HB124

Just recently I made a handmade birthday card for a good friend of mine whom I've known for many years. We were room mates when we were studying in ITM. I had wanted to do this for her for quite a while now. Planning and planning but the plan didn't work out as it should and in the end I had to post the card to her instead of giving it to her by hand. I guess God had something else planned for me on that day. I'll just have to make another plan! haha! :D What matters is that she loved the card so much and that really is all I could ask for. To make her happy even if it was just for a day :).

OK! Back to the card! I came across some really nice DIY pop ups at a stationery store recently and I was really excited about it since I love pop ups so much. I never knew they sell these things! I've never seen them before. So you can surely imagine my excitement. Hahaha! Unfortunately, the choices that they had were quite limited. I wish they had more.

Usually I would make the pop ups myself from scratch but I thought it would be nice to once in a while use a ready made one instead for my handmade cards. It's so convenient especially if you are in a hurry to get a card done for someone's birthday. You can also add some personal touch to it if you like to make it different from the original design. But if not, you can just use it as it is.

It was not that difficult to fit the pop up birthday cake in my handmade card as I am quite familiar with the mechanics of the pop up. So it was easy peasy for me. Besides, they do have some photos in the package that explains how to fit the pop up inside the card. 

I also did something I've never done before with quilling flowers. A difference in technique in this case. Usually when I add more than one colour to each petal, it's mostly done using the combing technique.....but for this one I used the slotted quilling tool instead. Perhaps I should consider making a tutorial on how to get that effect on quilling flowers and leaves. If there is a demand for it....or not....I just have to find the time to do it. :)

Another different thing I did was sewing all around the decoration with multicoloured embroidery threads. No cross-stitch this time....just plain straight line. That was really fun! It created a texture on the card and a colourful background that would match the decorations. The gold painted soft clay that was pressed with a birthday sentiment was something new for me to experiment on with what I can do with soft clay. It reminded me of what I used to do with real clay back when I was studying ceramics. Gosh I missed it all so much!

Do check out the pop up birthday cake at the video below and you'll be able to see how it pops up in the card. :)

Xem thêm…

HB123

Way back in 2009, I made my first 7 flowers pop up. It was for a Chinese New Year card. I remembered how excited I was to see all the 7 flowers pop up each time I opened the card. I felt as giddy as a school girl. Back then, in my mind I thought that this pop up was the most difficult of all to make. But now I know, there are others types that are much much more difficult to make compared to this one.

There were little flowers and leaves added to the 7 flowers pop up to make it look like a bouquet of flowers. I didn't want to leave it plain and simple. I just had to add other things to the flowers to make it look more fancy. What do you think? Did it work? heheheheh!!!

I guess that this is the first time for me to use the Teary Loop flowers for my handmade card. I made a tutorial on how to make the flower long time ago and uploaded the video on YouTube, but never used them for any of my cards until now. In the tutorial, I made a small version of it, but for this card, I made the small and large version of it combined as a flower. I like the way it looks, either single or double.

The previous birthday card I made had cross-stitch on it too, where I used 4 different types of colour threads. In this one I only used two colours but had them stitched side by side. I love this idea and will probably use this idea for future cards. The cross-stitch took such a long time to sew on the paper but at the end of the day, the results made me so happy. 

Another thing I would like to mention here is the gold frame that I added to the card. I made it myself using a hard board. After cutting it up, I painted it with a gold colour to make it look fancy. I framed the washi tapes and patterned paper with this frame and decorated it with the flowers and sentiments. The rhinestones simply added some bling bling to it and made it look fancier than before. I just love how it all turned out.

This birthday card was made for someone who is very dear to me. I really hope she likes it. I know that she looks forward to receiving my handmade cards every year, but I sometimes don't have the time to make one for her. I'm so happy that this year, I can. Hey, even handmade card designers have problem sending cards to their loved ones, I kid you not! Hahaha!!

Do check out the video of the card below so you can view how to flowers pop up inside the card. Enjoy!

Xem thêm…

 HB122

The pop up craze and cross-stitch continues. Not to mention the washi tapes and soft clay too. I guess, you'll be seeing those things a lot in my future designs.....well at least for the next few weeks until I get a little bored using them for my handmade cards. Hehehehehe!!

I've been making a lot of the smaller size cards lately and for today I wanted to share a bigger one for a change. It's not that big though, just half the size of an A4 paper. I started with sewing the cross-stitch all around the edge of the card to form a frame for the decorations. I used 4 different types of red colour embroidery threads. I love the effect it gives compared to using just one type of colour.

The polka dots washi tapes was then lined up with the patterned papers, birthday sentiment, quilled flowers and leaves, and lastly touched up with the rhinestones. I made those double star loop flowers long time ago. But only now do I use them for my design. The flower itself is so tedious to make. Takes such a long time to complete one flower. I guess that's why I never used them before. I do have a tutorial on how to make them if you are interested to try. Check out the video below:

I've always wanted to make this type of pop up technique for my cards. It's not that difficult to make either. I like it a lot because I can paste so many flowers together and not worry about any of them bumping into each other whenever the card opens and closes. Basically, you can use all sorts of subjects to pop up with this technique. I'll definitely make more of this type of pop up in future now that I know how to do it. :) Do check out the video of the completed card at the video below and see how the pop up flowers spread open like a fan when the card opens up. Hope you all like it! :) Enjoy!

Xem thêm…

HB121

I was just looking at the gold theme pop up birthday card earlier today and thought to myself......what if I added more bling bling to the card? I have bigger clear coloured rhinestones in my collection that would match the smaller ones and so I started adding them on the washi tapes and thought, hmmmmmmm......not bad! I thought it looked better than before. That's just my personal opinion. :)

Somehow the combination of the big and small rhinestones seems perfect together to me. I wish I had black ones or gold coloured ones.....but since there wasn't any at the store, so the clear ones seems fine here. I just had to blog about it and share the latest look of the card. Because now all of them look like this.....can't help it, I just had to add more bling bling! hahaha! :D

As for the pop up inside the card, it remains the same like the original one. No new additions or changes to it so far. Perhaps I might come up with a new one someday, who knows.  :)

Xem thêm…

HB121

Ok, I have to admit, I'm a bit far behind when it comes to using washi tapes on any of my craft work. I bought a few washi tapes last year but never played with any of them at all till now. I must say it was fun playing with them now. Finally. 

I just tried the simplest way to use them which is by cutting them at the ends like we do for ribbons and simply paste them on the card side by side next to some matching pattern papers. I sew all the sides of the gold coloured paper too with a black thread which was another fun thing I love to do. I love sewing thread on paper.... if it suits the card, then I would do it.

Another fun and new thing that I tried this year is adding soft clay as decorations on my cards. It was tough figuring out how to do that but in the end, after a lot of research, I finally got it. At the moment, I experimented a lot on making soft clay decorations that were made by using molds. I had a few free molds from a company from China last year. And some of which I bought from the local stores. I just loved the outcome of it. And the endless possibilities of ways to use them. I just can't wait to use more of them in future. From a far, the soft clay looked like metal, but it's not. I just love the gold effect that somehow hides the fact that it's just soft clay.

Pop ups.....how I miss making them. I want to experiment more on it this year. More pop ups, more fun! It's just a small card and yet, I still wanted to add that pop up inside. I love the idea of adding a surprise inside each card. I made a few ready stocks of the card in case anyone is interested. If not, I'm dying to use them myself. Got a lot of birthdays coming soon! :) Do enjoy the video below!

Xem thêm…

HB120

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! :)

Xem thêm…

HB119

Another swing card design for this month. It's a birthday card this time. A lot of dark red and green combination with this one. In fact I think there's quite a lot of red going on here! hehe!

I wanted to use the big wooden flower bead that I got last year as the focal point of the card. The one and only stock I have! haha! I guess this card is a combination of a lot of things that are limited in my collection. Some were given....some were bought. The ones that were given, was kept for quite a while with me because I adored them too much to use them..... But I can't keep them with me for too long ....I have to use them some day right? Otherwise, there will be too many craft stock inside my room and very little space left for me to do work there.

There were some parts of the card where I applied some molding paste. Flower patterns this time around seemed suitable since there are a lot of flower designs on the pattern paper itself. I enjoyed decorating the card using molding paste although it is quite a messy type of craft. But seeing the pattern formed on the paper somehow thrills me :D. Textures gives the card a different feeling. Hence, more molding paste artwork projects coming this year.

Played with a couple of clear stamps that I bought from Popular Bookstore. They seem to sell a lot of new cool designs there now. Super cheap too! I couldn't resist buying them every time I visit the shop. In fact I just bought some new ones yesterday. Ooooppppps! There goes my budget this year!! LOL! They also sell a lot of pretty acid free pattern papers. Very affordable as well. I like that very much!! :D Hope it stays that way for a long time hahaha!

Xem thêm…

HB118B

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! ;)

Xem thêm…

I was taking some time off from work the other day, because I've been working like crazy since January with not much time to rest and I started browsing for new type of cards to make and I suddenly thought of making a card in a box. Been dying to make one ever since I saw them on Pinterest some time ago.

Sometimes I just need some other diversions to keep the mood for cardmaking going and keep on going. Because I'm the type who gets bored easily. Since I've been making a lot of swing cards already, so it was high time I change things a bit to give me some excitement.

From the time I saw the designs of the card in a box in Pinterest, I always thought that it was difficult to make. I figured it was the most complicated card I've ever seen. And it never occurred to me that we can actually fold it flat and insert it in an envelope. But when I saw the video tutorial on YouTube, I was blown away by the trick! What a fancy trick it was! That was what got me into this so instantly. I just had to make one the minute I saw the video. :)

I bought some fancy birthday 3D Pop up stickers recently and thought of using them for my first card in a box experiment. The pattern paper were given to me by a good friend of mine, Sandi Staley. Gosh I have loads of scrap pattern papers from her to use up for my card experiments! hehehe! ^.^

 Compared to other types of cards, this particular one involves decorating on almost all parts of the card. So it's quite a lot of paper to paste here and there...a lot of decoration to do to make it attractive. And since it will have a 3D look once opened, you gotta think of how it will look 360 degrees...all angles. The challenge makes me more driven to complete the card.

HB118

Do check out the video I took of the card so you can see how it transforms from a flat card to a box with pop ups in the center! That would perhaps get you excited to create your own first card in a box soon! ;)

Xem thêm…