Wood Burned Dog Keyrings

It's been a while since I picked up my pyrography tool. To get some more practise using it I decided to try making some keyrings featuring...you guessed it; dogs.

I bought these wooden ovals from Ebay, which already had a hole drilled in them. Perfect for making keyrings.

I roughly drew out the image in pencil first and then got going with the pyrography tool. The trickiest part is that you can only go darker, you can't make something lighter again. So if you accidentally go too dark in one spot, you just have to make it work.

Check out the process out drawing one of these below!

Pug Pouch

I recently redesigned my pug felt face and somewhere in that process I got the idea to put the face on a pouch. Nothing wrong with expanding my product line!

 The first thing I had to do was cut out and sew the felt face.

Then I dug around in my fabric stash to see what would work. I hadn't intended to use a patterned fabric but when I came across this grey plaid I thought it was perfect. You may have seen it used before on this owl doorstop project. It's actually an old dress that belonged to my sister.

Then it was time to assemble the pouch, by which point I was too focused on the project to stop and take photos of the process. So for a quick written recap; I sewed the two fabrics together to make the front side, then sewed the two sides to the zip with the lining fabric in between. Then I hand stitched the felt face amd the felt letters to the front side with some interfacing on the back for added structure. And finally I sewed the sides and the bottom to complete the pouch.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. It's been a while since I made a bag or pouch so I'm glad I remembered how to do it!

More Felt Dogs

The felt dogs have been really fun to make and people seem to be liking them so I've been creating some more.

First up is my attempt at a Chihuahua and a French Bulldog. Cute, right? These are both for sale in my Etsy shop.

I had a request through my Etsy shop asking if I could make two Border Collie's. Challenge accepted! It turned out the buyer's dog has its own Instagram which gave me lots of photos to work from. Check out Jenson the Collie. He has over 4000 followers!

And finally my good friend Robyn, having seen all my other felt dogs, asked if I would make one of her dog Mack. Of course!

Felt Dogs

I recently had a free Sunday and felt like just watching tv all day so I put together a sewing project that would justify me doing so.

I decided on making felt dog faces, which is an idea that had been going round in my head for a while. With a ribbon hanger I thought they would be perfect gifts for dog-lovers and might do quite well when Christmas craft fair season comes around.

I made paper patterns for each dog, which will allow me to make multiples if I want to. For some of these dogs I was going for a particular breed, like this pug, but then what I thought would be a chihuahua ended up looking more like a french bulldog. Still cute either way!

One I had all the felt pieces cut out I just had to sew the features on to the main piece of felt and then sewing the two main pieces together, attaching the ears and the ribbon loop at the same time and adding some stuffing to give the faces a little more dimension.

I ended up watching almost the whole first season of UnReal on Amazon. That show is a bit ridiculous but pretty entertaining, and made for the perfect lazy Sunday.

Painting: Robyn and Mack

My latest painting is commission from my friend Robyn of her and her dog Mack.

Work on this painting got interrupted by moving into my new flat, but now that I'm in and my craft corner is set up I was able to put the finishing touches to it. 

Animal Sock Boxes

First craft in my new flat!

My Mum retired at Easter and has been spending some of her free time crocheting up a storm. She came up with the idea for these boxes, which are made by crocheting around sturdy muffin cases, and left it up to me to make them cute.

I used felt to add on the features. This green one started off as a crocodile but now I think it looks more like a dragon.

To make these into sellable gifts my Mum had the idea to put a pair of socks inside, which double up as the animal's tongue.

What do you think? She's also made a pink and a purple one - what animals could they be??

Dog Portrait Christmas Present

This painting was a Christmas gift for my cousin. He loves his tiny, fluffy dog so my Mum and I thought a painted portrait would be a great present. He loves the dog so much he got professional photos taken of it, which is where I got my source material. Hooray for sharing on facebook.

This was actually the first painting I've done in a long time, and I was surprised how quickly I got it done. Though I did leave it to almost the last minute, starting it on the Monday before Christmas which meant I had to put a sheet of greaseproof paper on it before I wrapped it as the oil paint wasn't completely dry.

My cousin loved the painting and it left him speechless!

Painting: Dogs on the Beach

I've already starting using some of the photos we took on our beach crawl for paintings. This is the first one. It still needs a bit of tweaking, but it's good enough to share at the moment.

When I did this painting I had to look to Google for the dog in the picture, so on this trip I made sure to get a few snaps of dogs running around.

This is the original photo. It's actually one my Mum took. I have a couple of rules about which photos I paint from; either I took them, or I was there when they were taken, so that I have some connection to the image

Dog Photo Holder

I'm gearing up for Christmas craft fair season so I made this little guy to add to my stock.

I sold some of the animal photo holders I made last year, so I thought I would make some more.

The dog is made of Sculpey and when moulding it it spends a long time looking really bad until suddenly it looks like a dog. There's a lot of doubt in that first period though.

I used a pokey tool to give the fur a little texture, and painted it with acrylics.

I think my favourite part is the tongue!

What other animals do you think I should make? I am open to suggestions

Painting: Dog Walker on the Beach

During my last week in Norwich, back in June, I took a spontaneous trip to the beach with some friends who were visiting to see my degree show.

As with all my beach trips I take a lot of photos with the intention of turning some of them into paintings.

This is one of those paintings.

I altered the image from the photo slightly, as I found I couldn't paint the girls face very well so I just painted her hair going across it. Sorted.

Also, in reality there was no dog, but my Dad thought it might be nice to add one in and create more of a story to the painting.

So off I went to Google to find a suitable dog. I also added a red lead in the girls hand to fit with the story.

Now, according to one of my friends - the one who appears in this painting actually - just posting a new painting isn't enough content for one blog post.

So here are some more photos from the trip to give her more to look at.

As you can see it wasn't the nicest day for the beach, but that's what happens when it's spontaneous!

We went to Cromer by the way. Standard.

We searched for crabs.

And eventually found one.

Fun times were had by all.

Photo holders

I love cute little photo holders so I thought I would try making one.

Here he is!

This little dog is made from Sculpey.

Sculpting it was kinda tricky because at first I wanted it to look like my friend's dog but that wasn't working out, so I settled for a generic dog. 

I think I may have left him in the oven for a little bit too long, but its ok because I was going to paint him anyway.

Looking good.

Now he's ready to hold a photo.

Or a business card.

Doggy knows how to represent!

Painting: Dog Commission

My friend commissioned me to paint this picture to be given as a Christmas present to her boyfriend's parents. It's their dog, Spud.

Apparently they loved it. Another satisfied customer.

Painting: Commissioned Dog

I just finished this painting which is a commission for a friend's friend of their dog.

It's good practice for painting something other than portraits of people and landscapes, and it's good painting practice in general as I didn't do much in my last term at uni.

What do you think?