Creating vintage memories

Last Thursday I was up with the lark and caught the train to Flitwick in Bedfordshire to join my blogging buddy and uber talented crafter Brenda of Bumblebees and Butterflies . She was running a workshop for Country View Crafts and we were going to make our own vintage tag photo journal  using Tim Holtz techniques and products. I decided to personalise my little album so I took along some family photos which I printed out in sepia at home beforehand.

Oh what a fab day I had...I do love getting inky fingers. There was a lovely group of fellow crafters and we all got stuck in, first of all making the backgrounds for our photos.

 Brenda showed us the one she had made to give us some ideas.

 and also showed us the techniques we would be using.

We each then chose 3 colours of Distress Inks (DI) I chose Evergreen Bough, Tattered Rose and Weathered Wood. I then started lots of blending on my tags

followed by splatting and flicking with water

to create the backgrounds. I then distressed the edges and added some stamping so that my pages were ready to start adding my photos and other elements.

There were also secret flaps inside. We used treasury tags initially to put the album together as this also meant we could change the order of pages if necessary. We also used the DIs to colour the ribbons. The whole day flew past and before I knew it I was dashing back to the station to catch the 4.30pm train back to Farringdon. I finished my album over the weekend and thought I would share some pages with you.

Doesn't Billy look great in sepia?

this is the back cover

and here is the front cover complete with Tim Holtz's fab ruler binder.

There is also a great  tape closure.

I love my vintage memory album and it holds many cherished memories inside.

Thank you Brenda for such an inspiring day and thanks to Susan of Country View Crafts for hosting it so brilliantly. I am looking forward to the next one.

I would like to enter my album into the following challenges;

Fashionable Stamping tag along
Craft Room Challenge age of aquarius/water techniques
Pan Pastel UK anything goes
Ribbon Girl anything goes
Dream Valley No designer paper
A little big crafty celebrate
Artistic Inspiration anything goes
Crafting from the heart anything goes/fancy folds
The Squirrel and Fox use embellishments
Divas by Design anything goes
Make it Monday linky challenge #176
Party Time Tuesdays anything goes
Whimsy stamps something new my something new is everything in this album other than the distress ink..also it is a new technique for me as well.

Back soon with my promised photos of our day out in Greenwich last week,

Bye for now,

Jane x