Pixel Scrapper November Blog Train ~ Vintage

Pixel Scrapper has increased our blog train timing from once every two months to once a month. Whoa! I barely have time to function these days, so I can tell that is going to be way too much for me. My blog already has become almost entirely blog train posts, I haven’t had any time to do my own scrapbooking since starting practicum. But this month I loved the theme (Vintage!) and the pretty palette, so I went for it anyways. But I will be so happy to sit out for the next one and see what fantastic goodies my fellow Pixel Scrappers come up with.

“Vintage” makes me think of fashion first and foremost. I used to be pretty into vintage clothing and had quite a fun collection (it helps that I live in one of the thrift store capitals of the country). Since getting sick I tend to want to be comfortable more than anything else, and a lot of my vintage clothes are fairly fragile and need to be worn with care (they’re not for lying around in bed, that’s for sure) so I rarely end up wearing vintage these days. But I had fun geeking out with some fashion design this month, and hopefully ended up with some things you’ll have fun playing with as well.

The licensing for my contribution for this round is pretty confusing. This is in large part due to the fact that I cannot – for free or for money – find 12×12 book page images that are CU4CU. I LOVE the art journal look of using printed pages as backgrounds for papers, but the only ones I have been able to find have been limited to use for making PU materials. Because of this and other resources that I used what ended up happening is that even within packs some items are PU and some are CU. I explain it pretty thoroughly in the enclosed TOU and everything is well-marked, so hopefully it won’t be too tough to navigate. The way to simplify it would be, of course, to just make everything Personal Use Only. But I really want to pay forward the favor of all the fantastic folks who make CU freebies that I use in turn to make stuff for you guys, so this is the best I can do until I get so amazing in my Photoshop skills that I never use any outside resources ever. (Ha! That day will never come. I’m a magpie – I am happiest when combining bits and pieces from here and there.)

And hey, if anyone comes across some nice big high-quality digital book pages (they’re so rare in 300 dpi, which makes sense, since book pages tend to be a lot smaller than 12×12) that are ok for making CU products with, please let me know!

Blog train freebie links only stay up for a limited time (though you can still find older blog train goodies if you explore the blog). My Vintage kit is no longer available here on the blog – they will soon be available at Pixel Scrapper.

First up are a set of “paper transfers.” There’s this great technique I love in paper art journaling, called paper transfer or image transfer, where you get an image to transfer onto your page, so that it’s like collage, but there’s no separate layer; the image is just blended onto the page. The digital designs I’ve made will give you the same look on a digital page, and would be fun for heritage scrapping, art journaling, and and just generally adding a bit of fun retro or vintage atmosphere. I’m especially fond of the Christian Dior “New Look” design because it’s one of my favorite pieces of fashion history. After the war years when fabric shortages demanded scaled-down silhouettes, Dior designed the New Look to be a celebration of fabric extravagance, with plenty of pleats and wide hips and shoulders.

Next up is a little minikit. Five patterned papers, two frames, two pieces of vintage fashion-related ephemera, and four stickers. I hate making previews for kits (I like it better when I can lay everything out super neatly) and these just looked so cluttered to me. I made two previews, and couldn’t choose which was the least annoying, and realized hey, it’s my blog, I can put up both!

I really love making journal cards. Even more, perhaps, than I love downloading them! So for all my fellow JC-junkies out there, here’s a pretty collection of 12 journal cards to match the Vintage blog train, some with a fun little fashion flair.

I adore washi tape, but the thing about it is that it’s always so specific to the colors of a particular kit. In a giant kit like a blog train that’s not a big deal since you’ll probably get a ton of use out of the tape, but I tend to be drawn to washi in more neutral colors, and I have a particular penchant for washi with an ephemera theme. So here’s a big collection of tape, some in the kit colors, others with fashion references, and some in more neutral ephemera designs that will hopefully serve you well in many scrapping situations. 

Finally, who doesn’t love solids? These solids are wonderfully textured and have some nice heft to them, if you can say that about digital files. 🙂 They’ll hopefully help you as a base for all the many marvelous parts of this blog train – somewhere around 40 contributions at last count!

And of course now it’s time to hop back on the train and see what other wonderful delights await you! Previews for each portion and links for where to download can be found in this thread at the Pixel Scrapper forum.