Ribbon inspired.....

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At last....I get to post these two Chinese New Year cards tonight......I had problems doing so this morning. My PC is acting up again!! Urrrrgggghhh!! I hate it when that happens. But what can I do, I just have to be patient and wait till the time is right for me to get me a new one. In the mean time, I am grateful for this PC, for it has helped me a lot with my small online business :)

Ok, now......lets talk about the CNY cards. :) I made two.....one with stripes and the other without. Somehow I kinda like the one without. Why? Because for me it's already pretty without the stripes. I thought to myself, the cherry blossoms ribbon itself is enough. I bought the ribbon a few weeks ago, just so that I can use it for this occasion. It has cherry blossom flowers on it. Lovely! Quite big too! I bought a few types including a couple for Valentines Day. I hope I can show you the Valentines Day cards soon. If all is good with this PC, hopefully I can do that. LOL!

I have not decided on the pop up yet for these cards. I have no idea what to do. Perhaps a seven pop up flower would be suitable too. Like the one I did last year. It does match with the designs of these cards. Well.....what do you guys think? :)

Cherry blossoms...

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Thought of something really really simple for this year's Chinese New Year card last night. But I also thought of something complicated heheheh. The complicated ones I will post later on. For now, lets talk about this easy one. :) This easy one was made using a small note size card. About 10.4cm x 14.7cm in size. I used to love making cards using cards this size but nowadays when I look at it I realize how small the card is hehehe! Maybe because I've been so used to designing cards that are bigger in size lately.

I bought this new flower craft punch last year. I think it's a Unicorn brand craft punch. Anyways, it's super fun to use as it's really sharp. I love the cherry blossom pattern a lot. It's really pretty. All I did was just scatter the flowers on the cards, nothing challenging about it at all. Added some leaves next to the flowers and walla!! It's done! hehehe! I only added some glitter glue to add that special touch to it. I also made a simple pop up inside the card. It's a simple pop up that I cut so that I could weave the stalks of cherry blossoms in between it. :)

Something old + something new....

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OK!!! This design is not new....it's the same old design like HB014. But the difference is that it's bigger in size. This one is half the size of an A4 paper and the old one is 13cm x 18cm. HB014 has a different pop up inside it....it's a pop up lip and this one is a pop up cake. This is a request from my customer. She wanted me to combine both designs in one card. :)

The old design was made using a different type of paper and the color was slightly different too, it was cream in color. But since that paper is now out of stock, I replaced it with this beige color paper. I think the beige color suits the design too don't you think?? :)

As for the pop up cake.....it's the same design as the pop up cake in HB048 except that she requested that I change the color of the cake to match the design of the card. :)

Arsenal Fan!!

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Just finished designing and making this card today! Yay! I did it finally! Phew! I was really worried with this one because this design is actually a combination of so many different design I made in the past all mixed into one. My customer was interested in so many of my card designs and she couldn't really fix which one she loves best hehehe. This card is for her hubby and her hubby is a big Arsenal fan! So I had to figure out how to do a combination of heart shapes, football, pop up cake, big red lips, just to name a few of the subjects she wanted in the card...hehehe...

I love this new black paper I am using for this design. It's metallic black....looks shiny when it hits the light...love it! So it doesn't really look pitch black....because it has some silver touch to it. :) I always have problems deciding what color I should use....but since my customer wanted the card to be black, that's when I knew what color to combine with black. As usual black always looks good with white, red, silver and gold.....and it seems to mix well for this design. I had to add a little blue here and there because of the Arsenal logo. :)

I made a really really big pop up cake this time......it's so big that it almost fills up the top of the card. It's really tall right??? A bit too tall I suppose. Should have made it a little shorter but I wanted it to have a big impact in the card! hehehe! I love the small football prints I did too....it's SO CUTE! Never printed it as small as that before. It would be difficult to draw it from scratch so I thought why not just print it! Easier that way....and then cut and paste them on the card, and arrange them as part of the design. The most crucial part to do in this design, for me would be the part where I had to write the wordings on the front of the card. The wordings "Happy Birthday Abang Sayang"....that was so nerve wrecking because, if I suddenly start shaking, my hands, it would spoil everything!!! Yikes! So I had to make sure I had a steady hand before writing it down! hahaha! Thank God it went well and it looked good! Phew!!! :)

Pop up hubby and wife.... ;)

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Gosh! I'm not sure how many times I shot photos of this card design. Perhaps more than 50 times just to get the right color of the card. Phew! Luckily nowadays we have digital camera....so grateful for the invention of that! hahaha!

OK! Now back to the design....my customer was interested in the V011 design but wanted a different pop up for the card. She wanted a pop up couple (of her and her hubby). I've never done a pop up couple before. Pretty challenging I'm telling ya!! Yup! I'm OK when it comes to drawing figures of ladies but when it comes to men, I'm just not that good at it. It always looks weird hahaha. I asked her to send me a copy of their photo together so that I have an idea of how she and her hubby really looks like in real life. I wouldn't want to make them look like someone else hehehe. So I tried my best to draw the couple and make it look as similar to them as possible. Inspired by the V011 card, I made the front design for this birthday card to have some similarities to the V011 but looks more organized rather than having the heart shapes scattered all over the card without any borders. :)

Her hubby loves photography very much.....so she requested that I put a photo of a DSLR anywhere inside the card or outside it. So I thought why not have him hold the DSLR himself....that would be cool I thought to myself. So, I printed the photo of the DSLR as small as I could and made a strap for it too. So it looks like it's dangling from his neck and he's ready to take photos! hehehe! I love that part! :))))

Bridal theme....

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I received an order to design 5 congratulations cards from a fellow blogger who had recently done a blog award at her wedding theme blog. It's a very interesting blog that is dedicated to future brides. They provide all the information a bride would need to know and prepare them with all the great tips too on how to plan for that perfect wedding. All the information that a bride could ever need at just a click away :). Cool huh?? :) You can view it HERE.

She requested the cards to have a simple design with a bridal theme since the blog awards are for wedding theme bloggers. As I have designed cards for her before and I know that she loves pastel colors, so that's why I designed all the cards using soft pastel colors. Soft and sweet! :) The wedding dress, I designed using a combination of doily paper and soft pastel colored paper which I then decorated with sequin and ribbon as the belt. Then I added the silver dots to make it look like it has bling bling on it ehehehe.....

I used a lot of silver ribbons on the designs because that silver ribbons never fail to make it look fancy :). It just adds that special touch to it without having to do much decoration to the card. As you can see, it's a very simple design. Clean and simple and sweet. :)

Heartfelt Thanks!

TY002

:)))) I am currently in love with this card! hehehehe! Why? It's the colors.....it's just because of the colors, mainly.....and maybe because of the laces and bows of ribbons idea. I made this card for my Mom's friend. She wanted a thank you card.

She didn't request for a pop up but my Mom wanted me to make one anyways because she loves pop ups hehehe......at first I couldn't decide on what kind of pop up to make....then after some serious thought, I came up with this one. It's something I've never done before....and have never seen anyone doing so. What I did was, I weaved the stems of the flowers to the pop up. It's so much fun doing this way rather than gluing them the usual way behind the pop up vase of basket. This way, I get to arrange the flowers easily and it sort of forms a basket like pattern on the pop up. Then I colored it a bit on the edges with colored pencil. Loving this technique and hopefully can use it for other pop ups in future. :)

Yellow card with orange laces...

HB051

I rarely make cards using yellow paper. I have done some before but I rarely use them in my designs......perhaps because it's not the kind of color that most customers would like to request for their custom made cards. But since I have lots of the paper available, I started playing with that particular idea I had with the previous birthday card I made. Yup, the one where I combined the laces and bows of ribbons.

I have not even made the envelope yet.....nor have I decorated anything inside it......no pop ups or anything.......I'm still searching for ideas for this one. Just wanted to share with everyone what I made. I'll be updating this card again once I've completed the design. :))))

Lady in pant suit ;)

HB050

Lady in blue pant suit :) How I wish I have a figure like that hahahaha...... LOL! :D. I kinda like that pant suit a lot, but wonder where I would wear it to if I had one. Being at home most of the time and not having to go to functions that actually would give me the chance to wear something like that. Oh well! ;) Well, I made the dress from scratch....piece by piece, starting with the jacket, then the pants and lastly the hijab/skarf that looks like "tudung ekin" ehehehe!

I like to experiment when it comes to making cards.....and most of the time I try to make them look different from the ones I've done before. Sometimes I only do minor changes like the one I did with this pop up. Only minor changes like only putting the candles at the top of the cake instead of putting them on all the layers like I did before, just to see how it would look like. I think perhaps I should have done it on all the layers but, I just simply wanted to see how it turned out. I did patterns on the cake with pen and also silver glitter glue. That was different...never done that before.

Another thing that I like is the ribbon and laces that I combined at the front of the card. The black lace is actually a small type of lace which I glued on the card side by side each other only to be separated by a really small silver ribbon in between them. Then I made 3 bows using a dark blue ribbon that has silver linings on the edges. I like this idea......would probably do more like this in future. :)

Fishing for love ehehe.....

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Fishing for love!! Yup!! The title is as funny as the card design hahahaha...... :D I simply had to post this card here today. It's been in my collection for the past few months already but never really had the chance to join in with the rest of the collection here because it was not quite completed. Even now it's not because I haven't done the envelope yet. But if there was one it would be red in color, that's why I put the card on top of a red colored paper....hehehe.

The card design was inspired by the fishes in the aquarium that my Mom has here at our home. She loves to care for them.....they are like her babies. Even I, have been given the responsibility to care for them now, LOL! Of course there aren't any of those that are blue and red in color hehehe.....the colors of the two lovey dovey fishes on the card are kinda symbolic. Red to represent a lady and blue to represent a man. I just made the design spontaneously without thinking much about the layout....then I realized I have no idea where to put the wordings. though....it just didn't seem right to put it anywhere. So that's why I left it as it is. No wordings at all. Let the design speak for itself. LOL!

I did a simple pop up inside.....lots and lots of love too.....all spreading upwards...floating or flying away.....hehehe. And I wrote on the two fish the words "LOVE" and "YOU", right beside the big red heart in the center, using glitter glue. Love using those glitter glue on my cards lately. It just adds that extra special touch to the card without much effort. :) This card is actually suitable to be given during Valentines Day or any other day that you wish to convey to your loved ones your love for them. A guy can give it to a girl and visa versa. So it's not just focused on a particular gender, so to speak. hehehe... It's a spontaneous design from a not so spontaneous person who is trying her level best to be spontaneous this year...hahahaha.....anyways, enjoy!!!! ;)

Pop up remote control car

HB049

Green! Apple green to be exact! Yup! I recently bought a rim of that apple green paper. It was the last stock in the shop it seems but I'm glad I got it because I just love the texture of the paper and the color too. Although I'm not really sure if an 8 year old boy would love that color though hehehe.....it was just something I wanted to do and in the end I kept wondering if it is actually suitable. I tried to balance the colors up inside with the colorful balloons to make it look a little cheerful for a birthday card. Gosh....I seriously need to do more research on cards for children ehehehe!! LOL!

My customer wanted a remote control car to pop up inside. I was thinking to myself...."Oh God....how on earth do I do that???". I spent so much of my time thinking and researching about it....a lot of time wasted. This is why I don't like to do custom made orders.....ONE..., because I really am SO SLOW when it comes to thinking of new ideas, TWO..., because even if I had one, I take such a long time to figure out how to do it! hahaha!! I really don't like to keep my customers waiting and waiting and waiting for the ideas to materialize you know.....so that's WHY. Unless my customers are so understanding and are willing to wait a long time for their card to be done.

And alas....this was what I came up with. I thought to myself, why not just print the photo of the remote control car and it's remote, then do a simple pop up. And then add some balloons to cheer things up a little inside. And so I did! :))) Yes, I know, I know....indeed I seriously need to do more research hahahaha...

And the winner is......................

I noted down all the participants names and folded the paper up and toss them in the box......then, the moment came for me to pick the lucky winner for my first ever blog giveaway....hehehe. Arrrgghhh so nervous!!!! I couldn't do it myself so I asked my Mom to pick the paper from the box for me...hehehehe.....then I opened up the pink folded paper and the name was revealed before my eyes.....and the winner isssssssssssssssssssssssss.........!!! Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

***NOR HAZIRA***

So Nor Hazira, congratulations!!!! I will be contacting you soon to get your contact details so that I can post the gifts to you. :))) As shown at the photos above, those are the handmade cards and embellishments that you will be receiving. 5 types of handmade cards of different sizes, colorful buttons, a variety of colorful sequins, a variety of ribbons, colorful flowers and leaves that I punched out using the different craft punches in my collection. Hope you like them!! :))))

So that's the end of my blog giveaway for this month. Do participate again for the next one coming on the 1st of February 2010!! I hope to be able to have more goodies to giveaway for participants the next time around. Thanks again everyone!!!

Last day of Blog Giveaway No 1

Gosh! Time sure flies fast!! It's the last day of the blog giveaway today! Yikes! It ends at 12.00am tonight....yup! At midnight tonight!! So there is still time to participate OK??!! hehehe!!!

I've been thinking....since there isn't so many people participating in my first blog giveaway, I'll bend some rules. Looks like a few people are experiencing problems viewing my blog and signing up as a Follower here. I can understand your problem.....it happens sometimes when the internet connection is slow or due to other irritating reasons hahahaha! ;) But no worries, I'm a pretty "sporting" person ehehehe.....so, I'm giving all those who have left comments on my blog giveaway post a chance to participate in it even though you did not sign up as a follower. How's that???!!! Hope that would put a big smile on your face today! hehehe!! So no worries OK?? Just leave a comment on the blog giveaway post and let me know which is your favorite handmade card from this blog and you will get 1 entry for the lucky draw.

All the best to all who joined in my first blog giveaway! Thank you for your support and lovely wishes too!!!

XOXO,
Lin...

Pop up flower bouquet...

TY001

A new pop up! Tried to do this new pop up design which is a flower bouquet. A pop up bouquet is not that hard to make but the hard part for me would be to arrange the flowers. I really had problems doing that. And I know that the next time I do this, it won't look exactly the same. It will have a slight difference, that's for sure. :)

The design on the outside of the card is similar to the birthday card (HB031) that I did before except that I changed the colors. I love pink and apple green combo. It's just sweet! :)