Little pink and green notebooks

The first time I made mini notebooks was sometime last year. I thought I would make more after that but never really got to making any because was too busy diving into other projects. These little notebooks I made here was kinda made in a hurry because it was not something I planned to do. It's one of those spontaneous things I do sometimes for those I love.

These were for my cute little nieces. They dropped by yesterday and I had to make something for them before they went back to their hometown. I just couldn't let them leave empty handed. I have always wanted to give them something that I made myself. It gives me a lot more satisfaction than buying something from the store.

I'm so glad that they loved their gifts. Although it's just a small little gift, it's the thought that counts, some would say. They were really careful with the notebooks. Opening them up slowly and gently. They appreciate art very much and hopefully someday I'll get to teach them a thing or two about quilling. Then they can make art for others too. :)

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Mother's day pop up heart card

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I know I'm a bit late in uploading photos and blogging about my Mother's day card. I guess I got carried away with the Eid cards recently that I completely ignored this one for a few days. You know how it is when we are in the "zone". We just can't get out of the zone until we are over and done with it. Only then can we see or do other things. Like seriously, it happens to me all the time. Hahaha!

This card is actually quite simple to make. The only thing that was complicated was the pop up heart inside the card. This is of course the first time for me to pop up a heart using this mechanism. Another new one for me. Another challenge. But I love a good challenge :). I especially like the little hearts dangling at the bottom of the heart. I love seeing them swing! 

The sentiments were written by hand by yours truly. I had a hard time writing it with my shaky hands. It gets harder each day. But I'm being positive about it and really hope that I can still do more with these hands. In shaa Allah...... :).

I think I probably over "blinged" the card with all the pink and green stones. I got a little carried away there but luckily my Mom didn't mind it. Over glittered it as well! LOL! But all is good because the recipient loved it. Phew!

Do check out the video below of the pop up heart card.....then you'll get it why I was so enthusiastic about making it in the first place :).

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Cross-stitch heart pop up card

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The cross-stitch craze continues with this little love themed pop up card. I just had to do it. I saw the other day on the net some photos of a cross-stitch heart. It was so attractive to me, I was dying to try it out. And so I did! A small one for the small card.

It was not that difficult to do. The only thing I felt difficult to do was the cross-stitch frame on the card. The size was so tiny compared to the one I did previously. I had a hard time punching out the holes and then sewing them, very tiresome to sew so many around the card. Although they looked really cute, I still prefer the previous size, which is much easier and faster to sew.

The pop up inside the card was the most challenging as it was the first time for me to make a pop up heart way up on top of the card like that. Usually the pop up hearts I've made before didn't require me to use a bigger paper insert for the card. This one did. It was the only way to create that pop at the top. It's difficult for me to explain it here. I guess, I'm talking Japanese with you.....but the point is, it was tricky at first, but once I have figured it out.....it's a breeze!

I wrote the sentiments inside the card. Just a simple one, straight to the point. I just wanted to try out as many different types of pop ups this year....especially the ones I've never done before. Combining a couple of types in one card or just one type it doesn't matter as long as I do it differently each time.

Do check out the video I took of the card below. You'll be able to see how the heart pops up at the top several times. I was just a little excited about the whole thing, so much so that I opened and closed it again and again. Hahaha! :D

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LOVE pop up card

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Tried something different this time around.....as usual, I always try to do something I've never done before and for this card I tried to do cross-stitch. Did a simple one first, sew a simple frame on the card. Usually I would just sew a simple straight line whenever I wanted to make a frame on my card.....so, instead of doing that, I thought doing cross-stitch would be nice for a change.

I am familiar with cross-stitch as I've done it before when I was in primary school. It was a compulsory thing that we girls had to do back then. I was quite fond of it but it was an expensive hobby. The thread and the cloth was not cheap to buy. Since I'm interested in using this technique on my cards, I thought why not just do it on paper instead. I have tons of it just waiting to be sewn hehehehe! There's plenty of designs of cross-stitch that I would love to try out on paper. Like simple letters, shapes of hearts, flowers etc. As long as it's simple, I would love to try them!

The big soft clay heart was made using a silicone mold I got last year. I love the pattern and I thought it would be nice to use it on one of my cards. Since it's not a flat shape....it's 3D....so it's kinda bulky and I personally think, if I were to use it myself, I wouldn't post it.....I would give it to someone by hand. Unless I have a special box  and wrap it well to protect it from getting damaged during delivery.

The pop-up hearts was really fun to make. Not that difficult to make either. But of course it does consume a lot of time to do it. That's always the case when it comes to making pop-ups. It always takes time to get it done. But I love the outcome.

The card is a small one.....somehow lately I am enjoying making small cute cards for personal use. It's a lot faster to get done than bigger ones. Thus producing more as a result. Do check out the video below and see how the pop-up hearts sways and moves inside :).

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On Your Wedding Day swing card

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Initially, I didn't intend on making a wedding card. I wanted to make a birthday card. But when I was decorating the lattice on the card, I suddenly visualized a couple of butterflies resting on it and then it struck to me that the card would be suitable as a wedding card instead.

You know how much I love swing cards by now as I have been making a lot of them for the past couple of years. And one of the things that I've always wanted to do is to do a lattice pattern on the mid section of the card. Since I don't have any die-cut patterns of lattice or anything of the sort that looks like it available at hand, that means that I had to make one myself. So the simplest way of doing it is by drawing it on the card and cutting them out by hand.

I gotta say that I had fun cutting the lattice out and decorating it with strings and punched out shapes of flowers and leaves, although I do have another idea or a way of cutting it now by hand which I will try to do later on in future but I still love this lattice pattern just the same. 

I have always loved the Martha Stewart Monarch Butterfly pattern....but I rarely use the butterflies on my cards. So much so that I thought it was a waste to have bought it and yet I don't always use it. I definitely need to use it more often. So for this card, it was really suitable for the butterflies and so I added a pair of antennas to each of the butterflies since they didn't have any.  I loved how they turned out in the end.

There are a lot of bling bling on the card itself......inside out. Anywhere I thought it would be suitable, I would paste them.  I'm having fun with them! Will use more of them in other cards soon. They are so fancy schmancy! Hahaha! :D Do check out the video of the card below. You'll be able to see how the lattice swing around with the butterflies :).

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Love you forever Baby

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As you can see I haven't been blogging much. I'm taking a break from work to concentrate on my health for a while. But recently I got a request and sometimes it's difficult to say no. So I did it anyways. Just this particular one. I would probably make other card designs in months to come but it would be something I would do because I love doing it in my free time and not because someone asks me to. Crafting keeps me sane. I heard it does for a lot of people. It makes us happy in ways we never thought it could. Agree? :)

This card is a combination of some of my older designs. A bit of this and a bit of that from a few of my handmade card designs and they all came together in one card. Personally I wouldn't have had it combined this way but since it's a request, so I just did my best to make it look good. Combination of colours have to match too and therefore certain designs with certain colours had to be changed to fit in.

You could see that I wrote most of the text on the card and also inside it because the person requesting it loved my handwriting so much. It can be a little tricky to write on the card because you can't afford to make any mistakes. One mistake means that you would have to redo the whole card. Scary! 

All the pop up envelopes have a tiny card in them with short messages. I think that adds an element of surprise for the receiver. I used to put only one tiny card in one of the envelopes but this time around I was requested to make 3 tiny cards with messages she came up with herself. I appreciated the new ideas from her and will try it if I think it suits the card. 

Another tricky thing was writing the glittered text on the die-cut heart shape paper. Can't afford any mistakes there either. But I love the texture and how it glitters when it hits the light.

It was nice to do quilling again and I must say making pop up cards is always a pleasure. I seriously need to make more of it so that I won't lose the skill I gathered over the years. I'm praying that I have the strength to do so soon. How I miss doing it all....it was really fun. :) Till then, do enjoy the video below. 

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Green themed card in a box birthday card

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This is my first new card in a box design for this year. Although I don't do anymore customized handmade cards, however, this design has about only 1% request and 99% freedom. My customer gave me the freedom to design this card for her hubby. Just knowing what his favourite colour is, was enough for me to know. The rest was up to me to decide.

I have done stripes designs a lot over the years when designing cards for guys. It's the most simple idea and the outcome is usually good. Especially when you combine a few colours together. In this case it's a combination of white background with, green and brown paper strips. He loves natural green and earth colours. And so that was how I envisioned the card to be on the outside. I cut the brown and green coloured paper and pasted them on the card one by one. It took me some time to arranged them together but I didn't mind because I love doing it.

However, on the inside, I made it a little cheerful because it's a birthday card, therefore it has to look fun and happy somehow....to create that festive look. I love how all those stars, wordings and all pop up when the card is opened. It gives you the feel to celebrate. And it's a good idea as well to pop up the wordings that way especially if you don't really have much to write for wishes. So all the wishes are already there for you.

I really loved playing with the clear stamps that I got from Popular bookstore. They are just the thing I needed for this project. The wordings fits perfectly like it was meant to be. They are so small and suitable to be stamped on the dialogue cut outs. I don't mind doing this again because it was really fun! :)

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Green theme quilled wedding signage

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Alhamdulillah....thank you Allah for blessing me for the strength and energy to finish this project. I'm so thankful too to get a customer who is so patient and understanding. For her kind patience, I am able to finish this order in time before her wedding day which is coming soon this week.

I admit I am pretty late at completing this order, but still I'm glad I did it before the due date. You have no idea how I had to struggle to finish it. I haven't been quilling for more than 2 months and it was kinda awkward to start again. Felt a bit rusty hahaha.....but after a little practice I was ready again to start the project. 

This design for this wedding signage was actually inspired by one of my swing cards that I did this year. You can view it at the link HERE. My customer just loved the design so much and wanted me to use the same design for her wedding signage. 

The original design on the swing card, you can see that the leaves were made from die-cut patterns. So since she loves quilling so much, she wanted me to do the leaves using the quilling technique. I've never done something like that before....so it was fun to be able to try that. And I love the outcome :).

All in all, I'm really glad I did this project no matter how I felt. Not sure when I will be quilling again though....because I'll be busy after this with sewing beads project! hehehe! Yes....it's a little wedding project that I was entrusted to do for someone. Will do an update on it probably on my FB page.....will see how it goes. ;)

Here is a photo of my customer and her husband on their wedding day with the wedding signage I made....photo was taken by Zulhilmi Photoworks....click on the link to see their other beautiful wedding photos ;)

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Card in a box #3

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You must be thinking.....hmmmmm.....this design looks familiar, right? Well, of course it does because it's the same design I made for my first card in a box card last month. The only difference is the colour of the box which I had to change because my customer wanted a card that is in a red and black combination.

Actually I didn't have a red and black pattern paper with a similar design of stars on it. So I had to create my own with the red and black paper. The stars were handcut and pasted on the card one by one. Slow process but at least I get to do a similar pattern as the original design.

I also ran out of the 3D pop up stickers. Huhhuhu!!! So sad about that. The shop never restock them. Searched every where in Alor Setar but couldn't find it. So if anyone were to order this card again, I would have to figure out a replacement for those 3D pop up stickers.

I really enjoyed making card in a box.....they are so much fun! Do check out the video I made of this card. You can see how it opens up. Thank you! ;)

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