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 :).

Love you forever Baby

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As you can see I haven't been blogging much. I'm taking a break from work to concentrate on my health for a while. But recently I got a request and sometimes it's difficult to say no. So I did it anyways. Just this particular one. I would probably make other card designs in months to come but it would be something I would do because I love doing it in my free time and not because someone asks me to. Crafting keeps me sane. I heard it does for a lot of people. It makes us happy in ways we never thought it could. Agree? :)

This card is a combination of some of my older designs. A bit of this and a bit of that from a few of my handmade card designs and they all came together in one card. Personally I wouldn't have had it combined this way but since it's a request, so I just did my best to make it look good. Combination of colours have to match too and therefore certain designs with certain colours had to be changed to fit in.

You could see that I wrote most of the text on the card and also inside it because the person requesting it loved my handwriting so much. It can be a little tricky to write on the card because you can't afford to make any mistakes. One mistake means that you would have to redo the whole card. Scary! 

All the pop up envelopes have a tiny card in them with short messages. I think that adds an element of surprise for the receiver. I used to put only one tiny card in one of the envelopes but this time around I was requested to make 3 tiny cards with messages she came up with herself. I appreciated the new ideas from her and will try it if I think it suits the card. 

Another tricky thing was writing the glittered text on the die-cut heart shape paper. Can't afford any mistakes there either. But I love the texture and how it glitters when it hits the light.

It was nice to do quilling again and I must say making pop up cards is always a pleasure. I seriously need to make more of it so that I won't lose the skill I gathered over the years. I'm praying that I have the strength to do so soon. How I miss doing it all....it was really fun. :) Till then, do enjoy the video below. 

I love you B...

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I got an order to make a card in a box design from a customer who wanted me to make it for her BF. I declined the order in the beginning because I have stopped taking customized handmade cards for a while due to lack of time in my schedule to make cards like that these days. I just want to concentrate on ready stock cards for a while. It's is also because ready stock cards are less stressful to make hehehe!

Anyways, since she agreed to give me the freedom to do it anyway I like it, I then decided to give it a try since she only wanted a simple design for her BF as both of them love simple designs....kinda sounds like me coz I love simple designs too hehehe!

I got some details from her......the wordings....his favourite colour and his less favourite....the dos and the don'ts.....and off I went to complete the card. I thought it would take a long time to make, but, the idea came quite quickly for this one, I just had to carry on with it until it's done. Somehow the red box reminded me of the pop corn box we get at the cinema and that gave me the idea to do the stripes. I have done stripes for quite a while! It used to be my favourite thing to do whenever I make cards. It was like my trademark. So it was fun to do it again for this design! Love it!

As I was thinking of ideas of how to write the wordings on the card. The idea came to me.....I realised I had those colourful glitters set and glue pen from Kreaxions which I bought so long ago. I immediate went to get them from my craft box and started experimenting on it. It took me some time to figure out how to use it....it can be a bit tricky!!! If not careful, the whole thing is ruined! Gotta have a steady hand to write with the glue pen....and gotta write it fast too before the glue dries up otherwise I won't be able to sprinkle the glitters on it....and it might not stick well if it is already dried up. After a few tries, I finally got it!! And I'm loving it! I should experiment more on this new technique next time.

I'm so glad that my customer loved the card so much, she just can't wait to show it to her BF soon. I hope he loves it too!! Have a look at the card in a box at the video below. See how it opens up and pops up all those hearts ;). 

I love you said the little birds

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The cards I made here are similar to the design I made some time ago which you can view at the link HERE. Everything in the design is the same except that the wordings is changed from 'I miss you' to I love you'. Upon request from my customer, I did this new one and I gotta say that I love the effect of the distress ink I did on this new one. I've gotten a little better with the technique compared to the one I did before which was sooooooo messy....hehehe.

I didn't have time to blog about these cards earlier this month. Been so busy with work. Still am now huhuhu. Hopefully I can have more time to make cards and other crafts. Most of the time now I am busy with work related to craft tools and materials for sale. It's been taking a lot of my time off from creating. I miss creating :(. I didn't even have time to do a blog giveaway this month. Still working on that.....will combine it with the December giveaway somehow. 

I keep wondering whether the time flew so fast lately or I'm getting slower and slower....go figure hehehehe!! ;)

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. :)

I miss you little red bird

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I was playing with my new embossing folder last night and I thought of doing something I've never done before which is embossing the pattern just a little bit at the bottom of the card. So this way, I don't have to emboss the pattern on another paper and paste it on the card as the card itself is already embossed where I wanted it to be.

From there I figured out little by little how to create a design with the embossed card. Thought of something else at first but in the end it turned out to be a Love Theme Card instead. It was all because I wanted to use that frill die cut pattern. I thought of using it to make a branch for a quilled bird. And looks like it was suitable and I loved it. After die cutting the pattern, I then had to cut some of the frills in such a way to make it look like a branch so that the quilled bird can rest on it.

At first I didn't even want to add the distress ink......I wanted it to be a clean cut design.....but at the very last minute I started to add it bit by bit.....it was very risky because I've already added all the other designs on the card.....so one little mistake when distressing can ruin the whole card altogether. But I'm glad it turned out alright in the end. Phew!

This design is definitely meant for a guy. Very simple design. Not many frills or embellishments on it. :)

Pop up envelopes card

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Pretty excited about this card.....big smiles.....all because I did something new for myself this year...yeah...I wanna do a lot of new things this year....for example this is the first time for me to use distress ink hehe! Been wanting to try out this technique for a long time now but never got the "feel" to do so. I just bought the stuff and kept it inside the box and wait for the feeling to play with it to come by me someday. And that feeling came today.... :D I had fun blending the distress ink on the paper using a makeup sponge haha....it was really fun! I didn't buy a blending tool because I thought that perhaps the makeup sponge was good enough for now. 

I also used a wrapping paper for the front design of the card, it's sponsored by Wholeport which I love so much. I think it suits the card really well. Hopefully I can make more ready stock cards of this design :).

The pop up envelopes are the best part of this card for me personally.....because this is also the first time for me to make the paper pop up in the centre like that, from the top till bottom with no cuts at all in between.  I made the envelopes sometime ago using the scoring board.....it was nice to make them....kinda cute cause they are so small in size. When I made them, I didn't have any idea yet what to do with them. I just made them because at the time I just bought a brown paper stock that looked perfect for making envelopes.

You can view how the card pops up at the video below....do check it out :)

Heart to Heart

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I've been wanting to do this design ever since I bought those heart shape craft punch some time ago.....it came in 3 different sizes....same shape but different size. I don't know why but this kind of layout is something that I just love doing. I've done something similar to this before way back in 2010 or earlier than that I can't remember, like my V021 card where I embellish the whole card with heart shape patterns....filling them up until there is no room or other embellishments.

Back then, I didn't have any heart shape craft punch so I basically had to cut the heart shape patterns all by hand using just a pair of scissors. It was very very time consuming but I enjoyed it because I was able to make any heart shape size pattern I liked. It was not practical for mass production but very satisfying as a crafter :).

I really like the pop up hearts I made inside this card. This is the first time for me to make this kind of pop up where the top part of the pop up and the bottom part is the same and it comes together in the center when I open the card. I love looking at how it moves to the center. Fun! You can view the pop up hearts in motion at the video I prepared below. Do check it out! ^.^