Green theme hand-bound book

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Making hand-bound books was never something that I consider easy to do. It takes a lot of effort and patience. Those who have tried it would be able to relate to what I'm saying. The same goes to this book I made recently. I had to make the same book twice before I got it right.

It's an A5 size hand-bound book, with Kettle stitch binding. Kettle stitch binding are cool...I love how they end up looking like ribbon bows or some say butterflies. I used 165gsm acid free paper for this sketch book and there are about 50 plus pages inside the book. It comes with an attached beaded bookbook too....I love arranging the beads to the bookmark. Reminded me of the beaded bookmarks that I used to make so long ago.

Just sewing the pages together is just half the story.....decorating the cover is another. But once it's all done, there is this kind of satisfaction that's so hard to explain. Furthermore, I find myself so attached to the book, I somehow refuse to let it go. But of course eventually I have to...huhuhu.....

The person who ordered this book is the same person who ordered the green theme floral swing card. That explains why the book has a combination of green colours as well. I guess my customer just love that colour so much.

Once the pattern paper for the book cover was chosen, I had a difficult time deciding on how to decorate the book. My customer wanted me to put some quilled roses on it. But putting just 3 pieces of them like she requested on the cover would look so bare. So I put more and I was happy with the results.

This is the first time I'm using a few die-cut Flourish design on the cover in this arrangement. I only wanted to put 2 in the beginning....but ended up putting 4 of them and arranging them to look like a frame. I had fun making those die-cut quilled roses again. If you would like to learn how to make them, you can check out the video below:

My first French Stitch hand-bound book

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As you can see, I'm a little....just a little addicted to making hand-bound books lately ehehehehe :D. This time around I tried making the French Stitch hand-bound book. It may look a little complicated to make....but in reality, it's actually a lot easier than the Coptic Stitch! Seriously! And the best part of it all, I didn't even need to use a wax thread for it. The thread just slide easily in and out the signatures. Yay!

In the beginning I did have some problem doing the French Stitch because I couldn't find a tutorial on it on Youtube. The stitch is similar like a Long Stitch except that the difference is I only had to hook each thread from each signature together so that it looks like it's connected from the first signature to the last one. Very complicated to explain it here. I just did it based on observation from photos I found in Google Images and tried it out. I tried doing it 3 times and the third time's the charm! ;)

This book is actually made for my Mom....she requested me to make one for her friend's birthday. I didn't want to do the Japanese Stitch or the Coptic Stitch, since I preferred to use the French Stitch now. And that's how it came about. 

As usual, I tried to use whatever materials I had in my studio to create this hand-bound book. Since I'm still a beginner, I rather not spend too much buying new materials, instead I just improvised and make the best of it. Luckily for me, I have some stock from WholePort that are suitable for making hand-bound books. For example, the thread for sewing the signatures, the pattern paper for the book cover and the lace for embellishing the cover.

I used smaller sized ribbons since I didn't have larger ones that would match the cover of the book or the thread. It was kinda tricky to do it like this but I liked the challenge....it's nice to experiment once in a while with whatever I can find in my studio. I love the red thread that I used for sewing the signatures. I got this one from WholePort too......you can get it at the link HERE.

I gotta say I love this lace! I don't have a lot of it since I only got just a little sample of it from WholePort. I would have to get more of it in future. I love it coz I can add 1/8 inch ribbon to it. You can get it too at the link HERE.

It's been a while since I last made these paper roses. It was fun to do them again for this little project! ;). I think this is the 3rd time I'm using this pink polka dot pattern paper. It's simple and sweet. You can get it at the link HERE.  

I can't wait to make more hand-bound books using the French Stitch binding technique. Because with this technique, I can get a book that can open up just like the Coptic Stitch hand-bound book and yet so much easier to sew. Plus it doesn't involve any punching of holes either on the cover of the book! Ain't it great!?? It is to me!!! hahah! :D

Ribbon heart

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Lately I've been playing a lot with distress ink. I just bought 2 more new colours to add in my collection and I've been having fun distressing card stocks with them. I gotta say....it's a new addiction. Before this, I was not successful in using this technique in my card design. I was doing it all wrong. So I took the time to study it closely by viewing a lot of video tutorials on Youtube and saw how other crafters use this technique. Now that I know how to do it, I just can't stop using them in all my new card designs. Now I wish I have more colors to play with!! LOL! 

There are a few reasons why I made this anniversary card and one of the reasons is because I wanted to use those quilled roses that I made using the mini rolled roses die cut pattern. I had so much fun making them! You can see from the photo below some of the rolled roses that I made. 

But for this card design I only used the smallest mini rolled roses. The medium sized ones were not used. Perhaps I'll use them for other designs soon. :) I've been wanting to make a tutorial on how I made these roses but I've been very busy lately and didn't have the chance to make one yet. But I will do it eventually :).

I've done heart shape iris folding using ribbons before like the card you can view HERE. I miss doing it and so I made another one for this card. It's so much easier using ribbons rather than using paper. believe it or not....I have yet to try doing iris folding using paper. Must try it one day for sure.

Have a look at the video below to see how the card swings in motion. I love looking at it swing :).

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The new LOVE card

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This is actually a Love Theme card design I made in June, 2012.....you can view the design at the link HERE. I made it once and never made another one again until recently when someone requested it from me. A lot of people have been asking me to make this card for them but I was always declining their requests. The only reason why I never made ready made stocks of this card at that time was because the quilling of the alphabets was a bit difficult for me to do as I'm not an expert in quilling alphabets and of course the pop up heart inside the card was super difficult for me to do as well.

But still I decided to take the challenge this time around and give it a go and surprisingly I managed to find a way to do it. It turned out to be quite easy this time around. It's a miracle that I managed to do it honestly. I finally figured out how to make the pop up heart from scratch. Before this, I traced the free pattern I got from the internet and it was quite small in size and I was not able to make it any bigger. But now, I know how to make it in different sizes! That's cool! So I changed the size of the pop up heart for this card and made it slightly bigger than the original and made some changes in the decorations as well on the pop up heart. I now like the new look better than the old one :).

Even the quilled alphabets was a miracle for me because before this I had to use sewing pins to make the shapes of the alphablets but now I can just glue the strips of paper straight on the card and form the alphabets. You can see from the photos below how I tried to do it. The photos are not that clear.....as I used my hand phone to take photos of the process. I still find it very difficult to make but at least now I'm hopeful :).

Here's a video of the card for you to see and get a closer look at how the heart pops up inside. :)

Brown newspaper wrappers

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A couple of months ago if I'm not mistaken I received some brown newspaper wrappers from Wholeport for me to play with. You can view the wrappers at the link HERE. I just love the pattern so much. I've been so busy with work, I didn't have time to experiment much these days. Don't get to make cards that much either. I miss experimenting with my craft materials.

I managed to get some free time yesterday to play with the wrappers and see what I can come up with. As you can see....not much! LOL! I thought of making bookmarks for guys using the wrappers but one thing led to another and in the end, it became a decoration for a card instead hehehehe!

I was also playing with my new die-cut patterns. I love the oval shape label a lot. Been wanting to get one for a while now. It's super that I got them now. I used to cut them up myself but of course it's much easier to cut using the machine and it will always cut them up beautifully with many different sizes. The die-cut frills are nice too! A bit difficult to glue on the paper though because the shape is a bit difficult to handle but once I managed to find the right glue for it, it's great to play with.

Stitching the paper really did bring back lots of good old memories of sewing. I miss sewing a lot. It was nice to hold the needle again honestly. Love the effects it gives to the paper as well. Making those quilled roses using the wrappers were fun too. 

Distressing the paper with the distress ink was fun as well. I'm not good at doing it as I don't get to play with it that often. Not an expert in doing this at all. But I guess I'm getting better at it now that I was the first time I tried it. I don't have the blending tool yet. Just playing around with the makeup sponge is good enough for me right now. As long as I'm happy with the results, that's ok by me! ehehe!

Tool box 3

I've just finished making another batch of quilled items for my 3rd tool box yesterday. I think this will be the last tool box I'll be making because I need to concentrate on other projects in the next few months. Making these quilled items for the tool box is very very time consuming as you all know. And if I were to make another one, it will probably be for me hehe! Coz I would like one for myself as well haha! :D

It's a big relief to be able to get this tool box done and I am really in need of a holiday. I will be taking one soon next week and I'm just counting the days now. Been working non stop for two months straight and it's nice to take a long break for a while. Want to go hunt for new supplies as well. Visit new craft stores and feast my eyes with beautiful things hehe! Do fun stuff with friends too! :D

So I will be away till 4th of July and will resume back to work on the 5th. Have a good weekend everyone! ;)

Quilled designs in tool box

I received an unusual request recently from a customer who wanted a variety of quilled designs in a tool box. I had trouble finding the exact same tool box like the one I've shown here in my blog a while ago as it was out of stock at the shop. I had to search for another type that would be suitable for this order. Finally I found one that is suitable to be used to store quilled designs in it. Although it looks smaller but the amount of quilled designs that can be filled up in it surprised me. I love this tool box better than the one I bought earlier because of the space it gives me especially if I wanted to keep bigger quilled designs in it. It's wonderful :).

I decorated the tool box with paper flowers and leaves on top of it to hide some text embossed on the tool box itself. :) The tool box is actually a tool box for putting in fishing tools hehehe. But it's great for  storing quilled designs as well! ;)

For this order, I get to do some new quilled designs that I've never done before for instance like the quilled ladybugs, quilled sunflowers, quilled fringed flowers and multicolored quilled butterflies. I made so many  mini teddy bears....altogether 27 of them in 3 different color brown paper. About 200 pieces of leaves.....more than 50 multicolored roses.....15 butterflies.....11 ladybugs, 40 multicolored heart shapes, and definitely more than 50 pieces of other different types of flowers. Phew! One tool box filled with quilled designs like this can  be used to produce so many different card designs :).

Making these quilled designs was a good experience for me and I really hope my customer will love what I have created for her. I felt really sad to see it go actually...hehehe.....I wish I could keep it for myself. LOL! I think I should get another one of this tool box and make the same quilled designs for myself hehehehe..... ;)