We will remember them

On the Centenary of the Great war.
I created a wee wall hanging, in remembrance of the soldiers who fought and to those who gave the greatest sacrifice of all in WW1 and also remembering soldiers in all wars before and since.

The Poppies were created with a Sizzix Bigz L Flora -Prima die, poppy centres are Spellbinders Die delights Bloom 1 and Crealies dies CL CS 09 & CL CS 09.

I've had this Chocolate Baroque sentiment stamp for a couple of years. Lovely words.

Thanks for dropping by

hugs

Alexandra x

Happy Halloween

Hi everyone, Thanks for visiting my wee blog.
Long time, no blog!
My bad!!
I'm still here, I've still been creating but maybe not as often as I used to, or like to.
Anyway I thought I'd share a couple of photos of pumpkins I carved.
The first one I carved last week. A Spooky Minion ghost.
 

 My grandson David loves minions!

Then tonight I got a new doggy... well I carved him out of a second pumpkin.

Meet Kyle from Despicable me. 

 I think he looks scary. I don't think I'd like to bump into him on a dark night. 

I still prefer my lovely Labradors, much more cuddlier! lol.

Have a lovely night and thanks for coming to see what I've been up to.

hugs

Alexandra

xx

Live Laugh Love + Upcycling

I made this for my daughter Nicole.

Warning this is a bit of a long post, you may want to grab a cuppa before you read on.

This project was constructed with the help of my Cricut. 

I wanted a wee house shape, but the nearest I had was this tag shape...I thought.... well, near enough! 

Using multiple layers of cereal packet card, I glued the base tag shapes together, on top of each other with a strong wet glue until it was about 5mm thick (approx 8 - 10 layers of card  for each base section, (32 -40 layers altogether... I lost count!). I then sanded each now thick, solid shape when it was dry. For the framed fronts I used my Gypsy & Cricut to design and cut the aperture I wanted in the tag. I chose a basic rectangle, and a heart shape for the other. I cut approx 16 layers each design (8 for each front) with the aperture in the centre for the fronts these were layered and sanded as before.

I cut 4 fronts with the apertures, (2 of each design), and 4 tag shapes for the backs, from some lovely old Basic Gray 12 x 12 paper I had in my stash. This was a rich brown, beige and rust coloured design so after sticking to the block shapes I lightly sanded again. I painted them with a thin layer of Gesso so you could still see the paper design through it, but it's muted, I added this top layer with wet glue before assembling, and sanding again. (the paper dust is awful stuff, it gets everywhere, but it's worth the mess for the lovely smooth result)

I also cut 4 of the base shapes from white card for the top of the base layers for stamping on the top of the base so it would be visible inside the apertures when these were added and glued in place. I lightly sanded the edges of  this layer too. I stamped over the 8 main card "block" pieces, base both sides back and front, and then around the aperture of the top piece) then stacked and glued together, the hinges are just printed card I had in a bits box, reinforced underneath with a thin sheer fabric glued to the card then trimmed to fit & attached with wet glue to allow to concertina fold open, I sanded again to give a smoothed edge. 

  

For the stamping, I stamped with black Archival, using mainly Birdhouse garden set of Clarity stamps images and Clarity stamped poem, masked and stamped a bit at a time to fit the shape. 
I also used a free Hot off the Press stamp "Sweet treats" with birds & bird houses that I got with Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine recently, and "Live Laugh Love" words were from an old Crafty Impressions stamp set.
I tinted everthing to add a wee bit of soft colour, using Tumbled glass and tattered rose Distress ink. 


This is it folded closed. It's solid, and feels like it's made of wood.

This is the back. 

At the top of this post you'll see the picture of the inside or opened face of the finished project.

Well done making it to the end.

Thanks for looking.

hugs Alexandra

xxx

Life's a garden, dig it.

Paper clay flower making was so addictive, so here's the result.....

The pile of flowers continued growing.... 

I used Spellbinders Sunflower dies to make the flowers, 2 layers of the large flower and 2 of the small. 

The whole lot was diecut using up unloved yellow card which is a colour I don't usually use. I sprayed the die cut flowers, dipped, dabbed and mopped ink up from my craft mat I used a cool red, yellow and black to get these variations. I liked the resulting colours much better.

From these, I then created this....

Two views of the same project. This is the other side.

I stuck the flowers back to back on stems using a holly napkin left over from Christmas wrapped around wire which I also coloured with peeled paint ink. I cut a few leaf shapes to add a bit more greenery. 

 

For the bottle vase, I used stamps from PaperArtsy Hot Pick 1009, to stamp on tissue paper. I coloured the reverse with acrylic paint, then when this layer was dry, I added another layer of white acrylic paint which I used to highlight the colour and adhere the tissue to a heart shaped bottle too. 

I sealed the tissue once it was dry using PVA glue which I painted over with a soft paintbrush. This gave the bottle a soft sheen too.

......and I still have flowers left over to play with some more, lol.

Thanks for looking

Alexandra xx

Paper clay play

Thanks for visiting. Sorry I've been AWOL for such a long time.

I just popped in to post a wee update and wanted to say thank you again to all you kind ladies for your well wishes and prayers for our daughter. She has had diabetes since she was a wee girl. We were lead to believe (by her) she was doing okay, and she reassured us if we asked about her health, that all was good. We were always proud of her. She's always been so clever, talented and seemed sensible and mature for her 18 years. She was so busy with everything in her life, before this happened, with her college & photography work, social life with friends, singing in a band etc, a typical teenager I suppose you'd say. Having no idea she wasn't giving herself the due care and attention she needed for her diabetes, which resulted in her going into a severe diabetic coma. She suffered a brain injury when this happened. This came as a huge shock.

She wakened from her coma after about 2 weeks, she was still on lots of monitors, lines and tubes etc for a good few weeks after this. She had no voice after ventilator was removed. I don't think we think of these things when we haven't experienced this before. It was a very scary time, one I wouldn't like to re-live.

If you know anyone with diabetes, especially young people, let them know how important it is to keep regular checks on their diabetes control. When we're young we think were bullet proof, but this is a potentially life threatening condition without regularly "keeping your eye on the ball".

My daughter got home, after 4 months in hospital. She still needs help getting about and she's getting help with physio' to help her mobility, and she had speech therapy to help with her talking.
She is so brave and is getting stronger, her walking is improving slowly. Her voice though quieter, it's stronger, though she's not the chatterbox she used to be. She's not singing again yet, and I miss her constant chatter too.

On to a bit of me time, which I love when I can get it.

I've been dabbling in odd crafty projects on and off when I've had the time. I had a go at making air dry paper clay too. Inspired by Darcy from PaperArtsy, last year when she created her huge paper mache giraffe, Colin. You can check it out here.

I made quite a large amount of the paperclay, so had some fun.
I made these roses from it the same way as I would fondant ones for cake decorating, and then tried stamping into it. These other shapes are made from stamp impressions from Sheena Douglass flower stamps.

I found this Inkylicious "Always Remember" stamp. I couldn't resist buying it, as it made me think of my brave girl.
I made this fridge magnet for her by stamping this into the paperclay, I trimmed it, and left it on my craft mat to dry.
After letting it dry for 24 hours, I painted  it with black acrylic paint, then used gilding wax to highlight, finished it off by adding a dangling, cameo metal charm.
 

I had purchased a few silicone moulds 

and made these too. 

Great fun! 

I'll be back to show you what I've created with some of these soon!

Thanks for stopping by.

Alexandra x