2014 Year End Blog Giveaway!

The time has finally come for me to do the last giveaway for this year. This time around, I have gathered more craft items to giveaway and it's more exciting too! I have here a complete set for quilling beginners, some colourful ribbons, colourful popsicle sticks, fancy stickers, templates, rubber stamps, craft punch, and two hand-bound books!! All this for one lucky winner!!

As usual, I don't make it difficult for anyone to enter my giveaway.....the rules are very very simple! Just follow the instructions below:

1. Everyone is eligible to enter this giveaway. I accept both local and international entries. But each person can only enter their name once.

2. You must promote this giveaway post at your site, either at blog or at your Facebook profile. Please make sure that you paste the photo and the link of this giveaway post at your site so that others can click and view the giveaway post here.

3. Copy the link of where you promoted this giveaway post and paste it at Mr Linky below so that I can check and view where you promoted my giveaway. Do write your real name at Mr Linky too.

4. Please click "LIKE" at my Facebook Page at the link HERE and do FOLLOW my blog too if you are a blogger. Don't forget to add me as your friend too on Facebook! Here's my link --> AZLINA ABDUL. Thanks a lot!!

So that's it! This giveaway starts today and ends at 12.00am on 15th of January 2015. The name of the winner will be announced a few days after that. Good luck everyone! And thank you so much for participating!!

Colourful hearts hand-bound book

I love making notebooks that has colourful combination of colours like this one. But it's not always easy to get a wrapping paper or pattern papers with many colours like this. I love this combination of colours.  If I'm lucky I'll be able to get one at the stationery shop, if not, I will have to settle with whatever designs they have. I used to make a notebook with similar colours like this but the heart design on the cover were a lot smaller compared to this one. I really loved it but I can't seem to get the same one anymore. 

I enjoy making these notebooks but I prefer not to decorate anything on them. Just leave it as it is. Let the owner of the book decorate it anyway they like it. I just focus on sewing them together. Which by the way is not as easy as you think! It's a lot of work! hehehe!! Only those who have done it before know and understand what I'm talking about. But the experience of sewing it is really worth the while.

For this book I used a different type of beads. It's plastic but it kinda looks like crystal to me....hahaha....who am I trying to kid?? But really....it does, doesn't it? Well......from a far it does! I love using this type of beads for this kinda binding technique. I have many different types of colours for the beads too in my collection. So, I thought it would be nice to use them for this book binding project. At least they are used for many different craft project instead of just for making beaded bookmarks.

This book is going all the way to New Mexico, USA.....I hope it arrives in good condition. But most of all I hope the receiver will love it as much as I do :).

English roses hand-bound book

I started sewing books again.....at first I almost forgot how to begin....the mind gets rusty after a while. I sewed quite a few books and all of them I sewed with beads on both sides of the book. It's a new way for me to sew them nowadays. Loving the new technique right now. :)

I figured out that this new way will save me a lot of glue as well as I need not glue the covers onto the signatures of the book, instead, I just sew them together with the signatures. Some might not like it that way, but I really do love the idea at the moment and that's how I plan on making them right now until I find other more interesting ways to do so in future.

This is just one of the books I made with beads on them.......will blog more on the other books I've made soon. For this particular book, I used plastic pearl beads as decorations. They seem to suit the English style roses wrapping paper that I bought. 

I prefer to make these half A4 sized hand-bound notebooks instead of larger ones. I love to make them and give them away as gifts to loved ones too :)

What I've been up to.... :)

It's been quite a while since I last blogged here. Been busy since the last post I made. So much so that I didn't even get much of a chance to blog about this card I got from a dear friend of mine, Sandi Staley, who  sent me this birthday card last September. What a lovely surprise it was to get another birthday card from her along with some other lovely gifts of craft supplies. It's always a pleasure to get a handmade card from her. I've always adored her handmade cards. They are simple but always have a style of their own. ^.^ I love how she decorated the card with pieces of a pattern paper which she cut evenly and glued together in a special way. It's actually a good way to use up pretty pattern papers.

For the past few weeks I was busy preparing for my aunt's wedding. I offered to do some beading on her wedding dress, scarf and veil. It definitely was a daunting task. It's the first time for me to do heavy bead work for someone. I didn't know what to expect and how to go about it at first, but I learned a lot from the experience. I hurt my fingers and eyes too....my body was sore all over during the process. I guess I won't be sewing any beads on any dress or scarf anytime soon! LOL! I will blog about it more on my other blog called Anilza Beads soon. I wouldn't want to do a specific post on it on this blog as it wouldn't be suitable. I do have a blog that's specifically for bead work, so that's where I'll talk more on it. But after all that hard work I felt so relieved and happy that it all went well and the beading turn out great. My aunt was very happy with my work....and that really made it all worth the while :).

I was also very much into a new hobby, which is weaving on a loom. I DIY my own loom and started weaving like crazy after getting inspired by so many weavers on Instagram. I was introduced to weaving on a loom way back when I was studying in ITM. I saw how my fellow colleagues weaved in school and also in our dormitory. It looked like fun! And it was fun once I started. The first one I made was not exactly the way I wanted it to be but it was a good try nonetheless. I've already started on my second one but I only get to do it whenever I have some free time. It's like therapy..... :) It makes me feel good!! ;)

Another new hobby I took up recently is making homemade soaps! This is something that I've been wanting to do for the longest time!! It's one of those things that one would put in one's bucket list. It was like a dream come true when I finally got to learn how to do it. I might create another blog just for me to talk about it and keep track of my experience with making my own homemade soaps. My first try at making homemade soaps was kinda sloppy! haha! But in time perhaps and with more experiments, perhaps it will look a lot better than the photo above. It's like a science project and art combined in one! Fun!

Been busy making my own slotted quilling tools as well and it is a lot of fun. Although it might not be as good as the standard slotted quilling tools, at least it serves the purpose. It has the same function and it will help quilling beginners start their new hobby with less burden in their pockets. I guess that's one of the main reasons why I made them in the beginning. To help quilling beginners get quilling tools that are affordable. I've been experimenting with the making of it and been asking for feedbacks on the tools from my customers too so that I can improve the product and I'm quite satisfied with the tool now. Hopefully I can improve on it more in future. :)

Making handmade cards and books are also on the list but I won't be publishing any photos of them here yet till they are ready to be exposed. A lot are still in progress and a lot of photos needs to be edited. Editing photos is one of those things that I am so lazy to do....hahaha.....but somebody has to do it! :D

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 ;)

Winner of 2014 Blog Giveaway!!!

Hello everyone! I'm so so so so sorry for the late announcement! I've been so busy....I was busy during Ramadhan and also after....now still in holiday mood....very hard to get back on track with work after a long break. Gosh, it's also been a long time since I last blogged about anything here. Hope everybody is doing good!! ;)

Things have been a little crazy over here at my place....very hard to explain and I guess sometimes, things are better left unsaid. But there is one thing I must say now, and that is to tell everyone who the lucky winner is!!! Jeng! Jeng! Jeng!! The lucky person is........tadaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Lucky number 98....Miss Darling Ninie!!!!

Congratulations Miss Darling Ninie!! You are the winner!!! Hope to hear from you soon so that I can post the blog giveaway goodies to you as soon as possible. Do contact me at my email address ( inaabdul_21@yahoo.com). 

I will be holding another giveaway maybe before year end with a much more bigger and better goodies to giveaway. Till then! Take care everyone! And thank you so much for joining my humble giveaway. Do join again next time ok? ;) Tata!!

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! ;)