Pencil pot make over

Hello all, sorry I've not been around and missed blogging for a few weeks.  
I had this project saved in draft for a few weeks but haven't gotten around to posting it here. 

Added today:
To briefly let you know my heart and head have been elsewhere as my daughter is just now on life support in hospital. We almost lost her. I have been there every day since she was admitted a week past Monday. She is stable now but still in a coma. 
We did get a wee flutter of her eyelids, and she tried to open her eyes when we said her name yesterday. Baby steps in the right direction. Say a prayer for her please.

Welcome to new visitors and new followers and thank you to older blog friends for your loyalty and coming back to see what I've been up to. Your visits and comments mean a lot to me.
Anyway here's the latest venture into creativity. Inspiration struck when I was in my local Tesco's grocery store when this bargain 40p pencil pot

caught my eye (and my imagination) for a make over. (They also had a wee matching lidded box with flamingo note-let/cards in it with which I plan another re-do later...watch this space!)




I started by painting the full box with a couple of coats of white Gesso. Then using the silver embossing paste generously given to me by Anne last month. I stencilled through a V&A brass stencil I've had for "yonks" but never used. As it had such tiny fine detail, I wanted to see how precise the paste would work. I was impressed, as I'd never tried embossing paste before this. I think my first attempt turned out not too bad.
I then used Pebeo paints in two blues, and pink at random occasionally wiping back to soften the look with a baby wipe and using a dry brush to change it where I felt the need. I love the soft colours this produced. I cut and glued 3 x 33/4"square layers of card for a lid then 4 layers 3" square to fit inside the box top. I painted the lid the same way to match the box. I used various Indigo Blu stamps throughout and around this pencil pot project, 

I stamped the flourishes from Indigo Blu "Discover your passion" set on the lid, and added Tim Holtz tattered florals made into roses stamped first with Wendy Vecchi ledger numbers and a couple of her make mine mini art flowers covered with tissue tape, cut out and coloured with DI's. The bead in the centre of these wee flowers was shiny silver, so I coloured them with alchohol inks. the leaves were from Indigo Blu "Live Laugh Love" set as were the words I used. 

"Laugh as much as you breath" was stamped in blended blue-green and pink chalk ink colours which I then found didn't dry too well on acrylic paint... even after blasting with the heat gun, arrrgh! so not giving up, I used a fixative spray that I use for pastel painting, well pastels are chalky too! (hairspray does this job too with pastels, if you need to use this and don't have it) this seemed to do the trick, so I then over stamped this in Rangers white archival. 

I tried same idea using white acrylic paint stamped over (playing safe now) black archival with "Love to Create" from Indigo Blu "Discover your passion" wording stamp set. I like the shadow effect it produced with the lettering. I stamped the flourish in black here too to balance the corners.

The wee dragon fly here is from the "Live Laugh Love" set too, stamped with chalk inks before I discovered it didn't fully dry well and set with fixative as before. It is so pretty and highly detailed, even the tiny veins stamp with such detail. 

The last face of this box started off life very different. I originally had a stamped butterfly on Clearly for art stuck on this side but I bumped the edge of it's wing which damaged it,so when I took it off the underlying paint was well glued to it and peeled off too. I could have cried, but they say there are no mistakes in art so I then had another idea using this "hole" in the paint I peeled back more to create a faux hole in the back of the box then painted inside and around it to create the trompe l'oeil (artistic optical illusion) .
The wee bird "hiding inside" is from the Indigo Blu Clematis flourish stamp. I painted in the shape of the bird with Pebeo paint, then over stamped it in black Stazon to bring back the details of her feathers, I added white Sakura for highlight but didn't like it so colouring carefully in tiny dots and dashes of alcohol pens over this and on the wings and tail to deepen colour between the stamped image. In hindsight I should have picked a different stamp pad to over stamp the bird, but managed okay (holding my breath, lol).  The flowers were painted in alcohol ink from pens then blended with blending solution on felt, to suggest something else tucked inside but to leave the tiny wee bird as the focal point inside.

Thanks for visiting and for taking the time to look.

hugs Alexandra x

Metal Valentine Wall Hanging

Today I wanted to share a wall hanging I created.

I made this for my DH for Valentine's day instead of a card, it's also my entry for the Everything Wendy Vecchi Group Mac #3 challenge. This time we've to use Wendy's stamp or stamps and also to use a (nice) 4 letter word, mine is "love".

For this project I used scraps of metal foil in various square and rectangle sizes which I glued onto chipboard hearts cut using my Cricut, (my Cricut machine is so handy for these type of projects, cutting whatever shape for my base in whatever size I need)

then I embossed the hearts using a Sizzix embossing folder and my bug. I only used the A plate and one B plate along with the "No more shims" embossing mat to protect my bug from thick depth of chipboard and foil layers. It worked a treat. I painted the whole metal surface with black acrylic paint then while it was wet "brushed" it in one direction with a paper towel to give it an industrial, old brushed metal look, as inspired by Sam Poole on her TV demo on C&C using adhesive backed aluminium foil from a DIY store (or her partners tool box).

I wanted a slight patina on the hearts so over-layered this with some green, blue and copper acrylic paint, then removed most of this with a brush and paper towel again to leave just a hint of colour, I sanded a bit too, to highlight the base metal in places.

I stamped Wendy Vecchi's bird on grunge paper and cut this out and coloured it using Radiant rain colours in Key lime, Blue flame, Pewter and Copper to keep the metalic look. Embossed this using TH's cracked glass embossing folder. I made the faux screw using tiny circles die cut from card glued 2 together then run this through an embossing folder with lined journalling note effect to make the grove this was painted black then I applied a tiny bit of forgotten gold gilding powder with my finger, that I've have had for "yonks" but only came across recently during a tidy up (the gold powder that is... not my finger, which is probably one of the few things I don't misplace in my crafty hovel, lol). I distressed it a bit by hitting it with the edge of my scissors. The metalic shape at the bottom was cut from my Cricut then given the same treatment for colouring as the screw (I didn't hit this though), then shaped it with a ball tool in my hand to give it a 3D metal feel. I used a wee metal heart heated with red/gold embossing powder again this powder was in goody bundle from Lori. 

The medium size heart started life the same, only bigger. I used the chipboard letters from Lori for the words and the embossed metal crown was from same foil run through another TH embossing folder, cut out & coloured with same paints for background and distressed as before.

Next, (sorry this photo is a bit out of focus) the largest sized heart, same base, just bigger again, I used the same background technique. I  bet you knew that was coming, lol. I embellished this one with TH tattered flowers made into roses from a printed leafy foliage scrapbook paper. This was too clean and pretty, so I used the same Radiant Rain sprays and Radiant Rain dabber in Copper again to make them a bit more metalicy (is this a word?) 

The sentiment is stamped using Vintage Photo DI, and using words from a Wendy Vecchi stamp set which I die cut using an Xcut die, and I made a faux die cut, for backing it to frame this by drawing around the die and cutting it out of black card. The screws "attaching" it are made same way as the first one.

BOY! Do I talk or what?

 Sorry this was so long, and well done if you managed to stay with me.

Thanks for looking.

hugs

Alexandra x

Happy Halloween

Hi everyone,
Thanks for visiting me here again, I do appreciate you all popping by and love reading any comments you leave me. Thanks so much for these.

Sorry I've not been around much this month, I've hardly been on the computer since my dad ended up in hospital 3 weeks ago after a fall at home, between hospital visits, then checking in on him after work each day since he got home I've not had much time to be creative.
I did buy a couple of pumpkins the day before dad's fall, and had planned to carve them both for the visiting ghosts, super heros, princesses and zombies etc. that like to knock on my door on the 31st.

I hate waste so had to do something with them when I got home from work tonight. My brother was with my dad tonight so had a bit of time to do this...

 

I don't have special pumpkin carving tools and so I lost the wee bat from the left hand side when I was carving it with my small kitchen knife, you can see the wee notch where it was supposed to be. This haunted house was inspired by an image from the rubber stamp sheet "Boo"  from Chocolate Baroque.

 

The middle of the pumkin was scooped out and made a lovely big pot of "Cream of Pumpkin Soup".

 

It was delicious!
I checked on google and found out Pumpkins are chock full of nutrition and good stuff too, I forgot to keep the pumpkin seeds to roast them too, these are full of minerals and goodness too.
I do still have the other pumpkin to use though, so I'll have a go at this to see how they turn out.

Of course, I will have to do another carving to decorate the garden with this one too. Hee hee!

hugs

Alexandra x

 

 

Zentangle doodle book and another digi for you.

Hi every one, thanks for all your lovely comments and welcome new followers, thanks for joining me here.
Today I wanted to share a wee book I've just decorated. I've had this kicking about for a while I can't remember where I picked it up but always thought it was a bit small for sketching in, but I reckon it's just a nice size for my tangles and it fits neatly in my bag along with a pen and pencil, handy for doodling in waiting rooms etc.

It started off life as a boring Kraft covered board book with an aperture the shape of a butterfly in it.

I used gold paint dabber randomly on it to brighten it up in places and some copper foil scraps stuck on the right side of the aperture with Anitas tacky glue then when dry I darkened this a bit with a black alcohol pen to catch the texture. I doodled the word "Zentangle" in black pen
The first page is kraft paper behind the butterfly, so I decorated inside the aperture with some zentangling, though around this shape I can still doodle some more, as it's still kraft paper around it under the front cover.
I finished it off the front cover with some zentangling then decided to add a splash of colour with alcohol pens too,  the word "Zentangle" in black  was too dark and I didn't like it, so I resued it with Sakura gold shadow pens then highlighted a bit of the tangle patterns with various colours of the same too, though in this photo it looks silver.

I hope you're not fed up with flowers yet. As promised here is another digi sketch. This one is "Sweet peas"

I hope you enjoy this one, I'd love to see what you do with my sketches so please let me know if you use this and if you want to share this with others please point them to my blog and leave me a comment to say you've visited.
Let me know what you think.