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! :)

Small photo frame on hand-bound book

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A sweet little girl named Jaja got very good results for her UPSR recently, yes you've guessed it, she got 5As... and she's the one who is getting this Japanese hand-bound book from me. I didn't know what to give her as a gift and suddenly I thought of making this book for her. I'm sure she has never seen a hand-bound book before. I hope she will like my surprise gift! hehe!

I made it so fast since I didn't have a lot of time to spend on the book....so it's not as neat as I wanted it to be. I also added too many paper for the book and it looks so thick. On the bright side, there's plenty of paper for her to write on! hehe! I love the idea of mixing different colour paper in one book but for this one I only used soft pink and white to suit the wrapping paper that I used for the cover.

I gotta admit, I just love sewing the book with the ribbons and decorating it with those white pearls. It's so much fun.....but decorating it more on such a small space is kinda difficult......I had a hard time figuring out what to put on the book....until I came up with the idea of putting a photo frame on it. She can put a photo of herself there. I'm sure she would love that.

I have hand-book fever now....made two of them yesterday in a rush....and quickly had to continue with my other work at hand. Making books can only be a part time thingy for now....hopefully I can make more in future if I can find the time to do so.......will blog about the other hand-bound books I made soon. One of them will be given as a gift in my next blog giveaway ;).

Purple and black combination

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When it comes to designing a card for a guy, I would be soooooo worried that I won't be able to design something that a guy would like. Because most of my designs are so girlish...so I just might somehow make it look girlish in the end but I think for this card, it's a combination of both. 

I was given permission by my customer to design it any way I like although the choice for the main colour is fixed which is purple and black. I think this is the first time I'm using this combination. Tough!! I was also given the permission to put hearts here and there to show some love to the receiver. I didn't have any pattern paper in purple and black so I designed the patterns myself by using stripe black and white ribbons and some tight coils (been a while since I did any quilling by the way hehehe) and some strips of thick black and white paper. What I love most is the background paper I used to decorate the card with...which is three types of purple colour paper. Only added white colour paper as a supporting colour for the purple and black paper. I thought that it was suitable. What do you think? ;)

One thing new with this card is that I added some distress ink for all the paper I used to decorate the card with. Luckily the brownish distress ink match perfectly with purple! Lucky me since I don't have a lot of choice of distress ink available in my collection to play with. I loved how the effect of the distress ink makes such a huge difference in the whole look of the card. Another new thing is that I used glittered foams to make wordings for the card. The black glittered foam alphabets really stands out and so does the purple foam glittered lace heart. I really love the effect! 

Oh! And yes, I love love love the new type of thread I used for sewing on the paper for the card. It's an embroidery thread I got from Wholeport. I received lots of different colours of embroidery thread from them and I just love how shiny the thread is and how easy it is to sew on paper with it. I would definitely use more of it for my cardmaking projects :).

Japanese motifs tri shutter card

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Someone requested me to make a card design months ago that is similar to my old card design which you can view HERE. It was an anniversary card that I made some time back but was very limited in stock because of it's pattern paper that I used for that design. I didn't have a lot of stock of that particular pattern paper therefore I was not able to remake it for customers who were interested in ordering it. But since so many liked it so much I decided to make a new design that is similar to it. But in this design, it will be a birthday card and not an anniversary card. But I can just simply change the wordings to fit the occasion because I feel that the design is suitable for both occasions :).

I had with me some pattern papers that I received from Wholeport which I thought would be suitable for this design. And sure enough, they fit really well together.....they compliment each other. Both pattern papers has Japanese motifs on them which I adore a lot.

I used the same type of flowers that I used for the earlier design. It's actually a die-cut flower which I embossed to get the 3D effect. I still maintained the foam hearts design except that the foam hearts which I used here are glittered ones. They are hand cut foam hearts by the way. I cut them myself using just plain scissors.

I gotta say I love the pop up heart that I made for this trishutter card. All because I used a die-cut heart patterns which I recently bought. I pasted 2 more die-cut heart pattern on the left and right side of the pop up heart for the sender to write special wishes on.

I'm so glad my customer loved it so much.....especially since she had to wait so long to get it.....thank you so much for your kind patience my dear ;).

You can view the trishutter card more closely at the video below:

Happy Anniversary

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After making a few Swing cards lately with the basic type of squarish shape layout, I was dying to try out another pattern for it. In other words, I just wanted to move away from the squarish shape for a while and try something new like the one I made here......or perhaps do ovals, circles or other more interesting shapes for my future Swing cards.

I was also dying to try out the decoration tape I got from Wholeport and you can view how the tape looks like by clicking at the link HERE. You can see at the photo here the decoration tape which I pasted at the side of the card. Love how it shines when it hits the light.

This is definitely a fun card to make and I had a great time playing with the die-cut frills which I cut and pasted for the front design and also for the inside of the card. I just love experimenting on how it can be used as part of the decoration. There's just so many things that can be done with them.

It's been a while since I last made an anniversary card. So it's nice to be able to make one again. ;) You can view how the card opens up and swings in motion at the video below. Do check it out :)

How to cut small heart shapes

I have a new simple craft tutorial for everyone today! :)

Why did  I do it?? Well, actually a lot of my blog readers have requested me to do a video tutorial on how I cut my foam hearts or paper hearts that I sometimes use to embellish my handmade cards. I've been wanting to make this video for a long time now but only now I have the chance to do so. 

It's a very simple tutorial.....nothing fancy, just a simple basic way to cut a heart shape. I hope my readers can understand my explanation in the video (yes, this time I talked!!! ) ahahahah! Because in my previous video tutorials, I just did a demo and not say a single word! Some people actually complained about it so I might need to redo some of the videos in future and talk some more hehehe!

Anyways, I hope you will check out my new craft video tutorial and try cutting your own small heart shapes and use them to embellish your cards, photo frames, scrapbooks and more! Have fun making hearts!! :)

Happy 25th Birthday!

 

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Actually......this is an old design......both design for the card and the pop up are old....something I did long time ago. But the thing is.....both designs are from different cards :) . One is from the V053b card and the other is from HB054b card. My customer loved both the design and asked me to combine it. 

I just thought I should share how it would look like when the designs are combined :) You can see it at the video below here too....see how the cake pops inside the card ;) Sorry the video is not so good....took it in such a rush....huhuhu....

 

I Love U So Much

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I received this order last year but only now do I get to complete it for my customer. This design might look familiar to some, and it's because it's an old design I did last year. You can view the design at the link --> HERE. The old design had the wordings "I MISS U SO MUCH" on the card and for this one, my customer just asked me to replace the MISS with LOVE. She requested this card for her anniversary and Valentine's day occasion :).

I gotta say that this is one of my favourite designs to make. One reason is because of the wordings. I love the effect it gives to the card. Simple as it may seem, it's not that simple to make. It's worth the trouble though :).

I've been wanting to try to do this design in a different colour combination but didn't have the chance to do it yet. Hopefully I'll get a colour combination I really like and do it sometime this year ;)

A tri-shutter card with pop up!

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At last......it's done. And I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. :) I never thought that what my customer suggested to me would actually work out in the end. I think sometimes my own customer has more faith in me that I do with myself. She actually believed that I could do it even though I didn't in the beginning. And sure enough I did it. And I have her to thank for this. If it wasn't for her, I don't think I would have done it at all. So, thank you so much Sharifah, for believing in me ;).

If you are wondering what I'm talking about, I was actually referring to the pop up inside the tri-shutter card. It's a simple pop up. Much simpler than the one my customer requested in the beginning. When I told her I couldn't deliver what she requested, she then told me to just make simple one as long as there is a pop up inside it. So, I did a simple pop up, with a slight difference from my usual heart shape pop up. I did a cut out at the heart shape itself and added a couple of small hand cut heart shapes on it. All the heart shapes inside the tri-shutter card are hand cut by yours truly, including the foam hearts. :)

My customer loved my AC007 card, especially the foam hearts on it, so that's why I added them to this card but I chose a different colour for each foam heart and added gold and silver glitter glue on them to make them look fancy :).

This card has an Indian influence in it. That's why the I've chosen the these types of colour and patterned paper for it. It suits the occasion and gives it the touch of Indian fashion and design to it. I added those gold coloured sequins on the patterned paper. It seems to fit just nicely on it. I love the effect it gives. :)

I would have thank my dear friend Sandi for these patterned paper. She gave them to me for my birthday and I just had to use them for this custom order that I thought suited it perfectly. So, looks like I can't make the exact same design anymore because this paper is limited. Thus making this card a one of a kind. I won't be able to make another one just like it......... :)

Our 3rd Anniversary

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About a month ago, I received an order to make a tri shutter card for my customer and in the beginning I thought I was not going to be able to pull if off because the idea for the card just never arrived when I wanted it to. It came at the very end. haha! That is usually the case with me. Ideas, don't come by whenever I want them to so I took quite a while to get this order done. But I was so happy that I managed to get it done on time :). 

My customer requested that the card be in red and black in color. She did liked the TOY002 tri shutter card that is red and black in color too but I wanted to try and do a different design for her instead. I don't have pattern papers in hand. Never bought them before. The only ones I have are the ones given to me by a friend and I prefer not to use them for my customers as I wish to use them for myself hehehe! So, for my customer I design the patterns on the card on my own simply by creating patterns using foam hearts, beads and shapes of hearts made by heart shape craft punch. The silver polka dots are actually paper dots made by a new craft punch I bought recently. I just love using it to make those polka dots patterns. hehe!

This card is definitely not something easy for me to make and it really did tested my patience and ability as a card maker. I need to practice more to make it better in future. :)

I miss u so much

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In my previous post, I was working on carving those lettering on paper. The lettering turned out well I must say in the end. I'm pretty happy with the results. I was a bit worried in the beginning but now I'm really loving this particular lettering template a lot all because of the font :) I use this technique a lot for my bookmarks but rarely use it for my handmade cards the past few years. I did do this technique quite a lot in 2007 for my handmade cards though and carved out shapes of roses back then. :)

For this design, I was given the freedom to design it any way I wanted it. This card is actually for my customer's hubby. He is a MU fan. So she requested the card to have MU colors on it....that's why you see a lot of red and some yellow in this design. I didn't want to put any MU logos or whatever that has any relations to MU other than the colors. I made sure I put a lot of foam hearts as she loves foam hearts a lot. I sure did gave her a lot of it! hehe! 

I cut all the foam hearts by hand using my ordinary scissors. I just love making them especially in that particular shape. It was fun :). A good practice for me :).

In the beginning I was kinda lost on how to arrange them on the card and finally the idea just came to arrange them that way. There is no pop up, no decorations inside the card other than a paper inserted inside for writing in personal wishes. That was my customer's request......she wanted it simple like that. :) I'm really glad that she loved it :).