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

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

Happy New Year

We're more than half way through January now, but better late than never to wish you all a very Happy New year, and good health in 2013.

Thanks so much for joining me through my tentative steps into Blog land since the summer of 2012.  

I’m looking forward with great anticipation to 2013 and all the possibilities it may hold. 
New year resolutions? Well...
I will try to be more positive in life and more active, (my exercise classes start on Tuesday, I need to get rid of my "Christmas pudding" tum, lol)
I hope to be more creative this year too, I need to make time for this, as it always cheers me up I find myself smiling more...seemingly for no reason, people must wonder what I've been up to... lol
... but in my head I'm thinking through ideas, projects, art, design, colours, stamps, inks, paints, texture etc.
when an idea comes to my mind and I smile until it comes to life as a finished project, then I'm truly happy.
I'm hooked on the good feeling I get through being creative.
Anyway, enough waffling. I wanted to share this frugal crafting  project I made using mainly Wendy Vecchi stamps, paint, ink, some recycled card from packaging from scrapbook paper packs I had, large frozen pizza boxes & cereal boxes.

I've not played much with stencils so didn't have embossing paste to play with or many pennies left to buy some after Christmas. I wondered if decorating filler would work, and was curious to see what happened. 

 So I used plastic packaging to create a stencil and a tube of DIY wall repair filler for texture.I wanted a raised leafy design which I don't have, so I used Wendy's leaf stamps on flat plastic packaging then cut away the image with a craft knife to create a stencil. 

This proved to be tricky cutting, and I didn't manage without mistakes but hay-ho I wasn't aiming for pretty perfection as I knew the messy stuff was to follow.

I made my no glue drawers first, I used the centre of the scallop rectangle thick cut sizzix die as my starting point then halved it for the side depth to make my template as below. 

By drawing around these the template turns out very slightly larger than the original shape so when decorating with the original die cut shape, it fits better both outside and inside the drawers.

The long sides have the folding tabs attached to tuck under shorter ends then fold the long sides down to secure the base... and no messy gluing, they hold together firmly just tucking the sides down. Amazing!

I then made a wrap around to complete the drawer, match box style.     I used glue to secure this bit though. I made 4 each of these using card from recycling bin. Then came the good fun and messy bit.....

I die cut 4 Sizzix rectangles to stick to the drawer fronts and sides and cut a Spellbinders grand lable to add to the top, then had fun decorating these with the stencil and filler which I found out puffed up when I speeded up drying with my heat gun, yaay! I like surprises! lol. 

I applied layers of blue, green, bronze and white acrylic paint along with a navy blue emulsion tester pot I had that I liked the colour of and a bit of white emulsion too, these were repeatedly painted over, blended, knocked back with wet wipes, dried and sanded until my heart was content. 

I added metal gilding wax to the raised stencilled leaves, then stamped the finished pieces with Wendy Vecchi stamps and black archival ink when I was happy with the background and inked over with vintage photo to warm it up a bit. The drawer knobs are game pieces which Lori sent me in my lovely bingo prize I told you about in a previous post. These were given a coat of paint then I gilded the fronts to put back the detail.

You can see the raised leaf design on the drawer fronts and a bit under the grunge paper roses. 

I lined the drawers with same Sizzix die cut paper which I stamped again with Wendy's wild flowers stamp.

If you want, please leave me a comment I love reading what you think and knowing you dropped by. 

Thanks for visiting.

Alexandra x

Edited after reading comments;

 Thanks for all your lovely comments and 

Thanks Marjie for suggesting entering the eclectic paperie challenge "altered boxes" with this. 

So I've been, gone and done it now.

Marjie Kemper is hosting the challenge here.

Very cool idea.

Make Art Challenge #50 tag and a big THANKS!

Hi everyone, Thanks for popping by, and welcome to my wee blog.

I got a wonderful package in the post yesterday. I'm still smiling yet.

Lori, our most wonderful and talented list mom on the Everything Wendy Vecchi group recently posted me a prize for taking part in, and winning a game of Bingo in the group last month.
.... I still can't believe I won!! lol.

Below is the content of the box that arrived yesterday, all the wonderful goodies she so generously sent to me.

 I couldn't believe there was so much in the box. The spagetti mix of grey in the bottom was a huge pack of chipboard letters, so I couldn't help myself spelling out what I was thinking at the time! lol

Here's a close up of the beautiful tag she sent me too. It's gorgeous! The rose was glazed too but this doesn't show up in the photo. The pretty clear crystal next to the pearl doesn't show much at the top either, but it's there, if you look for it.

THANK YOU so much Lori. I'm sure I'll have lots of fun playing with this lot.

If you've not checked out Lori's blog yet, I recommend you do, her artwork is gorgeous.

This is the 50th Make Art Challenge in the yahoo EWV group, this time we've to use the techniques Tim Holtz shared in the Stamptember video on Simon Says Stamp's Blog here, and use at least one Wendy stamp or the stamps from one set, as Tim did on his video.
I made time this morning, to make a tag.


This is my entry for the MAC #50.

I really enjoyed creating this one. I used Distress Stains in "Faded jeans" and "Peeled paint", as I didn't have metalic DS, so I used "Egyptian gold" Radiant Rain Colour Concentrate dauber. I stamped using Black Archival and also with the same two DI colours I used in stains, and of course, Wendy Vecchi's beautiful "Botanical Art" stamp set (I used all but 2 stamps from this set)

Thanks for visiting and checking what I've been up to.
Please let me know you've been here by leaving me a comment. I love hearing from you.

hugs
Alexandra x

Hidden Fairies

I've been having a play with some of my new silhouette stamps. I treated myself to a few new sets, I've made this card using  A Little Bit Scenic stamp set from Sheena Douglass called Hidden Fairies it's great to work with, I don't usually go for fairies but these were lovely and the leafy swirl and ivy leaves are gorgeous. The background is created using Luminarte Radient Rain daubers and spray with a touch of DI's too. I stamped the swirls and leaves with a pigment black ink, this actually took on the green of the background or maybe it has a green tinge that I just hadn't noticed before or maybe is because just a old pad? nuff rambling, I liked how it stamped anyway. I stamped the wee fairy with IndigoBlu Flitter glue and used guilding flakes on her, I thought this would make her shine as I imagine fairies should. Well she's no longer hidden, she's shiny and metallic, lol.

 

I really love those ivy leaves though, they're so realistic when stamped. I stamped a few extras and cut these out to add dimension.

 

Thanks for visiting and please let me know you've been here and what you think.

I love to hear from you.

 

hugs

Alexandra x