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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sympathy cards

A difficult time for anyone is losing a loved one. I've sadly had the need to make a few sympathy cards

This one is gently coloured with Forrest Moss distress ink. I made this card using an embossing folder and embellished it with a small cross.

These two sympathy cards are similar, using almost the same.

Quick, C&S cards.

Thanks for dropping by, let me know what you think.

I've a few more projects  I created that I'll share soon.

Alexandra

I'm still here and crafting again.

I haven't been around much lately, sorry. My old dad has had a lot of health issues in the past few years so my priorities have been with him while he needed so much help and support. Sadly I lost dad at the end of July. My heart was broken and I haven't been into creating for a long, long time. However I am determined to get back on the proverbial horse, and seriously look for my mojo. 

I wanted to share a card I finished making today and small up-cycled jam jar to package a wee gift of some sweets for a work colleague who is starting a new job. 

The wee heart dangler here, 
I made a while ago (Feb /March 2014) using home made paper clay and silicone moulds. I used a light weight wall filler instead of joint compound which I wasn't sure about here in UK. I made a huge lump of clay at the time and had fun playing with this. Check out this post from my blog archives, http://alexandras-art-n-papercraft.blogspot.com/2014/02/paper-clay-play.html
You can find the recipe on the website of Jonni Good if you want it here;
http://ultimatepapermache.com/new-air-dry-clay-recipe

I have a few more things I have created but never posted yet and I'll be back to share them with you soon.

Thanks for popping by.

hugs

Alexandra xx

Civil wedding card

Hi, I'm back again, it's been a while, but it's nice to be here again.

Life sometimes gets so busy I forget to keep this sad little blog going. However I have managed to squeeze in a bit of creativity occasionally.

I have a few photos of projects and things I have made since my last post.

Last summer I was asked to make a special card for a friend's brothers wedding.

Here is the card I created.

This was the first civil wedding card I've made, I created it mainly using dies and paper folding.

Thanks again for visiting and feel free to leave a comment if you want.
I appreciate hearing what you think. TTFN

Alexandra x

Puppy's first birthday

Amber turned 1 year old this month. She's getting so big now, taller than Amy.

This is our two gorgeous girls on the morning after Ambers birthday.

 (Amber is in the front)

She got lots of treats and toys and I made her this wee birthday card.

Thanks for dropping by

love Alexandra

x

Back to crafting, and Say "Hello" to our new addition to the family.

I started this blog as an incentive to make art more regularly. I've been going off topic with things life has thrown me over last few years, so I thought I'd share a few things I have been creating.



The latest make was a card for my daughter's birthday, she loves owls.

 ....we're not out of the woods yet, I made another woodland creature card. A special request from someone for a fox card for a special granddaughters birthday.

and last but not least, I wanted to share my latest news;
As I mentioned in my last post, our lovely Labrador Amy was never on her own, she always had Piper for company. We wanted Amy to have another doggy playmate, so we got a new baby labrador puppy dog in December.

Meet Amber;

  Is this not the face of mischief? 

This photo was taken on 23rd January age 3 1/2 months old.

                                       This baby photo was taken in December.

She has kept us busy with training, keeping her out of trouble, playtime and entertainment, hers and ours.
We called her Amber because of her beautiful, soft strawberry blonde colouring especially around her ears and back. I love her ears, they're so silky, velvety soft!
Amber wanted to chew everything and everybody  from day one.
Amy, though initially frightened of our new "land shark", has been very good and extremely patient with our new excitable, sometimes naughty puppy.
Thankfully this exploratory biting phase has passed and they get on great now, only soft play biting when they are carrying on and playing, though Amber thinks all the toys are hers.
Amy gives up her ball whenever Amber wants it,  so Amy picks up a different toy then that's the one Amber wants. Poor Amy, she's such an angel, so gentle, generous and good.

This is Amber at around 6 months old.

Amber (now almost 9 months old) and Amy waiting patiently on a treat.

These last two photos were taken a couple of days ago.

Thanks for visiting

Love

Alexandra xx

Our brave wee Piper.

Hi everyone,
Sorry for falling off the web, it's been a long time, I've been missing you but my art and crafting mojo had almost absconded since my last post, I haven't been creating much until recently, sorry I've nothing ready to post today but I have a few photos I promise to share soon.

Since the beginning of last year, I had been spending much of my time with our lovely dogs and nursing our wee Piper helping her back to being able to get out for her walks again, which she achieved gradually over last summer, though she could only cope with shorter walks since her cancer treatment. I know a lot of you sent love and well wishes for her, and I was asked by Pam how she was doing. Sorry Pam, for not replying sooner, but I wasn't ready to talk at the time as you'll probably understand if you read on. Sorry this is a bit of a long post.

I'm writing this with sadness, our lovely Piper was unwell towards the end of last summer.

She had been diagnosed with glaucoma, a painful eye condition, mid August, she was given pain relief medicine and eye drops to reduce the pressure in her eyes. 
We noticed around this time, she was beginning to be a bit fussy eating & we put it down to side affects of her new medicine.
On the Sunday evening later that week, we recognized she had another infection in her womb which had been treated with antibiotics the previous month. After the medication she seemed to get better for a short while, but it was back. This time it was worse than it had been before.
She was still off her food, normally she had a great appetite, quickly clearing her dish. We tried giving her flaked fresh fish, then roast beef and also tried chopped breast of chicken to encourage her to eat, but she only ate half leaving remaining half in her dish.
We took her to the vet early on the Monday morning, and were waiting outside the surgery when she opened.
The vet recommended surgery straight away, without the operation she wouldn't last much longer and treating with more antibiotics  wouldn't help, as infection would reappear, so it was arranged for her to go through surgery later that morning. 
Our vet phoned a bit later, to say she wouldn't be strong enough to survive this as her heart developed problems when they anesthetized her.
This was devastating, after her battling so bravely with cancer and dealing with going blind, to suddenly be given this news. We couldn't watch her go through any more so I'm sorry to say that we had the very difficult decision to make to let her go. We know it was the right decision, but it was heart breaking, I'm glad she had her family with her when she slept her last sleep. I'm now writing this through tears. We still miss her terribly. She almost reached her 10th birthday.
Amy, our blonde girl was a great comfort, giving us a bit of normality with walks and our doggy routine, though I'm sure she wondered where Piper was, and was missing her too. They'd always been together since they were puppies, they were the best of friends and always had each other's company. 

Here are Amy and Piper at the entrance of Chatelherault located in a village near Hamilton.
This was the area of one of their favourite, bigger, 2 hour walks.

Wonderful memories will stay with me.

It has taken me a long time to be able to talk about this. 

Thanks for your kindness and well wishes.

We miss you loads and will always love you, our brave wee "Pippa"

Love Alexandra x

In the dog house!

Belated Christmas & Happy New Year wishes. I know this is very late but I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and I wanted to wish you all the best for 2015.

 

Amy & Piper playing Tug O' War

The night after the photo above was taken which was only a couple of days after my last post, we discovered a lump between the toes in our sweet dog, Piper's paw. She hadn't showed any sign of anything wrong, not even a limp before this so it was a shock.
It was checked out as soon as the vet opened and was quickly diagnosed as cancer. She went through surgery the next day. This was her days after her operation.







About 10 days after her op' she started 3 weeks of radiotherapy and chemotherapy too. Her poor paw got really sore the further into her treatment she got, and ended up bandaged for 3 weeks. She even went off eating and anyone with a labrador will know they love their food. So you can imagine my heart wasn't in the mood for celebrating this year.

She got her bandage off 3 days ago and is still in early stages of her recovery from her treatment and my "Hoppy puppy" needs lots of help getting about not to mention the medication for pain etc. She has been such a star and sooo brave during all this, not a growl or a grump.

Here's Amy, her silly sister in her favourite pose sleeping.




I hope this year is a better one for everyone.

love Alexandra xx

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