Quiling fan flower tutorial

I was just playing around with my quilling papers the other day, thinking of a new quilling flower for me to make. I guess I was getting bored of doing the same kind of quilling flowers for my cards. So I just needed a new quilling flower to try out. Something simple to do, nothing complicated and yet interesting enough for me to get excited about. But I wanted to make something I can call my own instead of making something that is taught on YouTube.

When I was in the process of making this quilling fan flower, I was actually inspired by a certain type of quilling flower I saw on the net. It was so beautiful. When I made the video tutorial for it, I wanted to mention the name of the flower that inspired me but I forgot the name. Now I remember! It was the quilled poppy flower made by Manuela Koosch. The quilled poppy flower she made was stunning!! I can't imagine making a quilling flower like that just yet. It must have been really difficult to make and time consuming too!

My flower however is of course not a poppy flower at all. But the petals of my quilling fan flower have those straight lines that are similar to the lines made in the quilled poppy flower. My lines are the same length unlike the lines of the poppy flower. SO that's one of the major differences.

Anyways, I do hope you will check out my latest video tutorial below. Learn to make a new flower today! :)

Salam Aidilfitri pop up mosque card

HR029

I had a request to make an eid card for a good friend of mine but I was contemplating if I had the time to do so since I have my hands tied already with all the other orders of eid cards that's waiting in line. She didn't want the ready stock pop up mosque card that I made using ribbons because the card she requested is to be given to her ex boss who happens to be a man. I guess it won't be suitable to give a man a card that has ribbons and bling bling on them right? Since I didn't have time to figure out a new design for an eid card, I suggested to her that it would be less girly to use all paper instead to make the weaves since the paper would look less shiny and less girly ....and so paper weaving it is!!

Again for my pop up eid card, I kept it simple and clean cut. Since it's for a guy, it has to be even simpler. No shiny or glittery embellishments. No flowers either. Gosh....I always have trouble deciding how to design a card for a guy. I always end up going for straight lines as the main design. I love LINES! It has been my favourite since God knows when. Just simple clean lines. And weaving makes it a little complicated. Makes it a little fancy than the usual simple lines.

I do find it a bit harder to weave paper compared to ribbons. Weaving the ribbons are a lot simpler and faster. But the paper looks a lot neater. Well I guess both materials have their own specialties in their own ways.

As for the pop up mosque....I promised her that I would make it a lot fancier than the one I made before. She wanted it to be different than the rest. And that was what I came up with, with the limited time I had. Instead of using just one colour paper for the mosque, I decided to add some gold colour paper to it to somehow beautify it as minimum as possible. More engraving though.....definitely more. I'm so happy that she loved it! That's all that matters :).

You can view the card in motion at the video below. Do check it out! Thank you!

Salam Aidilfitri pop up spiral card

HR028

OK! So here's what happened. Some time ago, I had received some really pretty card stock that I got from a good friend of mine. I'm not really sure what they were for, they looked like wedding invitation card stock or something. I never asked her what it really was. It has this really pretty gold lining on all sides and twin gold heart shape on it.

You can see what it looks like in the photos below. Anyways, I have been wanting to use them for something but didn't have an idea back then of how to use them until recently I came up with the idea to recycle them as Raya cards. It doesn't necessarily need to be a Raya card. It can be used as any type of card for any occasion. But I decided to put a Raya sentiment inside so that I can use it myself to give to my loved ones this year. :D

On the inside of the card, once it is folded, you can see like an impressed image of the twin hearts....I really love it! So even though, I don't get to use the twin gold hearts on the outside as part of the decoration on the card, at least I get to see it on the inside.

Oh yeah, one more thing....I got this beautiful pattern papers from her as well. The papers are actually paper scraps that I received in different sizes. I couldn't use them for big projects, so I thought the idea of cutting them this way like small size washi tapes and pasting them on the card as a background design would be a great way to recycle them. I don't have a lot of washi tapes, so using scraps of pattern paper such as this in this technique would be great! And it's so simple too!

The Malaysian quilling flower! Gosh, I haven't been making these in ages! So it was a little awkward trying to make them again after a while, but I quickly got the hang of it after a few tries. They are so much fun to make and pretty too. Definitely not that difficult to make either. You can find a tutorial on how to make them on my YouTube channel and give a go if you are interested to make them yourself.

 

See all those teeny tiny paper dots?? Those are paper dots that I got whenever I use one of my craft punch. I was reluctant to throw them away and they make great background decorations if you know how to use them :).

These are some spiral pop ups I made for the pop up that I plan to paste inside the card. They are probably one of the easiest pop ups that I can make. Simple and fun to look at. :) Once I've cut them up, all that was needed to do was to just past the spiral pop ups with flowers and sentiment. I really enjoyed making this card as I can to recycle all the materials that I had in my craft room. I don't like keeping scraps of papers or card stocks in the room for too long. Need to make way for new materials and have fun experimenting with new ideas. Do check out the video of the card below. You can have an idea of how the spiral pops up inside card! :)

How to make a quilling ketupat

I have been getting requests to make a video tutorial on quilling ketupat since I first started making them in 2010. Gosh that was so long ago!! I've been postponing it for too long and I guess this year is the year to make it. Finally! 

Eid is coming soon in about a month's time so it would be a good time to make this tutorial now as many out there would benefit from it. I'm sure a lot of people especially from Malaysia who would love to make this quilling ketupat for their Eid cards.

Quilling ketupat? So how does one make them anyways? Well, for starters.....you would need some quilling papers or shredded papers. You can use any colour paper you like. But if you don't have the means to make shredded papers using the mini paper shredder, you can easily cut the A4 size paper length wise by hand to the size of 3mm x 297mm. You would also need white glue, a slotted quilling tool and a circle template. Just the basic tools.

The idea is to make small quilling squares about 9 of them per quilling ketupat and join them up together to form the shape of a quilling ketupat. The larger the ketupat you wanna make, hence the longer the quilling paper you need per quilling square. To make my quilling ketupat, I only used about half the length of the quilling paper to make one small quilling square. The frills at the top and bottom side of the quilling ketupat uses the same length of quilling paper to make them too.You can understand more on how to make them by viewing the video itself.

You can see examples of quilling ketupat cards that I've made in the past at the links below: 

1. http://azlina-lin.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-ketupat-cards.html
2. http://azlina-lin.blogspot.com/2010/08/quilled-ketupat.html
3. http://azlina-lin.blogspot.com/2010/08/quilled-squares.html

Below is the video tutorial on how to make the quilling ketupat. Do check it out and try making them yourself. Have fun! :)

3 tier pop up birthday cake card

HB124

Just recently I made a handmade birthday card for a good friend of mine whom I've known for many years. We were room mates when we were studying in ITM. I had wanted to do this for her for quite a while now. Planning and planning but the plan didn't work out as it should and in the end I had to post the card to her instead of giving it to her by hand. I guess God had something else planned for me on that day. I'll just have to make another plan! haha! :D What matters is that she loved the card so much and that really is all I could ask for. To make her happy even if it was just for a day :).

OK! Back to the card! I came across some really nice DIY pop ups at a stationery store recently and I was really excited about it since I love pop ups so much. I never knew they sell these things! I've never seen them before. So you can surely imagine my excitement. Hahaha! Unfortunately, the choices that they had were quite limited. I wish they had more.

Usually I would make the pop ups myself from scratch but I thought it would be nice to once in a while use a ready made one instead for my handmade cards. It's so convenient especially if you are in a hurry to get a card done for someone's birthday. You can also add some personal touch to it if you like to make it different from the original design. But if not, you can just use it as it is.

It was not that difficult to fit the pop up birthday cake in my handmade card as I am quite familiar with the mechanics of the pop up. So it was easy peasy for me. Besides, they do have some photos in the package that explains how to fit the pop up inside the card. 

I also did something I've never done before with quilling flowers. A difference in technique in this case. Usually when I add more than one colour to each petal, it's mostly done using the combing technique.....but for this one I used the slotted quilling tool instead. Perhaps I should consider making a tutorial on how to get that effect on quilling flowers and leaves. If there is a demand for it....or not....I just have to find the time to do it. :)

Another different thing I did was sewing all around the decoration with multicoloured embroidery threads. No cross-stitch this time....just plain straight line. That was really fun! It created a texture on the card and a colourful background that would match the decorations. The gold painted soft clay that was pressed with a birthday sentiment was something new for me to experiment on with what I can do with soft clay. It reminded me of what I used to do with real clay back when I was studying ceramics. Gosh I missed it all so much!

Do check out the pop up birthday cake at the video below and you'll be able to see how it pops up in the card. :)

Seven flowers pop up birthday card

HB123

Way back in 2009, I made my first 7 flowers pop up. It was for a Chinese New Year card. I remembered how excited I was to see all the 7 flowers pop up each time I opened the card. I felt as giddy as a school girl. Back then, in my mind I thought that this pop up was the most difficult of all to make. But now I know, there are others types that are much much more difficult to make compared to this one.

There were little flowers and leaves added to the 7 flowers pop up to make it look like a bouquet of flowers. I didn't want to leave it plain and simple. I just had to add other things to the flowers to make it look more fancy. What do you think? Did it work? heheheheh!!!

I guess that this is the first time for me to use the Teary Loop flowers for my handmade card. I made a tutorial on how to make the flower long time ago and uploaded the video on YouTube, but never used them for any of my cards until now. In the tutorial, I made a small version of it, but for this card, I made the small and large version of it combined as a flower. I like the way it looks, either single or double.

The previous birthday card I made had cross-stitch on it too, where I used 4 different types of colour threads. In this one I only used two colours but had them stitched side by side. I love this idea and will probably use this idea for future cards. The cross-stitch took such a long time to sew on the paper but at the end of the day, the results made me so happy. 

Another thing I would like to mention here is the gold frame that I added to the card. I made it myself using a hard board. After cutting it up, I painted it with a gold colour to make it look fancy. I framed the washi tapes and patterned paper with this frame and decorated it with the flowers and sentiments. The rhinestones simply added some bling bling to it and made it look fancier than before. I just love how it all turned out.

This birthday card was made for someone who is very dear to me. I really hope she likes it. I know that she looks forward to receiving my handmade cards every year, but I sometimes don't have the time to make one for her. I'm so happy that this year, I can. Hey, even handmade card designers have problem sending cards to their loved ones, I kid you not! Hahaha!!

Do check out the video of the card below so you can view how to flowers pop up inside the card. Enjoy!

Mother's day pop up heart card

MD009

I know I'm a bit late in uploading photos and blogging about my Mother's day card. I guess I got carried away with the Eid cards recently that I completely ignored this one for a few days. You know how it is when we are in the "zone". We just can't get out of the zone until we are over and done with it. Only then can we see or do other things. Like seriously, it happens to me all the time. Hahaha!

This card is actually quite simple to make. The only thing that was complicated was the pop up heart inside the card. This is of course the first time for me to pop up a heart using this mechanism. Another new one for me. Another challenge. But I love a good challenge :). I especially like the little hearts dangling at the bottom of the heart. I love seeing them swing! 

The sentiments were written by hand by yours truly. I had a hard time writing it with my shaky hands. It gets harder each day. But I'm being positive about it and really hope that I can still do more with these hands. In shaa Allah...... :).

I think I probably over "blinged" the card with all the pink and green stones. I got a little carried away there but luckily my Mom didn't mind it. Over glittered it as well! LOL! But all is good because the recipient loved it. Phew!

Do check out the video below of the pop up heart card.....then you'll get it why I was so enthusiastic about making it in the first place :).