Green themed card in a box birthday card

HB120

This is my first new card in a box design for this year. Although I don't do anymore customized handmade cards, however, this design has about only 1% request and 99% freedom. My customer gave me the freedom to design this card for her hubby. Just knowing what his favourite colour is, was enough for me to know. The rest was up to me to decide.

I have done stripes designs a lot over the years when designing cards for guys. It's the most simple idea and the outcome is usually good. Especially when you combine a few colours together. In this case it's a combination of white background with, green and brown paper strips. He loves natural green and earth colours. And so that was how I envisioned the card to be on the outside. I cut the brown and green coloured paper and pasted them on the card one by one. It took me some time to arranged them together but I didn't mind because I love doing it.

However, on the inside, I made it a little cheerful because it's a birthday card, therefore it has to look fun and happy somehow....to create that festive look. I love how all those stars, wordings and all pop up when the card is opened. It gives you the feel to celebrate. And it's a good idea as well to pop up the wordings that way especially if you don't really have much to write for wishes. So all the wishes are already there for you.

I really loved playing with the clear stamps that I got from Popular bookstore. They are just the thing I needed for this project. The wordings fits perfectly like it was meant to be. They are so small and suitable to be stamped on the dialogue cut outs. I don't mind doing this again because it was really fun! :)

Love themed birthday swing card

HB119

Another swing card design for this month. It's a birthday card this time. A lot of dark red and green combination with this one. In fact I think there's quite a lot of red going on here! hehe!

I wanted to use the big wooden flower bead that I got last year as the focal point of the card. The one and only stock I have! haha! I guess this card is a combination of a lot of things that are limited in my collection. Some were given....some were bought. The ones that were given, was kept for quite a while with me because I adored them too much to use them..... But I can't keep them with me for too long ....I have to use them some day right? Otherwise, there will be too many craft stock inside my room and very little space left for me to do work there.

There were some parts of the card where I applied some molding paste. Flower patterns this time around seemed suitable since there are a lot of flower designs on the pattern paper itself. I enjoyed decorating the card using molding paste although it is quite a messy type of craft. But seeing the pattern formed on the paper somehow thrills me :D. Textures gives the card a different feeling. Hence, more molding paste artwork projects coming this year.

Played with a couple of clear stamps that I bought from Popular Bookstore. They seem to sell a lot of new cool designs there now. Super cheap too! I couldn't resist buying them every time I visit the shop. In fact I just bought some new ones yesterday. Ooooppppps! There goes my budget this year!! LOL! They also sell a lot of pretty acid free pattern papers. Very affordable as well. I like that very much!! :D Hope it stays that way for a long time hahaha!

Winner of 2014 Year End Blog Giveaway!!!

I'm so happy to announce today the name of the winner of my 2014 Year End Blog Giveaway! Finally the day has come to make this announcement. Sorry it took me sometime to make this announcement. I had to check each entries to make sure they all followed the rules correctly :).

OK! So the lucky winner this time around is Miss Jean Carmel Fernandez!!! Congratulations!!!! You are the lucky winner!!! Do send me your details so that I can post to you the craft goodies. :)

Thank you so much to those who participated in my blog giveaway last year. I truly appreciate you sharing the giveaway with your friends and family and patiently entering each time. I wish I can give gifts to everyone but that's not possible unless I'm a millionaire hahahahahaha.....but I will try to give more this year. 

I have plans on doing giveaways probably each month if possible. I do like to make people happy by giving away craft goodies. Even though I don't have much to give, but still I would like to give whatever I can and share the happiness around. It doesn't take that much to make people happy :).

So, do stick around and watch out for more the "little giveaways" that will be coming your way soon! 

Lots of love,

Lin

Just for you on this new year :)

Hope it's not too late for me to wish a very Happy New Year to everyone!! How's the new year been for everybody so far? Really good I hope....at least for me it's been a good start. I want to do my best to focus on good health and enjoying life as it comes. Don't want to stress myself too much. Last year was a really stressful year for me. So for this year, hopefully, more fun will come my way :D.

It's been a while since I last posted a handmade card design on this blog. I kept posting too much of handmade books. So I'm excited today to share a new card design here for the first time this year. It's a simple swing card design with a simple quilling flower arrangement on the front cover.

I haven't been quilling that much last year. Just some small projects done on quilling because most of the time I would be spending on making quilling starter packs instead. So it was a little exciting to do the quilling flower arrangement even though it was a simple one.

I love the huge wooden button because the design on the button was perfect for the pattern paper I chose for the card. It was a perfect match! It's not always that you can find two patterns of different material that compliments each other really well. So I had to add that button to the card. :)

I really like the olive green colours and how it combines really well with brown and other warm colours of the pattern paper. It gives a warm fuzzy feeling to it. This card can be used as a birthday card or a card for any occasion for that matter. And quite suitable to be given to a girl or a lady :).

More cards coming soon in shaa Allah......:)

Daisy stitch mini pocket notebook with butterfly motifs

This is the second time for me to do the daisy stitch mini pocket notebook. The first time was when my fellow crafter friend Asma' taught me how to do it during our craft gathering last February. But the one I did at that time was a little simpler than this new one because this new one wraps the pocket notebook and seal it with a string all around it.

It was a first time for me to use the curved needle too. Coincidentally I found it when I was shopping for beads at a craft shop. I couldn't resist buying it! I once saw a video tutorial on how to sew handbound books and the lady who was doing the demo was using this type of needle. It seemed easy for her to use it so that's why I had to give it a try and see how it works for myself. I love it. :)

Another different thing about it is how I decorated the cover of this mini pocket notebook. I simply used a thick cardstock for the cover which I normally would use to make cards with and I pasted on it as many paper monarch butterflies as I could all over it. I used the Martha Stewart Monarch Butterfly craft punch for this design and once I pasted all of them on it, I sort of covered them up with mold paste. Then, to make it a little more interesting, I used 2-3 types of distress ink to give it colour and character.

I loved how it turned out the way it did. It was a really fun project. I use the mini pocket notebook to write about my new healthy diet. Everything about what food I can eat and what I should avoid. I can carry it with me anywhere I go and keep it as reference in case I need it when choosing what to eat. It's handy and pretty too! :)

Pink and blue flowers hand-bound book

Here's another one of the hand-bound books that I've made in November. When I made it I didn't have any plans on who I was giving it to or selling for that matter. I was just making it because I was so into making hand-bound books with beads. I just kept on making them non-stop. Plus because I needed to practice making them before I forget how to make them completely! Hahaha!

I really enjoyed making these books. The ones I've been making were made using quite a thin type of paper which is only 80gsm for the pages. I did try though making books using 120gsm paper and I love them! In fact, I think I love them more than the 80gsm type. Simply because I think they turned out looking better than the 80gsm ones. Plus it would be good for writing as well as sketching. But not for painting though. If it was for painting, then perhaps I need to use the watercolour type of paper for that purpose. 

Hand-bound books great as gifts. Functional too! I love giving people something that they can use. Maybe perhaps it's because I love getting gifts that I can use too. I mean, what's the point of having something pretty in the house and it just sits there without any purpose. I'm a practical person, and I love things that I can benefit from. I guess I was brought up that way. I should thank my Mom for that! :D

At last the book went to a very close friend whom I knew since I was primary school.....well....actually, she's a close friend of the family....she was the one who helped my Mom when my father passed away many many years ago....so she is quite dear to my heart. When her birthday came, I just had to give this book to her. She has never seen a book like this before. It really thrilled her to bits! She adored it very much. And that really made me very happy.

It doesn't take a lot to make people happy. Make the move and spread the love! :)

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!!