Monday 5 November 2018

Labrador Pumpkin Carving

This Halloween I did a Labrador retriever dog pumpkin carving for my grandson, he was delighted.

I found getting the smaller details a bit difficult, thinner areas of pumpkin break so easily,  though it turned out not too bad considering I only used a fine saw blade for the eye highlights and teeth but a teaspoon to carve the rest of this. Hee hee!

What do you think?

This photo was taken indoors in low light.

 I took this one when it was outside in the dark.

Thanks for visiting my wee blog
love Alexandra
x

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Beary special birthday, Star birthday and Out of this world card.

Hello, just a quick post to share a few cards.
The latest was this decoupage image card, it's something I haven't done in ages but found this cute image in my stash, and thought it would make a lovely card.
I added die cut details and a few wee coiled roses to match the roses on the bears hat and heart.

 Here's a special 50th card I created a few weeks ago below.
 

Then last but not least, a card for my wee grandsons 7th birthday
 Thanks for dropping by. 
If you want to comment, please feel free to do so below. 
I'd love to read what you think of my makes.
Love Alexandra
xxx

Tuesday 1 May 2018

Get well card for Celtic Football club supporter

I was asked recently for a special Get well card for a man, with the guys favourite football team as the theme.
I had crafters block for a wee while, having no idea what to do. I looked for inspiration online and came up empty.
I looked at Celtic FC for ideas finding only photos of the players, football grounds and stadium, and some newspaper articles etc.
Nothing very inspiring, maybe because I don't follow or watch football.

My mojo had absconded. Does this ever happen to you?

I did find loads of various pictures of the team badge though, with the pretty shamrock design, so decided to go with this.

This is what I came up with; 


I created the team badge using 4 die cut hearts to create the shamrock then drew in the detail with a white gel pen. The background is the lovely Spellbinders Celtic knot 3D embossing folder which I highlighted in the centre using pencils. The rosette is from Sizzlits decorative strip die from Tim Holtz and I added tails and then topped with a die cut circle with stamped "Get well soon" sentiment in the centre.
I hope the recipient likes this and that this will hopefully cheer him up.

What do you think of my attempt at a football themed card?

Thanks for popping by and I'll be back with my big project for storage in my craft room I've been working on for a couple of weeks.

See you soon
love
Alexandra

Sunday 8 April 2018

Birthday pup

Hello and welcome.
I wanted to share a card I made for our lovely older lab, Amy.
Happy Birthday wishes for my gorgeous Labrador "puppy" who is 13 years old this week.
I made her this card creating a Distress Oxide inky background with added doodling inspired by Marta Łapkowska's, #Maremi's small art video

I stamped, then coloured the yellow lab using watercolour but she ended up too dark, so I toned the colour down with white Prima water soluble pastels, she still wasn't light enough so I blended over again with dry art pastels and set colour with spray fixitive. I then went over the outline again with a black pen as colouring had covered the outline. Next I doodled around the smooshed inky background with a black pen to create trees and some vegetation to make a park or a nice place for her walk. Of course I had to bring with her, her ball and chew bone, and then stamped the sentiments with black archival ink. I added shading and then lastly, I doodled a wavy frame with the black pen around each panel to finish it off.

Thanks for popping by and welcome.
If you want, leave me a comment, I'd love to know what you think.

Alexandra xx

Saturday 10 March 2018

Recycled metal cable holder into Fairy house

I've hung onto for a lot of years, a metal inner tube from electrical cable with the idea of upcycling this into maybe a birdhouse or something, but I never got around to this with lack of creativity time or mojo.
However I was inspired after watching a YouTube video by Marta Maremi small art where she created a little wooden fairy house link here https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=144s&v=hfJ-Ae1ifz4. I combined this idea with the building a wall inspiration too.
This is my wee fairy house, see her trying to slip by me when I took this photo. Fairies are very shy and secretive, she didn't want to be caught creeping into her wee house. 

I didn't photograph every step but if you want to know how I reached my fairy house goal, grab a cup of your favourite beverage as this is a bit of a long post. 
Here's a bit of an idea and description of my process.
This is how I started, with the metal tube, I glued tissue paper over the surface to give it a texture to help stick and make a sandwich layer for my little card bricks, which I cut from the Sizzlits, Tim Holtz Alterations Brick Wall Decorative Strip die. Building this brick wall around the tube was time consuming but a labour of love.
Next I covered this with a second layer of this time,  crinkled tissue, using Mod Podge and then I sealed this with more Mod Podge over the surface the tissue gave the bricks a rough brick texture, which I'd then coloured with acrylic paints and sprays, using a couple of greens, grey, mauve and black, knocking  the colour back with a wet wipe and re-applying, darkening and lightening until I was happy with my wall.

I then added "stones" to the base of my wall, (more upcycling, hot gluing silicone "beads" from the wee bags that are packed in with some goods to absorb moisture, usually they are labelled "Do no eat" "Do not open" but I'm a rebel, opening up the wee bags, not rebelling with the no eating part though, lol)
I painted the beads with gesso then coloured them with sprays in green and black ink .

I added a "wooden" arched door cut from a furniture photo in decorating/ paint chart booklet. I mounted this on card to give it more rigidity, then I die cut some "windows" and I also found a rub on fairy to live in my house. The windows which you can't see much of here were originally flower shapes but I wasn't happy with them, also this door was re-modelled and door handle was changed in the final steps.



Next for a base, I created papier mache from an egg box softened down with hot water squeezed to a firm dough consistency then I added a couple of good dollops of PVA glue and mixed it in well then I pressed this paper clay/papier mache mix to coat over an old coaster. I pressed the tube base into this base to make a circular dent then I left this to dry overnight. I hot glued these together the following day.

The lid or roof was next. I cut a circle of firm card the same size as the diameter of the top of the tube, then using a narrow strip of thick card, I wrapped it around the outside circumference and secured the circle ring with washi tape and then glued it to the card disc to form a lid for my tube. 
Then the roof was constructed using a larger circle of card with a quarter cut out, then I curled the remaining 3/4's into a cone then glued this cone over the lid I had made. To add the tiles, I coloured a large sheet of lightweight card with same ink combo I had used on the walls. I dried the card, then embossed it to add texture.
I cut the card into long narrow strips, reserving about 5 inches wide section to make the top of the cone roof, which was a small 2 inch circle, and a bit more to cover both sides of a neat fitting card disc to glue inside the bottom of the tube for a base inside the tube
to create a container for my pencils. 
I cut the rest of the textured card into strips then into about 1 inch tiles and proceeded to glue these around the base of the cone roof, starting from the bottom then working my way progressively up the roof until I reached the top finishing this with the small circle cutting away 1/4 section, rolling into cone shape and glued into place. I cut very small "v" shapes around the bottom edge of this to mimic the tile edge.
I finished off the roof by hot gluing on a glittery pinecone (from an unused Christmas decoration) to look like a wee chimney.



I decided the base needed a bit more detail so I created a small set of steps with leftover section of roof card rolled into about 1 inch long "logs" flattened, then hot glued as steps at the door. I added some hot glue stones around the bottom edge of the house and sides of the steps, filling in some gaps under the "stones", but the new hot glue "stones" looked odd so I used a black mica texture paste over these to cover the glue then I
also added some around the door frame, I filled in sides of the steps with the texture paste and spread it over the papier mache base texturing it with the flat of a painting knife to create peaks and smoother areas. Then added mica flakes sparingly. I sprinkled a tiny amount over the base while it was still wet in just a few places using a mix of tea dye, bronze and green flakes, to add a bit of fairy sparkle.



This definitely photographed better outside. It looks right at home here, doesn't it. I had to run back inside with my wee house though when the rain started shortly after snapping this picture. 

 The roof lifts off to hide away my pens or pencils.

Thanks for visiting my blog and taking the time to read about my latest creative ideas and projects.
Let me know what you think, I really enjoyed creating this one.

Love Alexandra xx


Sunday 28 January 2018

Building walls

I'm loving watching the YouTube videos from Marta "Maremi's Small Art" I was inspired to play after watching her latest video. DIY Brick Wall Effect

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=297s&v=cKifSOe_sTo

Here are my results.


Last week I had already had an idea for creating the look of a dry stone wall using an egg box, glue and acrylic paint.

The bottom two were created using a card egg box for the bumpy internal texture to replicate the stone and the irregular shapes of the lighter one were created by tearing out random pieces of the box as opposed to using scissors as I did in the one next to this.

The top two brick walls were inspired by Marta's video.

Take a look at her channel if you haven't yet discovered her videos.
You are in for a treat. I'm sure you'll love them and be inspired by her cheery teaching style

Thanks for visiting.
Love and hugs
Alexandra xx

Wednesday 13 December 2017

Merry Christmas

 I wanted to wish you all a Happy Christmas and good health and happiness in the New Year.


I also made  this card to wish the residents and staff of Erskine a very Merry Christmas.

For those who don't know, Erskine is a facility in Erskine, Scotland, that provides long term medical care for veterans of the British Armed Forces.

Have a wonderful time.

Love & hugs
Alexandra xx