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

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 :).

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 :).

More bling bling!

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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.  :)

Gold theme pop up birthday card

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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!