavours http://craftyfield.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/glistening-snow-and-winter-trees.html Huge congratulations to our three Pinworthies this month, you really did create the most wonderful Winter Wonderlands. We will contact you shortly regarding your Pinworthy badge. We hope you will visit again on Monday for our regular Destination Inspiration post, using the contents of the monthly travel bag, and we hope too, that you will join in our current challenge - Think Inside Or Outside The Box, details of which can be found HERE. Wishing you a creative weekend, S@ndy and the Creative Guides

What an amazing and diverse array of projects you entered in our April Rusty and Crusty Challenge! Thanks to each and every one who participated or visited. It was a difficult task indeed to narrow down to only three Pinworthy entries. Somehow we managed! These are listed in order of entry. Congratulations to... #12. Jannike G Larsson (SWE) #20. Susanne #21. Sammy Jean Your fabulous projects will be pinned to our Vintage Journey Pinterest Board. Thank you for taking the time to share your talents and creativity in our challenges, we hope everyone who entered will join us again for our current theme and challenge hosted by our own Alison, who has chosen the theme 'Words and Music'. You can see the details and fabulous inspiration from the Creative Guides - HERE. We are honored to have our three February Pinworthies joining us today to share the incredible projects that they made for our current Words and Music challenge. Please join us in welcoming Ann of aksbarchitect Creates, Jackie of Creating Without Crayons and Mona of Cupcake's Creations. Ann Hi, I am Ann from aksbarchitect CREATES. I live in Pennsylvania with my wonderful children and husband. Having always had a passion for art and design, I became an architect; and when motherhood took precedence over my profession, I began crafting with my children. My passion for creating has evolved, and currently I enjoy working with paper, fibers, and mixed media. I am so excited to share the project I created for A Vintage Journey's Words and Music challenge. Coming off a winter season that has seemed to be never-ending this year, I knew in my heart that spring was on its way, the morning I awoke to the glorious sounds of birds singing. It brought joy to my heart and peace to my soul. This was the inspiration behind my "words and music" piece. I have created a panel covered with vintage sheet music that has been coated with vintage beeswax embossing powder to create a faux encaustic appearance. I fussy cut an image of birds on a branch and replaced the printed branch with a clipping from a real pussy willow. I embedded a scrap of burlap along the left side of the panel, envisioning the birds gathering bits and fibers to create their nests for spring. Another clipping of pussy willow that has catkins, was attached on top of the burlap scrap. I added letters to form the words SING OF SPRING at the top along with a "DISCOVERIES" word band at the bottom. I am so thankful for this opportunity to be a Pinworthy Guest for A Vintage Journey. If you are interested in seeing more details about this piece, please stop by my blog. I hope that you are inspired to create something for this month's challenge. Jackie Hello everyone! I am thrilled and honored to be here today as a Pinworthy Guest! My name is Jackie P Neal and I am the owner of Creatingwithoutcrayons-JackiePNeal.com blog. My blog is where I can share my art, engage with so many other like minded art souls around the world and share a bit of my everyday life. A bit about me, I am a huge fan of recycling, especially finding "discards" to use in my artwork. Along with being a recycler, I am also a hoarder of vintage and art supplies, as I am sure many of you are as well! My husband and I and our dog Chum live on a small farmette in Upstate NewYork, sharing the same passions and living and loving life! Thank you Vintage Journey gang for having me here! I was thrilled to learn this month's challenge was music, picked by Alison Bomber! Huge music fan here! I started out using a piece of packing board from stickers I had purchased, nothing goes to waste! This became my substrate and held up extremely well for the amount of layers of product I applied to it. Learning to Fly, you may know there are two different songs with this title..I chose the one written and sung by Pink Floyd, one of my all time favorite bands. If you are not familiar with the song- here is the link Again going to my stash of "discarded materials"I used this frame that I scored from a "free" box at a garage sale, no picture or glass, but I knew one day I would find the perfect project for this! So I attached my substrate to the frame and continued to add more product and completed the backside as a bit of a shadowbox vignette, using the clear plastic sheet that came in the stickers pack as well. For a list of materials and products as well as more detail, visit my blog. And again,thank you everyone! Mona Hi! My name is Mona Pendleton and I’m honored to be here today as a guest joining along with the talented A Vintage Journey design team! You can find my creativity on my blog: Cupcake’s Creations: (http://cupcakescreations.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/aint-no-sunshineguest-designing.html). I’m a girl who loves to be creative whenever I get the chance! Today I have a shabby style card to share featuring pretty music sheet patterned paper along with a stamped sentiment that reminds me of the song title, “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone”. I added lots of layers and distressed all the edges, to create a shabby vibe: Please let me know if you have any questions :) Thanks for the awesome opportunity! *************** Fabulous projects one and all, thank you so much for sharing them with us! We hope that all of you have also been inspired to join our Words and Music challenge. We can't wait to see what you create! Autumn, Deb and the rest of the Creative Guides

Hello and welcome A Vintage Journey Travellers, Anne here to announce the Winner and Pinworthies from our Mini Marvels Challenge. A huge thank you to all of you who joined in, with your wonderful creations! First of all, our Winner, chosen by Random Org is: That's #12 Elaine of Waves of Creativity who shared these wonderful collections of inchies and ATCs with us. Congratulations Elaine! We will be in touch shortly with your badge and also to arrange delivery of your prize from Southern Ridge Trading Company - a $50 varied selection of chipboard and wood veneer laser cut embellishments! We hope you will enjoy playing with your prize! ____________________________________________ And now for our Pinworthy choices. As always there were so many beautiful entries, it was almost impossible for the Creative Guides to make their choices, you are all winners in our eyes! In numerical order: No. 6 - Jo These beautiful co-ordinating white on white little ornaments were made from things Jo found in her stash, the finishing touches are wonderful and they will make an amazing wintry window display! No. 13 - Maria These very tiny (5cm by 7cm) books are actually necklaces and the detailing on each little book is just exquisite! Maria shares others in her post which are equally beautiful! No. 14 - Lys It is so hard to imagine that this fabulous book is only 3cm tall! Lys has packed it with Christmas Carols, Recipes and Christmas Cards - definitely a mini marvel! Huge congratulations to our three Pinworthies this month, you really did create the most wonderful Mini Marvels, thank you so much! We will be contact with you regarding your Pinworthy badge shortly, along with an invitation to be a Guest Creative Guide with us at A Vintage Journey at some point in the future. We hope you will visit again on Monday for our regular Destination Inspiration post, using the contents of the monthly travel bag, and we hope too, that you will join in our current challenge - Winter Wonderland, details of which can be found HERE. Wishing you a wonderful weekend, Anne and all the Creative Guides xx

Hello everyone, thanks so much for stopping by today. It's time to announce our winner and Pinworthies for the Winter Magic challenge and let me tell you, you did not make it easy! Such a wonderful and varied selection of beautiful projects, we were overwhelmed with your response to our December challenge. Thank you so much to all who entered, we enjoyed seeing each and every one. But before we announce our selections, we'd like to welcome one of our previous winners who is joining us today as a guest Creative Guide. Nate of Le Scrap de Nate was the winner of our October Make It Spooky challenge, and she's here to share some inspiration for the current Going Round In Circles theme. She's introducing herself in her native language, French, and I (Alison) am offering up the translation in italics - with a little assistance from Google Translate where I got stuck - so my apologies if I've misinterpreted anything. Welcome, Nate! ___________________________ Je vous présente à toutes mes meilleurs vœux et vous souhaites pleins de bonne choses pour cette belle année 2017 remplie de créativités. I offer you my best greetings and wishes full of good thoughts for this beautiful year of 2017, and hope that it will be filled with creativity. Merci à toute l'équipe de A Vintage Journey d'avoir apprécier mes réalisations proposé aux challenges est de me recevoir comme invité. Thanks to the whole team at A Vintage Journey for honouring my project for the challenge and inviting me to appear here. Je suis NATE, j' habite la FRANCE et mon hobby est le scrap. J'aime avoir les mains sale par la patouille , le bidouillage; j'affectionne particulièrement tout ce qui est objets de récupérations, rien ne ce jette tous ce recycle j'aime le steampunk cette période d'art me fascine d'ou je suis actuellement DT chez Sandee & Amelie's. I am Nate, I live in France and my hobby is crafting/scrapping. I like to get my hands messy playing around, and altered art. I particularly enjoy repurposing objects - nothing is thrown away, everything is recycled. I love steampunk and vintage styles of art, which fascinate me, and I'm actually on the DT at Sandee & Amelie's Steampunk Challenge. Je vous présente mon projet... I present to you my project Going Round in Circles un Cadre MUCHA a Mucha Frame Quelques explications du montage pour le cadre. A few explanations about the making of the frame... J'ai utilisé un canvas 11.cm5 x 11.cm5 , coupé un papier aux dimensions que j'ai patiné aux encres pour lui donné un aspect vieillie, embossé et tamponné a la poudre doré . Coupé une bande de papier métal puis renforcé avec du cardox ,j'ai utilisé les ronds de couvercles boites conserve pour entouré l'image de Mucha. I used a canvas 11.5 x 11.5cm, and cut some paper to those dimensions which I altered with inks to give it an aged look; then stamped and embossed with gilding powder. I cut a band of metal paper, reinforced with cardboard, and I used rings from old tin cans to frame the image by Mucha. J'ai exploité l’intérieur du canvas pour récupéré la profondeur, en suite j'ai collé l'image,puis colorisé l'ensemble à la peinture métallic bronze. I used the reverse of the canvas to make the most of the depth, and glued the image inside; then I coloured the whole piece with metallic bronze paint. Merci à vous NATE . Thank you. Nate. ___________________________ And huge thanks to you, Nate - what a stunning piece of vintage art, such amazing inspiration for this month's Going Round In Circles challenge. ___________________________ Now, without further ado, let's reveal the December winner chosen by Random Generator. That's Vinita Jain of New Creations with this clever wreath, created out of wrapped yarn and with some yarn Christmas trees into the bargain! Congratulations, Vinita. Your badge and details of your prize will be with you shortly, and we hope you'll join us as a Guest Creative Guide some time in the future. ___________________________ And now onto our Pinworthies, as usual it was an incredibly difficult choice for myself and the Creative Guides to choose just three from all of your amazing projects but after much deliberation here are our choices in no particular order. #49 Georgie C. #63 Lisa H. #85 Paper Profusion Amazing creations one and all that I think perfectly capture the magic of winter. Thank you for sharing your art with us and we will contact you shortly with your Pinworthy badges and an invitation to join us sometime in the near future as Guest Creative Guides. Thanks again to all who entered our December challenge and we hope that you will enter Brenda's 'Going Round In Circles' January challenge, it's always exciting to see what you create. And make sure to come back again on Monday when Amanda will be here with our next stop on the Destination Inspiration journey for January, hope to see you then! Deb and all the Creative Guides

Hello everyone, this is Astrid here to announce our pinworthy choices from our June challenge Tissue Paper. Like always, it was really hard to whittle it down to just 3, but needs must, so without further ado and in no particular order, here they are: #8 Experiments in Paper We loved the way tissue paper was used both for the cover and the inside pages of this wonderful album. The detail on all the pages is amazing! #10 Elly's Creaties Even though tissue paper is not the main feature in this project, we really liked this fabulous little house with all the natural elements and gorgeous textures. #4 Suzz's Stamping Spot The creative guides adored the super clever technique with embossing paste and tissue paper on this fabulous ornate tag. The effect achieved looks amazing! We would like to thank all our wonderful participants for playing in our June challenge and congratulations to our amazingly talented winners, we will be sending you your AVJ Pinworthy badges to display on your blogs very soon. There is still plenty of time to play in our current challenge Precious Metal, so do check it out to get all the details. Thanks for stopping by like always, Astrid and the Creative Guides

Hello all, and welcome to Winners' day! Yes, it's time to announce the Winner and Pinworthy choices from November's Cracking Up challenge. There were so many fantastic crackled projects - you all did a cracking job! As always, you made our selection task very difficult, but it's a good kind of difficult... it's always a joy seeing what you all come up with. But before we reveal the winners, we are delighted to have one of our former winners joining us on the journey as our Guest Creative Guide today. Lisa of A Mermaid's Crafts was the randomly chosen winner back in September, and she's created some stunning Winter Magic for Deb's December challenge theme - you're going to love it. Let's hand over to Lisa so that she can introduce herself... Hi, everyone!! I'm so excited and honored to be a guest designer here at A Vintage Journey!! My name is Lisa from A Mermaid's Crafts and I've been blogging for almost six years. I live in Indiana in the Unites States and my day job is a writer. I've dabbled in several styles but my favorites are mixed media and shabby chic. I am in crafty Heaven when I can combine the two!! I love Deb's theme of Winter Magic!! For several years, I lived in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York and winters there were definitely magical (and covered in snow). I wanted to recreate that image of a wintry mountain town for my project. I started with a 6x6 canvas and covered it with Gesso. Next, I used a stencil and texture paste to add the snowflakes, covering them with a light wash of Bahama Blue. The layers were cut in watercolor paper and covered with Gesso. I used stencils and texture paste for the mountains, village and snowdrifts. They were then covered with another coat of Gesso. The trees were all covered with DecoArt Crackle Paste. Once they dried and the cracks appeared, I dabbed Brushed Pewter Distress Stain over the entire tree and then wiped away the excess so it remained in the cracks. The village and the moose were also dabbed with Brushed Pewter. I used DecoArt Snow Writer to create the dimensional snow, and while it was still wet, I covered it in crystal ice glitter for that freshly fallen snow look. You can find more pictures and instructions on how I created the canvas my blog, A Mermaid's Crafts. Thank you so much to the extremely talented design team here at A Vintage Journey for allowing me to design with you today!! _________________________________ What wonderful white-on-white crackle and texture in your dimensional canvas, Lisa. Thank you so much for creating such a beautiful wintry project. Now, without further ado, let's reveal the November winner chosen by Random Generator. That's #13, Cec of CW Card Creations with this lovely gilded canvas... Congratulations, Cec! Your winner's badge and prize voucher will be on their way to you shortly, and we hope you'll join us on the journey as a Guest Creative Guide in the future. ___________________________________ Now on to the Pinworthies, chosen by me and the Creative Guides here at A Vintage Journey. #17 Sara Emily of Sara's Closet #19 Lula of U Luli #20 Irina of Scrap Hobby Mania What great crackled projects, each so different, and well worth a visit to the individual blogs to see some of the close-up details. Congratulations to all three of you! Your Pinworthy badges will be on their way to you shortly, and we hope you will join us here as Guest Creative Guides in the future. ________________________________ Thanks again to all of you for joining us on this Vintage Journey, and for sharing your amazing creativity. We hope you're enjoying creating some Winter Magic for Deb's December challenge, and remember to stop off at Destination Inspiration with us on Mondays. See you soon! Happy travels! Alison and the Creative Guides

Hello everybody Tracy here. It's time to reveal the Winner and the Pinworthies for the Monochromatic Challenge (July 2016) hosted by me last month. Thank you to all those who played along - as always there were so many fantastic entries, and we enjoyed visiting all of them. Before we reveal our winners though, we're delighted to welcome our winning Guest, the wonderful Kerstin of Scrapbook Dreams. She's created an amazing project for our Stencil It theme, so let's hand over to her to share all the details. _____________________________ Welcome everyone! It's an honour to be invited here and I'm very happy about this. Kerstin here and I have been creating for many years now, always in search of new techniques and yet unexplored territory. I'm a girl with a big vintage heart and love the things that are old and nobody wants anymore, because they have a history. My big passion are colours, textures and all the things which I find interesting and exciting to try it. I love to tell stories with all of my projects. This month the challenge theme is Stencil it, yes, I love it, because a theme with so many opportunities. I decided to make a mixed media project in industrial style, a new home decoration piece. I used 3 several stencils - Rays, Children and the words. Before it was a letter block set, made of cardboard. On the basis of white gesso I used some acrylic paints diluted with water and crackle paste + texture paste for altered effects. For the children stencil black acrylic paint and added a script stamp with white inkpad over the stencils. some details I hope you like my inspiration for this beautiful month theme! Thank you very much Happy crafting! Kerstin _____________________________ Thank you so much, Kerstin - what a fantastic creation! Now, without further ado, here is the randomly selected winner of the voucher sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique... That's Sara Emily of 'sarascloset' with this fabulous monochromatic seahorse artwork. Do follow the link to take a closer look. Congratulations, Sara! Your badge and voucher will be with you shortly, and we hope you will join us as a Guest Designer here in the months to come. _____________________________ And now for the Pinworthies, selected by myself and the Creative Guides. Here they are, in no particular order... Remya Sreekanth We all loved Remya's fantastic journal pages Rupa S Rupa created a lovely piece from a packaging box Irena Stefanova Irena created a fabulous Nautical Shadow Box _____________________________ Fantastic work all round, congratulations. Your badges will be on their way to you shortly, along with an invitation to join us as guests here at A Vintage Journey soon. Thank you again to all who played along. We hope you're enjoying Amanda's Stencil It Challenge this month and that you are inspired by our Travel Bag - there are already some amazing entries, and we're looking forward to seeing lots more. See you somewhere along the road! Tracy and the Creative Guides x

Hello everyone, it's time to announce our Pinworthy winners for November's 'Window On Your World' challenge as well as for our Tag Friday link up! So many lovely entries, the Creative Guides want to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to join in our challenges, we love seeing your creations. First up here are the three Pinworthy Mentions for our November 'Window On Your World' challenge: Cathy Nancy Irina And now for our November Tag Friday link up winner: Kerstin Amazing creations one and all, don't you think? Cathy, Nancy, Irina and Kerstin, we will be sending you your Pinworthy Mention badges to display on your blog or website soon and will pin your projects to our Pinworthy board on Pinterest. Thanks so much again for participating in our November challenge and we hope that all of our followers will also join in our current Holly Jolly Christmas challenge, can't wait to see what you create! Deb and the Creative Guides

What an amazing and diverse array of projects you entered in our April Rusty and Crusty Challenge! Thanks to each and every one who participated or visited. It was a difficult task indeed to narrow down to only three Pinworthy entries. Somehow we managed! These are listed in order of entry. Congratulations to... #12. Jannike G Larsson (SWE) #20. Susanne #21. Sammy Jean Your fabulous projects will be pinned to our Vintage Journey Pinterest Board. Thank you for taking the time to share your talents and creativity in our challenges, we hope everyone who entered will join us again for our current theme and challenge hosted by our own Alison, who has chosen the theme 'Words and Music'. You can see the details and fabulous inspiration from the Creative Guides - HERE. We are honored to have our three February Pinworthies joining us today to share the incredible projects that they made for our current Words and Music challenge. Please join us in welcoming Ann of aksbarchitect Creates, Jackie of Creating Without Crayons and Mona of Cupcake's Creations. Ann Hi, I am Ann from aksbarchitect CREATES. I live in Pennsylvania with my wonderful children and husband. Having always had a passion for art and design, I became an architect; and when motherhood took precedence over my profession, I began crafting with my children. My passion for creating has evolved, and currently I enjoy working with paper, fibers, and mixed media. I am so excited to share the project I created for A Vintage Journey's Words and Music challenge. Coming off a winter season that has seemed to be never-ending this year, I knew in my heart that spring was on its way, the morning I awoke to the glorious sounds of birds singing. It brought joy to my heart and peace to my soul. This was the inspiration behind my "words and music" piece. I have created a panel covered with vintage sheet music that has been coated with vintage beeswax embossing powder to create a faux encaustic appearance. I fussy cut an image of birds on a branch and replaced the printed branch with a clipping from a real pussy willow. I embedded a scrap of burlap along the left side of the panel, envisioning the birds gathering bits and fibers to create their nests for spring. Another clipping of pussy willow that has catkins, was attached on top of the burlap scrap. I added letters to form the words SING OF SPRING at the top along with a "DISCOVERIES" word band at the bottom. I am so thankful for this opportunity to be a Pinworthy Guest for A Vintage Journey. If you are interested in seeing more details about this piece, please stop by my blog. I hope that you are inspired to create something for this month's challenge. Jackie Hello everyone! I am thrilled and honored to be here today as a Pinworthy Guest! My name is Jackie P Neal and I am the owner of Creatingwithoutcrayons-JackiePNeal.com blog. My blog is where I can share my art, engage with so many other like minded art souls around the world and share a bit of my everyday life. A bit about me, I am a huge fan of recycling, especially finding "discards" to use in my artwork. Along with being a recycler, I am also a hoarder of vintage and art supplies, as I am sure many of you are as well! My husband and I and our dog Chum live on a small farmette in Upstate NewYork, sharing the same passions and living and loving life! Thank you Vintage Journey gang for having me here! I was thrilled to learn this month's challenge was music, picked by Alison Bomber! Huge music fan here! I started out using a piece of packing board from stickers I had purchased, nothing goes to waste! This became my substrate and held up extremely well for the amount of layers of product I applied to it. Learning to Fly, you may know there are two different songs with this title..I chose the one written and sung by Pink Floyd, one of my all time favorite bands. If you are not familiar with the song- here is the link Again going to my stash of "discarded materials"I used this frame that I scored from a "free" box at a garage sale, no picture or glass, but I knew one day I would find the perfect project for this! So I attached my substrate to the frame and continued to add more product and completed the backside as a bit of a shadowbox vignette, using the clear plastic sheet that came in the stickers pack as well. For a list of materials and products as well as more detail, visit my blog. And again,thank you everyone! Mona Hi! My name is Mona Pendleton and I’m honored to be here today as a guest joining along with the talented A Vintage Journey design team! You can find my creativity on my blog: Cupcake’s Creations: (http://cupcakescreations.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/aint-no-sunshineguest-designing.html). I’m a girl who loves to be creative whenever I get the chance! Today I have a shabby style card to share featuring pretty music sheet patterned paper along with a stamped sentiment that reminds me of the song title, “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone”. I added lots of layers and distressed all the edges, to create a shabby vibe: Please let me know if you have any questions :) Thanks for the awesome opportunity! *************** Fabulous projects one and all, thank you so much for sharing them with us! We hope that all of you have also been inspired to join our Words and Music challenge. We can't wait to see what you create! Autumn, Deb and the rest of the Creative Guides

Julia here today to announce the Creative Guide's Pinworthy choices for last month's challenge, Box It Up. It is always difficult to narrow down the field to just three entries. We greatly appreciate all of you taking time to join in our challenges with us. Without further ado, here are our three Pinworthy Mentions for the Box It Up Challenge. #3 Judy McKay We loved her music theme with the transformed violin and the musical notes mounted on little boxes inside the bigger box frame. Lovely distress and crackle throughout. #4 Glenda Such a clever and beautiful design with her box inside her card. The papers she used are beautiful as well as her layered flowers, lace and pearls. A lovely shabby vintage look here. #7 Marty What a wonderful little village for Halloween with the 3 box houses each attended by it's resident witch standing outside - 2 of the houses being shakers (so fun!). The surrounding fence and leaf bare trees add to the spookiness of this creative decoration. *************************** I will be sending you your Pinworthy badge to display on your blogs shortly and we will be pinning your fabulous entries to the A Vintage Journey Pinworthies board on Pinterest. There is still plenty of time to enter our current challenge which is Inky Wings and you can find all the details HERE along with some fabulous inspiration from the Creative Guides. As always thank you for joining us in our challenge and we look forward to seeing what you create this month!

Hello everybody Tracy here. It's time to reveal the Winner and the Pinworthies for the Monochromatic Challenge (July 2016) hosted by me last month. Thank you to all those who played along - as always there were so many fantastic entries, and we enjoyed visiting all of them. Before we reveal our winners though, we're delighted to welcome our winning Guest, the wonderful Kerstin of Scrapbook Dreams. She's created an amazing project for our Stencil It theme, so let's hand over to her to share all the details. _____________________________ Welcome everyone! It's an honour to be invited here and I'm very happy about this. Kerstin here and I have been creating for many years now, always in search of new techniques and yet unexplored territory. I'm a girl with a big vintage heart and love the things that are old and nobody wants anymore, because they have a history. My big passion are colours, textures and all the things which I find interesting and exciting to try it. I love to tell stories with all of my projects. This month the challenge theme is Stencil it, yes, I love it, because a theme with so many opportunities. I decided to make a mixed media project in industrial style, a new home decoration piece. I used 3 several stencils - Rays, Children and the words. Before it was a letter block set, made of cardboard. On the basis of white gesso I used some acrylic paints diluted with water and crackle paste + texture paste for altered effects. For the children stencil black acrylic paint and added a script stamp with white inkpad over the stencils. some details I hope you like my inspiration for this beautiful month theme! Thank you very much Happy crafting! Kerstin _____________________________ Thank you so much, Kerstin - what a fantastic creation! Now, without further ado, here is the randomly selected winner of the voucher sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique... That's Sara Emily of 'sarascloset' with this fabulous monochromatic seahorse artwork. Do follow the link to take a closer look. Congratulations, Sara! Your badge and voucher will be with you shortly, and we hope you will join us as a Guest Designer here in the months to come. _____________________________ And now for the Pinworthies, selected by myself and the Creative Guides. Here they are, in no particular order... Remya Sreekanth We all loved Remya's fantastic journal pages Rupa S Rupa created a lovely piece from a packaging box Irena Stefanova Irena created a fabulous Nautical Shadow Box _____________________________ Fantastic work all round, congratulations. Your badges will be on their way to you shortly, along with an invitation to join us as guests here at A Vintage Journey soon. Thank you again to all who played along. We hope you're enjoying Amanda's Stencil It Challenge this month and that you are inspired by our Travel Bag - there are already some amazing entries, and we're looking forward to seeing lots more. See you somewhere along the road! Tracy and the Creative Guides x

Hello Everyone! Today we welcome you to our Winners post where we feature a previous winner as a Guest Designer and also reveal the Winner and Pinworthies of our August Challenge -'Stencil it!' There was a great response to the challenge and many fantastic entries so thank you all for embracing those stencils and sharing your talent with us. ________________________________ So lets begin by welcoming the wonderful Autumn of Sew, Paper, Paint. She's been busy making a project to fit Julia's "Create Within a Frame" challenge here at Words and Pictures so, without more ado, let's see what she's come up with and hear about it in her own words. Welcome, Autumn! I am married to an amazing man, and my biggest supporter. We have four children, yes four! I live in the US and work full time as a church secretary. I have been stamping for over 15 years. Creativity is my outlet, passion and purpose. I define my style as grunge meets elegance. Though I love to distress everything, I like to balance my work with a touch of pretty and neat. In addition to stamping, I love to draw and paint and have found that mixed media allows me to blend these skills and create rich artwork, filled with depth and texture. I'm thrilled to be joining the A Vintage Journey team today for this fabulous challenge! Often, with such a busy schedule and commitments, I sketch out my designs beforehand so I can get right to it. But project was the result of pure play and experimentation. I started out with a thrifted frame, purchased for a dollar because of its unique size. I have about 40 frames in my stash because I can’t resist taking them home and giving them new life! Some people pick up kittens, I pick up frames! So this challenge was truly up my alley! After I cleaned up and dismantled my frame, I prepped the backing board with gesso. I was in the mood to paint something, so I cracked open my brand new IndigoBlu paints and thought I would experiment with color mixing right onto my board. I used a palette knife and scraped on and blended my colors (red, blue and yellow) randomly. But since this is A Vintage Journey, I had to take the bright colors down a notch! So I used a cosmetic sponge to apply gesso lightly over the entire panel. Then I dripped a mixture of alcohol inks diluted with alcohol over the gesso. I was loving the variation in color, but still wanted to bring more white and subtlety, so I stenciled an “airy” stencil over my background. I built my grouping around this Found Relatives photo of four children, two boys and two girls – just like my own children. I opted for leaves and branches as a nod to the changing seasons. The clock die was embossed in Clossone plum embossing powder, a UTEE. What fun it has been to design for this fabulous challenge! I hope you’ll be inspired to alter an old frame of your own. Thank you so much AVJ for having me today. What a beautiful and inspirational piece, Autumn. Thanks so much for being our guest this month. ______________________________________ Time now to reveal our August Winners and Pinworthies. The Winner of our Sponsored prize last month - a £20 gift Voucher to spend at Country View Crafts as selected by Random Generator is........ That's Tone of Tones Scrapperom with this lovely card. Congratulations to our winner, Tone K . Your winners badge and Gift Voucher will be will you shortly and we hope you will join us as a Guest Designer in the near future. _______________________ Now for our Pinworthies as chosen by our Creative Guide. It is always difficult for us to narrow our choices down to just three with so many wonderful and worthy submissions but after much deliberation here are the pinworthy winners of the Stencil it Challenge In no particular order: #10 Ruth #52 Kerstin F #33 Dot Leathbridge Congratulations to our Pinworthies. We will be in touch shortly with your badges and invitations to be Guest Designers here at A Vintage Journey in the near future. Thank you so much to everyone who joined us in this Challenge. We really do appreciate all your entries and always enjoy seeing all your creations. We hope you will join us this month for Julia's fabulous challenge, 'Create inside a Frame'. One of us will be back Monday to share the latest Destination Inspiration so until then we wish you all a lovely weekend Amanda and all the Creative Guides.

Hello! Nikki here to share our Pinworthy choices with you from our challenge last month where we asked you to 'Get Sentimental'. Thank you to everyone for the wonderful, diverse creations which made our job of picking just three very difficult. It was wonderful to see how everyone used their 'sentiments' in such creative ways. The three selected pinworthies really matched their artwork to their words. In no particular order this months pinworthies are: #11 Preeti A stunning journal page full of depth. #12 Jo A wonderful celebration of creativity and an event Jo attended. #22 Amanda A fabulously textured, layered triptych. Congratulations to you all, your Pinworthy badges will be on their way to you shortly and your creations will be pinned to our Pinworthies board on Pinterest. This month's challenge 'How can you resist' started last Friday and we look forward to seeing more creativity. Nikki and the Creative Guides xx

Julia here today to announce the Creative Guide's Pinworthy choices for last month's challenge, Box It Up. It is always difficult to narrow down the field to just three entries. We greatly appreciate all of you taking time to join in our challenges with us. Without further ado, here are our three Pinworthy Mentions for the Box It Up Challenge. #3 Judy McKay We loved her music theme with the transformed violin and the musical notes mounted on little boxes inside the bigger box frame. Lovely distress and crackle throughout. #4 Glenda Such a clever and beautiful design with her box inside her card. The papers she used are beautiful as well as her layered flowers, lace and pearls. A lovely shabby vintage look here. #7 Marty What a wonderful little village for Halloween with the 3 box houses each attended by it's resident witch standing outside - 2 of the houses being shakers (so fun!). The surrounding fence and leaf bare trees add to the spookiness of this creative decoration. *************************** I will be sending you your Pinworthy badge to display on your blogs shortly and we will be pinning your fabulous entries to the A Vintage Journey Pinworthies board on Pinterest. There is still plenty of time to enter our current challenge which is Inky Wings and you can find all the details HERE along with some fabulous inspiration from the Creative Guides. As always thank you for joining us in our challenge and we look forward to seeing what you create this month!

Hi everyone and welcome to our Winners and Pinworthies day here at A Vintage Journey! We hope you enjoyed our Canvas challenge - we certainly had some fabulous entries. The Creative Guides always have a tough job selecting our favourites. Before we share them with you, here's a fantastic project from one of our former winners. Iris of Whimsy Touches was the Random Generator pick from the April challenge, The Magic of Three, and she's here today with some more inspiration for the current All Squared Up theme. Over to you, Iris... _____________________ Hello makers! I am so excited to be a Guest Designer at Vintage Journey and share my Assemblage piece, I call "X Marks the Spot". A little about me; I live in the Washington DC metro area and I am around Arts and Crafts Enthusiast. I have never met an art medium I did not like. I enjoy creating with clay, acrylic paint, sprays, metallic waxes, texture medium, paper, and metal. I like sculpting, creating mixed media canvasses, assemblage, altering bottles, making jewelry. My style ranges from modern, Shabby to Steampunk/Industrial. I got excited about the the July "All Squared Up" theme; it invoked several ideas. But before starting, wanted to see if I had anything square in my stash, then go from there. I found a Thrift store picture frame I bought a long time ago. The frame has this square within squares type thing going; how perfect is that? Now the frame inspired ideas too. Being that the frame has this shapes within shapes, I wanted to keep going on the same concept. So I decided to add a different shape in the center square. Went ahead with a circle and inside the circle...mystery. Painting the Frame I started by priming the frame with Gesso. Then painted the first layer with Golden Quinachridone Nickel Azo Gold. I painted the top layer square with Golden Teal. I have also adhered texture paper. Making the Corner Squares I cut the corner squares out of chipboard. Inside the squares, again going with my shape within shape theme, I cut out circles with an Xacto knife and added mesh wire. I created faux rivets using Viva Pearl Paint and painted the squares black. I added Golden Fiber paste on the outer edges of the corner squares and blended with the rest of the frame. Sorry forgot to take a pic of this process when I first started. I do have some images of a second layer after painting the first layer. I adhered an image of a compass onto the back of a one inch glass cabochon using Diamond Glaze and added it to the frame. I then painted the frame with Golden paints: Red Iron Oxide, Titanium White, Teal, Buff and Titanium White. There was some back and with blending the colors. I painted the square on the top layer using Buff, Titanium White and Red Iron Oxide. The corner squares and edges were painted using Golden Red Iron Oxide (great for a rust color effect) and used DecoArt Media Fluid Payne's Gray around the edges. Embellishments The embellishments; chipboard gears, metal key, letters, watch parts, and washers were treated with iron metal paint and rusting oxidation solution by Modern Masters following their instructions. The Center Square I cut a square for the frame's backing out of chipboard. This is where the X will go. I decoupage it with map scrapbooking paper. I then sealed it with Matte Medium. Added light wash of Red Iron Oxide and Teal to give it a distressed vintage look. The Matte Medium keeps the paper from getting too soaked with paint. I did not have a desired size stamp of an X. So I drew it using block letter format, then cut it out with an Xacto knife. I used the negative space as a stencil and inked in the X using a makeup sponge and red ink. Next, adhere a 1.5 inch diameter glass cabochon over the X. I gently squeezing out a drop of Diamond Glaze; measuring about 6 mm. You can also use Ranger's Glossy Accent, both work equally well. I then placed the cabochon over the X, ensuring to push downward and firmly and ensuring to eliminate any bubbles. My ink was not archival, so I added another coat of Matte Medium to seal it before affixing the cabochon. I stamped the X because if you're going to use a cabochon; the surface needs to be even or else you get a lot of bubbles and are impossible to get out as long as the surface is uneven. Putting it all Together Last but not least, I glued the embellishments to the frame and fastened the backing to the frame. Below are some close up images. Well, my journey ends here. I hope you enjoyed my X Marks the Spot Assemblage. _________________________ Thanks so much, Iris. What a fantastic project - definitely All Squared Up! - and so many great tips and techniques in your making-of details. _________________________ So now, let's move on to today's winner drawn by the Random Generator. Congratulations to: Irit Shalom - No. 17 Congratulations, Irit! This challenge was sponsored by Shimmerz Paints and your prize details will be with you shortly. Our selected favourites become our three Pinworthies whose designs are pinned to our Pinterest board and you are invited to be a Guest Creative Guide. In no particular order, we have chosen: No. 5 - Lys No 6 - Jul D No. 13 - Angela Huge congratulations to you all. Your Pinworthy Badges will be on their way to you shortly and we hope you will join us here as guests for a forthcoming challenge. Many thanks again to everyone who joined in this challenge. Our current challenge All Squared Up is currently underway - we look forward to seeing your entries. Check out the Creative Guide inspiration to see some of the diverse ways this theme has been interpreted. Until next time - happy crafting! Nikki xxx

Hi everyone and welcome to our Pinworthy post where we announce the Creative Guide favourites from our last challenge. The challenge was 'Neutral Zone' where we asked you to create with no colour and use a neutral palette. We probably say this every time but selecting three is very difficult! I asked all the Creative Guides to select their favourites and over half of the entries received at least one vote! Here are the three that I have selected from the most popular choices of the Creative Guides - in no particular order. No 10 - Macarena No 18 - Angela No 33 - Irina Congratulations ladies - I will be emailing your pinworthy badges shortly. Our current challenge invites you to 'Book It' - did you see the inspirational designs from some of the Creative Guides - I missed this one but loved what everyone created! If you missed them do pay a visit and we would love to see your entries in the challenge. Happy Crafting Nikki xxx

Hello everyone, Deb here to announce our choices for the May Book It! challenge and for our May Tag Friday linkup! As is always the case you did not make the Creative Guide's choices easy, so many amazing entries and we want to thank all of you for joining in our challenges. First up, here are our Pinworthy picks for the Book It! challenge: #8 Jannet We adore how Jannet's wonderful cover opens up to reveal an amazing tea party diorama and who doesn't love Alice In Wonderland! #13 Cathy Cathy's amazing medical themed vintage book is incredibly detailed but the most wonderful part of all is how she dedicated it to her father-in-law who was a doctor. #23 Katrina The cover of Katrina's fab Dogs and Pups lap book has a wonderful vintage feel and her decision to donate it to a local dog rescue association (where she found her own beloved pup Luther!) was such a special and generous idea. And our Tag Friday winner was: #7 Beulah Bee Love that Beulah Bee used that wonderful vintage wedding photo and then showcased it so perfectly inside the Idea-ology Lace Frame with that lovely floral lace stamp and Perfect Pearls! Congratulations to all our amazingly talented winners, we will be sending you your AVJ Pinworthy badges to display on your blogs very soon. Thanks again to everyone who entered our May challenges and we hope that you will also enter our current Tissue Paper challenge for a chance to win your very own Pinworthy badge! Thanks as always for stopping by today and happy creating, Deb and the Creative Guides

A HUGE thanks to everyone who joined in the Birthday celebrations last month and what an amazing array of projects were entered - and what a job we had making decisions for the pinworthies too. Before we make the big announcement, it's time to enjoy a project from one of our former winners. Zelda of Out of Africa Creations won our January challenge, and she's here today with some inspiration for Annie's lovely Magic of Three theme. Let's hand over to Zelda so that she can introduce herself and her fabulous creation. ___________________ Hello everyone! I'm thrilled to be here and a huge thank you to A Vintage Journey for the opportunity to share my Magic of Three project hosted by Annie. I'm from South Africa (hence the name of my blog Out of Africa Creations) and moved to the great big US of A in 2012. I've always loved creating and have tried many different crafts over the years. I love learning new techniques and when my mojo tank is a little empty, I experiment and often find myself elbow deep in paints and inks .... it's food for my soul. I decided to create a mixed media canvas for the Magic of Three theme and included a number of elements in three's, namely 3 floral arrangements, 3 leaves (in focal area), 3 wire thread embellishments and 3 lace flowers. I first added some color with Color Bloom spray to my canvas. I always feel better once I have a bit of color on a blank canvas, it somehow seems less intimidating. Next I distressed the edges of my patterned paper and adhered it to the canvas. I then added some lace and modelling paste with a stencil. After arranging the flowers and embellishments I added color and texture to various areas and finished off with a few pearls. Here are a few close ups: For more details please head over to my blog. Thanks again to A Vintage Journey for inviting me and have a wonderful day! _____________________ Thank you so much, Zelda - such lovely work. Now it's time to find out who our Birthday winners are, so here goes - Our out and out winner of the £20 voucher from Counttry View Crafts and chosen by Random Org is.............. #69 and that's the lovely Rupa from Together for Arts with this fabulous Spring wall hanging. Congratulations Rupa, thank you so much for sharing your wonderful art with us and for all the support you give us over the year. You should be receiving your voucher from Country View Crafts very soon. To follow this we have three wonderful Pinworthy Mentions for you - #36 Creations by Nora #40 Irena's Art #48 Scrapbook Dreams Well done ladies, it was a very tough job choosing these but they all three stand out for their ingenuity, inspiration and style. You all did a magnificent job. You will be contacted soon to see if you would like to be a guest here at AVJ. _________________________ Finally we have the special Tag Friday giveaway prize and although we had far fewer people join in (it seems a week isn't enough for you to get your entries in), we still have a winner and that is - #3 and we have the fabulous Trace from 'inkypinkycraft' with a gorgeous vintage tag. Congratulations Trace your little prize will be wending it's way to you soon. We are so happy you have been able to join in with us and pleased to see an ex Creative Guide sister taking the stage. ***************** So there we have all our fabulous winners and pinworthies this week and many thanks to all of you who took part and who often find time to make and share something with us. As we now enter our fourth year of challenge making we look forward to seeing what comes our way and hope you will be there at some point joining in. Don't forget to come back on Monday to see who has been in transit with the travel bag this week and what creation they have made with the contents. And also we hope you have seen the new challenge 'The Magic of Three' and the inspiration projects from the amazing Creative Guides and hopefully you will be joining us for that one too. Have a wonderful Easter weekend and enjoy whatever you have planned which hopefully will include some chocolate on the way. hugs Brenda, Alison and the rest of the incredibly talented and hardworking Creative Guides. xxx

Hello everyone and welcome to our Winners and Pinworthies day here at A Vintage Journey for the February "Words That Are Special" Challenge. There were so many wonderful entries showcasing your special words that selecting the winners has been very difficult but as always we really enjoy seeing your creative projects and every entry was special and a winner in its own way. _________________________________ To start us off today, here is today's winner drawn by the Random Generator... That's #70, Neha of Happiness Handcrafted, with this wonderful dimensional tag. Congratulations, Neha! You'll receive your prize shortly, and we hope you'll join us on the journey as a Guest Creative Guide in the future. _________________________________ And now for the Pinworthies (in no particular order!) chosen by myself and my fellow Creative Guides Kasia : Papierowy Wymiar #54 Changes, Chances, Choices I loved the simplicity of Kasia's chosen words on three fabulously vintage, textured mixed media tags. Jan : Scrapbooking from the Attic #84 Dreamer Fabulous shabby vintage layers from Jan evoking the single word "Dreamer" Zelda : Out of Africa Creations #83 Africa Smiled Amazingly creative use of a poem very special to Zelda. I do hope you will take the time to visit the individual blogs to see more details of these wonderful projects. Congratulations to all three of you! Your Pinworthy Badges will be on their way to you shortly and we hope you will join us here as Guest Creative Guides at some point in the future. Many thanks again to all of you who joined in with the February challenge and for sharing your amazing creativity. I hope you are enjoying Brenda's All Aboard : Happy Birthday Challenge this month and of course don't forget our Destination Inspiration each Monday - there are some amazing goodies in the travel bag this month. Happy crafting travels! Jennie and the Creative Guides

Hello and welcome everyone, Anne here to reveal the Winner and Pinworthies for the Make It Spooky Challenge, hosted by me last month. It was a hugely difficult task to choose just three as we had so many fabulous spooky entries! We certainly had fun visiting all of you! Before we announce our Winner and Pinworthies, though, we are delighted to welcome Tone of Tone's Scrapperom as our guest. Tone was the winner of our August Stencil It challenge, and we're delighted to have her here today with some inspiration for the current Cracking Up theme. Over to you, Tone... ___________________________ I am 48 years old and I live in Norway nearby the capital Oslo. I live with my partner Vidar and our son Daniel who is 16 years old. I also have a stepdaughter who is 31 years old. I have always put photos in albums, but scrapping in the way I do today started in 2004. In 2012 I started making cards and now I make cards, LO, PL and tags about each other. I do not know what style I have in crafting, I like to vary. Inspiration I have to say that I get basically from net…both domestic and foreign. My blog: www.tonesscrapperom.blogspot.com I have used a brown paperbag. I covered it with a thin coat of white gesso and stamped it with crackle-stamp from Kaisercraft with Distress Ink - Vintage photo. I have used corrugated cardboard and put on some crackle-paint on the edges. When dry I inked the edges with Distress Ink. I distressed the paper under the corrugated cardboard and use a window die cut from Poppystamps. In the end I add a bow made of lace with a brad, die cut snowstar from Magnolia, tree from Creative Expressions and "God Jul" (means Merry Christmas) die from Rox Stamps and made a tag. ____________________________ A gorgeous shabby chic crackled project, Tone, thank you so much. ______________________________ Now, without further ado, here is the randomly selected winner of a £20 Gift Voucher from Countryview Crafts to spend in their online store: That's Nate of Le Scrap de Nate with this truly terrifying creation! Do hop over to her blog to see some scary close-ups and angles on this piece of recycled artwork. Congratulations Nate, your badge and Gift Voucher will be with you shortly and we hope you will join us as Guest Creative Guide here in the near future. __________________________ And now on to the Pinworthies, selected by me and The Creative Guides. Here they are in numerical order: #15 Nicole Wright Designs #34 Leslie Lineberry #44 - Mary Elizabeth Three very different but very spooky projects! Congratulations, your badges will be on their way shortly, along with an invitation to join us as Guest Creative Guide here at A Vintage Journey soon! A huge thank you again to everyone who joined in. We do hope you are enjoying Alison's fabulous challenge this month - 'Cracking Up' and that you will join in! We also hope that you inspired by our Travel Bag this month. Take care, Anne and the Creative Guides

Hi everyone and welcome to our first Winner and Pinworthies post of 2016, and just to make it extra special we've got our Secret Santa Give-Away winner to announce too. It's so nice to be able to celebrate the Winner and Pinworthies of our Vintage Christmas Challenge theme, but as always we thank all of you who joined us on the journey last month. We had so many fabulous entries to the Vintage Christmas Challenge, incorporating some wonderful details using Tim's products and techniques to create the most amazing projects. Visiting your blog posts was a real delight for us and it really has been hard to choose our favourites. ___________________________________ So on to the Vintage Christmas Challenge Winner and Pinworthies. First of all here is our randomly chosen winner, who will receive the prize voucher from our sponsor, Country View Crafts. #42 Sara of Sarascloset1 Congratulations Sara! Such a beautiful Vintage make with those stunning colours and that Santa is one of my favourite of Tim's Christmas Stamp Sets. Gorgeous poinsettias too. We hope you will be Guest Creative Guide with us here in the future and your voucher and winner's badge will be with you very soon. ___________________________________ Now on to the Pinworthies...........which was such a hard decision for the Creative Guides to make. With so many fabulous entries it was difficult to pick our favourite three. Here they are, in no particular order other than their # number. #4 - Alicia of Golden Goddess Designs We were all blown away by this wonderful project, Alicia. The details are so amazing..right down to those stunning transparencies. Thank you for sharing with us here at A Vintage Journey and Congratulations on being chosen as a Pinworthy. Your blog badge will be with you shortly. #14 Nicola of Paper Profusion Nicola's Vintage Christmas Decor piece is stunning with such wonderful details. I am sure you will agree her creations are amazing and its so worth visiting her blog. #55 Autumn of Sew Paper Paint The details on Autumn's Triptych card are fabulous and we loved the inside too. ______________________________________ Congratulations to our fabulous four. Badges and Invitations will be on their way to you soon. Huge thanks to everyone who entered, your creations were amazing and inspiring to all of us here at A Vintage Journey Challenge Blog. Great to have you on board today and I do hope you will stop by here again on Monday 11th January when one of our Creative Guides will be sharing a Destination Inspiration Travel Bag post full of inspiration and details using various products and techniques. There's also a new challenge theme, which kicked off on the 1st January, so I hope you will enter Brenda's fabulous Vintage Travel challenge, it's always great to have you hop on board with us. And don't hop off just yet... Brenda has also drawn the Secret Santa give-away and the winner of the prize is .... Rupa Rupa if you please email Brenda on [email protected] with your address she will get the goodies in the post to you as soon as possible. Have a great weekend. Huge Hugs Annie and the Creative Guides xxxx

Hello everyone! Well here we are already in November and about to announce the winner and pinworthies of our October challenge: Crazy for Autumn Colour. There were a fabulous number of entries and as usual you made it very difficult for us all to decide on our top three entries. Thank you again for travelling with us on our Creative Journey here at A Vintage Journey, we really appreciate each and every entry. But first ...... a drum roll please .... for our randomly drawn winner of last month's prize sponsored by Calico Craft Parts. And Mr Random.org has chosen ...... That's #37 Jane of Jane's Journal who created this fabulous page spread full of light and shadow and autumnal colour. Congratulations, Jane! We'll be in touch shortly with your Winner's Badge, and to arrange delivery of your prize package from Calico Craft Parts. _______________________________ And now we turn to our three Pinworthy choices. We challenged you to be Crazy for Autumn Colour and these three fabulous entries really shine through with colour! Mary Elizabeth The fabulous use of Distress Oxides really shines through the darker colours and we loved the addition of textiles in this wonderful autumnal tag. Maria Lillepruun Maria has used many gorgeous layers of textures and stunning colours on her Autumnal page. Swagatika Bursting with colour and cogs! Swagatika has managed to create an amazing piece of art from an old computer mother board. Congratulations to our three Pinworthies this month and thank you all for brightening our month with so much wonderful colour. We will be in touch shortly with your Pinworthy badges and invitations to be a Guest Creative Guide here at A Vintage Journey sometime in the future. Don't forget to come back again on Monday for another Destination Inspiration using those wonderful travel bag goodies and we do hope you find time to join in our latest challenge which is Mini Marvels. All the details can be found HERE. Have a great weekend! Jennie and the Creative Guides

Hi Everyone and Welcome Amanda (ink-a-pink) here with you today to share news of our 3 chosen Pinworthy Winners for our 'Precious Metal' challenge. We had some wonderful submissions and would like to say a big 'Thank You' to everyone who joined us in the challenge. The Creative Guides really enjoyed viewing your creations and selecting their favourites wasn't easy. We always have great difficulty narrowing our choices down to just 3 Pinworthy winners but needs must so after much deliberation here are our choices: In no particular order our Pinworthy Winners for the 'Precious Metal' challenge are : (drum roll please) #2 Sabrina #13 Lisa Hoel # 6 : Macarena Congratulations to you all! We will be in touch shortly with your Pinworthy badges and your projects will be pinned to our Pinterest board. Thanks once again to Everyone who joined us in this Challenge. We really do love and appreciate that you share your creativity with us. We hope you will join us this month for Jennie's fabulous challenge 'A Cup of Tea for your Art'. All the challenge details and an inspirational gallery of projects created by some of our Creative Guides can be located here. Wishing you all a lovely day Take Care and keep on Creating Amanda x

Hi everyone and welcome! Well you really did rise to the challenge of adding fabric and stitching to your projects last month! Before we reveal our 'Sew Special' Winner and Pinworthies we are delighted to welcome our Guest Designer today who has created something rather special for this month's 'Texture or Embossing Paste' challenge hosted by the lovely Astrid. So without more ado, let's hand you over to the lovely Christine a.k.a. Craftyfield of Crafty Endeavours... Craftyfield (Christine) I live in the South of England with my partner and son, who, whilst making fun of my crafty ways, are thankful for keeping them supplied in customised cards and are even fuelling my habit by buying me magazines and other crafting items! I started making my own cards some 15 years ago and my passion grew with the increasing availability of craft tools, supplies and inspiration! I fell into scrapbooking to showcase my son’s photographs and have since dabbled in jewellery and altered art. Stamps are my favourite crafting items as they are so versatile, and I am a confirmed stamp-a-holic. I also love making my own embellishments and tools, such as stencils, embossing textures etc... Style wise… I love and try everything from CAS to grungy and I am particularly attracted to vintage images. ***************************** I’m delighted to be invited to guest design on the AVJ blog for their latest challenge, hosted by Astrid who is looking for Embossing Pastes/Textures. What a great theme! Hoping for warmer weather, I selected bright colours and let go the Vintage tones entirely, taking inspiration from beach colours for a holiday scrapbook page. The photo I have included is not the actual photo but a place holder I had great fun to design. First I used green and blue sprays through the Garden Gate 12x12 stencil (The Crafters Workshop) on my watercolour paper base. With grunge paste I stencilled through another TCW stencil, the "Stencil specimen" and a Prima doily stencil. At that point I decided I needed to darken the borders and used a dark spray, and had to sand back my stencilled paste so it would not get lost! But texture pastes can do so much more than stencilling... here I created my sandy beach with heavy gel medium, a touch of yellow acrylic paint and sand of course! To make my fake photo I stamped the lady in Versafine on glossy paper (from the Take the plunge set by Rubber Dance) and coloured her with Distress inks. Finally I used some paste as a 3D glue to give my shells a more realistic shape. To make them I first stamped them (all shells, starfish and seahorse are from the Rubber Dance Retro Beach set ), then fussy cut. I applied a bit of colour with Distress inks and shaped them with a ball tool on a foam mat, giving them a curve. The gel medium helps in supporting the curve as well as keeping the shells stuck! I added a few sea creatures confetti (painted with gesso to dampen the garish colours), muslin, and micro beads. Under this angle the sun catches the mica for maximum shine! I hope I have inspired you to play with textures and to enter the AVJ challenge. Many thanks to AVJ for having me on the blog today! *********************************** Thank you Christine - what a gorgeously textured piece, and the lovely shimmer captures the look of sunshine on water perfectly. And now it's time to see who our talented May winners are. The winner of this fabulous prize package from our generous sponsors last month, Calico Craft Parts, as selected by Random Generator is... That's Kerstin of Scrapbook Dreams with her wonderful vintage layout. Congratulations, Kerstin! Your winner's badge and prize package will be on their way to you soon, and we hope you'll join us as a Guest Designer here at A Vintage Journey in the months to come. ********************************* Now onto our selected Pinworthies chosen by the Creative Guides. This is always difficult with so many wonderful creations but these three are the ones we felt really captured the challenge with their submissions. #10 Lena Loken #24 Hazel Agnew #29 Mo Stokes Congratulations to our Winner and Pinworthies. We will be in contact shortly with your badges and invitations to be a guest designer here at A Vintage Journey. Thanks again to everyone who entered, and we hope to see you again this month for the 'Texture and Embossing Paste' challenge. Remember, one of our Creative Guides will be back on Monday to share the next Destination Inspiration. You'll have to drop in to find out who it is and what they've done with the contents of this month's travel bag, so we'll see you again soon! Jenny, Alison and the AVJ Creative Guides

Hello and welcome A Vintage Journey Travellers, Anne here to announce the Winner and Pinworthies from our Mini Marvels Challenge. A huge thank you to all of you who joined in, with your wonderful creations! First of all, our Winner, chosen by Random Org is: That's #12 Elaine of Waves of Creativity who shared these wonderful collections of inchies and ATCs with us. Congratulations Elaine! We will be in touch shortly with your badge and also to arrange delivery of your prize from Southern Ridge Trading Company - a $50 varied selection of chipboard and wood veneer laser cut embellishments! We hope you will enjoy playing with your prize! ____________________________________________ And now for our Pinworthy choices. As always there were so many beautiful entries, it was almost impossible for the Creative Guides to make their choices, you are all winners in our eyes! In numerical order: No. 6 - Jo These beautiful co-ordinating white on white little ornaments were made from things Jo found in her stash, the finishing touches are wonderful and they will make an amazing wintry window display! No. 13 - Maria These very tiny (5cm by 7cm) books are actually necklaces and the detailing on each little book is just exquisite! Maria shares others in her post which are equally beautiful! No. 14 - Lys It is so hard to imagine that this fabulous book is only 3cm tall! Lys has packed it with Christmas Carols, Recipes and Christmas Cards - definitely a mini marvel! Huge congratulations to our three Pinworthies this month, you really did create the most wonderful Mini Marvels, thank you so much! We will be contact with you regarding your Pinworthy badge shortly, along with an invitation to be a Guest Creative Guide with us at A Vintage Journey at some point in the future. We hope you will visit again on Monday for our regular Destination Inspiration post, using the contents of the monthly travel bag, and we hope too, that you will join in our current challenge - Winter Wonderland, details of which can be found HERE. Wishing you a wonderful weekend, Anne and all the Creative Guides xx

Hi Vintage Journey Travelers, Thank you everyone who entered. We had a fabulous array of talent this month. Our winner chosen by random org is: That's #70 Aimeslee Winans of Paper-Paisley's Art Adventures with this lovely Artist Post Card featuring vintage German scrap images. Congratulations Aimeslee! We'll be in touch shortly with your winner's badge and details of your sponsor prize from the fabulous Andy Skinner. We had so many wonderful entries this month that it was very difficult for the team to decide on our Pinworthy winners but here are the results. Our talented winners are: Toni of Artistic Craft Dabbler https://craftdabbler-toni.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/festive-stamps-and-stencils-stamps-and.html Nicola of Paper Profusion https://paperprofusion.blogspot.ie/2017/12/merry-christmas.html Christine of Crafty Endeavours http://craftyfield.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/glistening-snow-and-winter-trees.html Huge congratulations to our three Pinworthies this month, you really did create the most wonderful Winter Wonderlands. We will contact you shortly regarding your Pinworthy badge. We hope you will visit again on Monday for our regular Destination Inspiration post, using the contents of the monthly travel bag, and we hope too, that you will join in our current challenge - Think Inside Or Outside The Box, details of which can be found HERE. Wishing you a creative weekend, S@ndy and the Creative Guides

Hi everyone and welcome to our first Winner and Pinworthies post of 2016, and just to make it extra special we've got our Secret Santa Give-Away winner to announce too. It's so nice to be able to celebrate the Winner and Pinworthies of our Vintage Christmas Challenge theme, but as always we thank all of you who joined us on the journey last month. We had so many fabulous entries to the Vintage Christmas Challenge, incorporating some wonderful details using Tim's products and techniques to create the most amazing projects. Visiting your blog posts was a real delight for us and it really has been hard to choose our favourites. ___________________________________ So on to the Vintage Christmas Challenge Winner and Pinworthies. First of all here is our randomly chosen winner, who will receive the prize voucher from our sponsor, Country View Crafts. #42 Sara of Sarascloset1 Congratulations Sara! Such a beautiful Vintage make with those stunning colours and that Santa is one of my favourite of Tim's Christmas Stamp Sets. Gorgeous poinsettias too. We hope you will be Guest Creative Guide with us here in the future and your voucher and winner's badge will be with you very soon. ___________________________________ Now on to the Pinworthies...........which was such a hard decision for the Creative Guides to make. With so many fabulous entries it was difficult to pick our favourite three. Here they are, in no particular order other than their # number. #4 - Alicia of Golden Goddess Designs We were all blown away by this wonderful project, Alicia. The details are so amazing..right down to those stunning transparencies. Thank you for sharing with us here at A Vintage Journey and Congratulations on being chosen as a Pinworthy. Your blog badge will be with you shortly. #14 Nicola of Paper Profusion Nicola's Vintage Christmas Decor piece is stunning with such wonderful details. I am sure you will agree her creations are amazing and its so worth visiting her blog. #55 Autumn of Sew Paper Paint The details on Autumn's Triptych card are fabulous and we loved the inside too. ______________________________________ Congratulations to our fabulous four. Badges and Invitations will be on their way to you soon. Huge thanks to everyone who entered, your creations were amazing and inspiring to all of us here at A Vintage Journey Challenge Blog. Great to have you on board today and I do hope you will stop by here again on Monday 11th January when one of our Creative Guides will be sharing a Destination Inspiration Travel Bag post full of inspiration and details using various products and techniques. There's also a new challenge theme, which kicked off on the 1st January, so I hope you will enter Brenda's fabulous Vintage Travel challenge, it's always great to have you hop on board with us. And don't hop off just yet... Brenda has also drawn the Secret Santa give-away and the winner of the prize is .... Rupa Rupa if you please email Brenda on [email protected] with your address she will get the goodies in the post to you as soon as possible. Have a great weekend. Huge Hugs Annie and the Creative Guides xxxx

Hi everyone x Annie here with details of the Pinworthy mentions for our Inky Wings challenge theme. As always it is very hard to choose three projects and we would like to thank everyone for joining in with us. We love to visit and view your entries so keep them coming xx. So without further ado here are the team's Pinworthy choices: #6 Kerstin Such a wonderful home decor piece by Kerstin. Fabulous details to look at, which look even more amazing when lit. #4 Helen A wonderful Halloween card by Helen with inky bats and background as well as the great city scape. #16 Lisa Another great home decor piece by Lisa, showing bats and ghosts around her little house. Love the idea of the bats flying overhead. We will be sending you your Pinworthy badge to display on your blogs shortly and we will be pinning your fabulous entries to the "A Vintage Journey Pinworthies Board" on Pinterest. There is still plenty of time to enter our current challenge which is "Window on Your World" and you can find all the details HERE along with some fabulous inspiration from the Creative Guides. As always we would like to say "Thank You" for joining us in our challenges and we look forward to seeing what you create this month! Happy Crafting Annie xx

Hello Everyone! Today we welcome you to our Winners post where we feature a previous winner as a Guest Designer and also reveal the Winner and Pinworthies of our August Challenge -'Stencil it!' There was a great response to the challenge and many fantastic entries so thank you all for embracing those stencils and sharing your talent with us. ________________________________ So lets begin by welcoming the wonderful Autumn of Sew, Paper, Paint. She's been busy making a project to fit Julia's "Create Within a Frame" challenge here at Words and Pictures so, without more ado, let's see what she's come up with and hear about it in her own words. Welcome, Autumn! I am married to an amazing man, and my biggest supporter. We have four children, yes four! I live in the US and work full time as a church secretary. I have been stamping for over 15 years. Creativity is my outlet, passion and purpose. I define my style as grunge meets elegance. Though I love to distress everything, I like to balance my work with a touch of pretty and neat. In addition to stamping, I love to draw and paint and have found that mixed media allows me to blend these skills and create rich artwork, filled with depth and texture. I'm thrilled to be joining the A Vintage Journey team today for this fabulous challenge! Often, with such a busy schedule and commitments, I sketch out my designs beforehand so I can get right to it. But project was the result of pure play and experimentation. I started out with a thrifted frame, purchased for a dollar because of its unique size. I have about 40 frames in my stash because I can’t resist taking them home and giving them new life! Some people pick up kittens, I pick up frames! So this challenge was truly up my alley! After I cleaned up and dismantled my frame, I prepped the backing board with gesso. I was in the mood to paint something, so I cracked open my brand new IndigoBlu paints and thought I would experiment with color mixing right onto my board. I used a palette knife and scraped on and blended my colors (red, blue and yellow) randomly. But since this is A Vintage Journey, I had to take the bright colors down a notch! So I used a cosmetic sponge to apply gesso lightly over the entire panel. Then I dripped a mixture of alcohol inks diluted with alcohol over the gesso. I was loving the variation in color, but still wanted to bring more white and subtlety, so I stenciled an “airy” stencil over my background. I built my grouping around this Found Relatives photo of four children, two boys and two girls – just like my own children. I opted for leaves and branches as a nod to the changing seasons. The clock die was embossed in Clossone plum embossing powder, a UTEE. What fun it has been to design for this fabulous challenge! I hope you’ll be inspired to alter an old frame of your own. Thank you so much AVJ for having me today. What a beautiful and inspirational piece, Autumn. Thanks so much for being our guest this month. ______________________________________ Time now to reveal our August Winners and Pinworthies. The Winner of our Sponsored prize last month - a £20 gift Voucher to spend at Country View Crafts as selected by Random Generator is........ That's Tone of Tones Scrapperom with this lovely card. Congratulations to our winner, Tone K . Your winners badge and Gift Voucher will be will you shortly and we hope you will join us as a Guest Designer in the near future. _______________________ Now for our Pinworthies as chosen by our Creative Guide. It is always difficult for us to narrow our choices down to just three with so many wonderful and worthy submissions but after much deliberation here are the pinworthy winners of the Stencil it Challenge In no particular order: #10 Ruth #52 Kerstin F #33 Dot Leathbridge Congratulations to our Pinworthies. We will be in touch shortly with your badges and invitations to be Guest Designers here at A Vintage Journey in the near future. Thank you so much to everyone who joined us in this Challenge. We really do appreciate all your entries and always enjoy seeing all your creations. We hope you will join us this month for Julia's fabulous challenge, 'Create inside a Frame'. One of us will be back Monday to share the latest Destination Inspiration so until then we wish you all a lovely weekend Amanda and all the Creative Guides.

Hello creative friends! Have you seen our newest sensation??? It's a very awesome 3D Kit from Calico Craft Parts, easy and simple to assemble and you will have such a lot of varieties to create this house, I think not only for Halloween, without the graceyard it's also perfect for a wonderful romantic Christmas/ Winterhouse. more details can you find here the rear part of the house is open and so you can easily put an electric tea light in it Pure Magic !!! I hope I could inspire you to try it yourself, to create this house was a great pleasure and a lot of fun for me! It's an mystic eyecatcher on every table or on a shelf. A Vintage Journey - Inky wings Happy crafting! Kerstin