Get Some Texture at A Vintage Journey

Hi everyone and welcome. It's my turn to host the next challenge at A Vintage Journey with a theme I hope will get your creative juices flowing. I want you to 'Get Some Texture' into your projects, but not just any texture; Tim Holtz has shown us so many techniques for getting texture into our projects over the years. Use one (or more) of these on your piece - just remember to tell us which one(s) you've chosen!

For this challenge you may want to refer to Tim's blog, online classes, Creative Chemistry 101 and Creative Chemistry 102, and/or his three Compendium of Curiosities books (available at Country View Crafts). Our sponsors, Country View Crafts are offering a £10 gift voucher to spend, to one winner chosen by the team.

At first glance this doesn't look like your typical 'Tim style' project, but the truth is there are seven of his techniques pressed into action to create this card. Yes, you heard me right, SEVEN!!! And the texture paste through a stencil isn't one of them. So now you're wondering what they are...

Confession time; the central panel was and experiment that went wrong and then got resurrected rather successfully. I started with a plain piece of card, covered it in Antiqued Bronze Distress Paint and then used a technique from Creative Chemistry 102 for using embossing powders through stencils. In this case it was Ranger Verdigris and in my head the combination with Bronze should have been wonderful - in practice it didn't work, but by covering the lot in Hydrangea Archival Ink and some purple Distress Paint drips the panel was transformed. I layered it onto some Kraft Coredinations card which, like some of the leaf stems, was sanded back to reveal the base colour - Tim did the same thing on his blog HERE.

Many of you will recognise the grungepaper trellis, altered in the same manner as Tim's April tag (ahhh, happy memories of that post... !) To turn this panel into a garden gate I added an Idea-Ology metal lock, ageing it with a technique from Tim's January tag involving Distress Paints.
With the garden gate in place I felt like this needed a secret garden.

That garden, inspired by the Chelsea Flower Show, began to take life as leaf fronds turned into hollyhocks; after cutting some of those fronds from the sanded Kraft Cordinations, more were cut from 'Glided Kraft Glassine' (page 39, Compendium of Curiosities 2). The hollyhock blooms were created from altered, double-sided Tissue Tape (page 36, Compendium of Curiosities 2) adorned by little pearl centres coloured with Gold Mixative Alcohol Ink. After die cutting Distress Stain dyed crinoline the whole garden was spattered with Iced Spruce Distress Paint (also seen on Tim's January tag). And the final texture technique? Reserved for the butterfly, I love the 'Shattered Stains' technique (page 48, Compendium of Curiosities 2).

So there you go, seven of Tim's techniques (and a bit more texture besides) crammed into one six inch square card! And you're going to love what the Creative Guides have come up with over at A Vintage Journey. Between my talented teamies and the genius that is Tim Holtz I'm sure you can all be inspired to create a little something full of texture - don't forget, you have to use TIM HOLTZ TECHNIQUES and tell us which ones you've used.

Take care of yourselves, Jenny xxx

All the products used here can be purchased from Country View Crafts