5 January 1984

HB097

5th of January 1984.....it's a special date for my dear customer's husband :). Alhamdulillah I managed to get this card order done on time and also a paper beaded bookmark as well for my dear customer. I wasn't so sure I was able to make them at first. I haven't been in the best of health lately. 

Pretty excited about designing this card for my customer who requested this birthday card for her dear husband. She wanted something simple and elegant looking, nothing too crowded. White background with some colours of my choice to be added. Sometimes doing a simple design can be complicated for my brain to handle hahaha. I over think the design sometimes and cannot decide how to make it simple. In the end I decided to play with ribbons and some bling bling. ;)

I guess this is the first time for me to use the glitter foam on my card. First time for me as well to draw a number, a big number on the glitter foam and cut it out by hand. It was an interesting experience to do that. I've only use glitter foams to make heart shapes before but never something like this.

This is the first time for me as well to make a cover for the birthday card. This was a request from my customer who wanted something similar to this. I didn't know how to do it at first. I just did what I thought was right and although I didn't have a pretty nice lacey type of paper to use for this purpose, I designed one myself using a bit thinner paper, pearly white metallic paper.....and decorated it with the same type of paper in shapes of hearts.The hearts were cut using a craft punch. Two sizes...one small one, one big one. All scattered around the front and I added some silver glitter dots on it too. Lastly I added a shiny ribbon to wrap up the card with. The envelope is made from a shiny silver paper. Love it! :)

Inside the card there is a pop up of a photo of her husband and his mother, plus some wordings she asked me to add in the card. I am not allowed to upload the photo here so, I'm sorry I couldn't share it with everyone that part of the card. I have to respect her privacy :). 

BM020

Ok! Here's the bookmark! My customer was interested in my paper beaded bookmarks that has names engraved on it. So I was asked to engrave her husband's name....and since the card is black and white in colour, I decided to make the bookmark in the same colour combination. 

She also requested that I added her name on the bookmark. I just didn't know how or where on the bookmark that I can add her name. Didn't want to put her name behind the bookmark....didn't think it would look nice that way. Luckily I thought of the alphabet beads I have available in my collection and added the words, "LOVE" and "RIFFA" to the ribbons. So when you look at the bookmark, it will look like "Eswar love Riffa" or "Riffa love Eswar". Love it! :) Happy that my customer liked the idea too. So problem is solved! Yay!! :)

Little Attic Art First Giveaway

Wonderful! I just found out that Little Attic Art is having it's first ever blog giveaway! Yay! I personally LOVE the artwork created by Little Attic Art. They are all so neatly done, clean cut designs, super cute and super creative. I would love to own one of the artwork from this creative designer! I hope to be one of the 3 lucky winners to get a special product from this lovely designer ;).

Ok, if you would like to join this giveaway too, do visit the link here ----> Little Attic Art First Giveaway. The deadline is on 28th of December 2011. So there is still plenty of time for everyone to participate. ;) 

Malaysian flower Christmas card

CD008 (NOT FOR SALE)

I thought of only making one card design for Christmas this year but I just couldn't help myself but make another one for a dear friend of mine. I made the quilled Malaysian flowers a while back when I was so crazy about making Malaysian flowers hihihihi. I made a bunch of these Malaysian flowers in red colour and I thought why not use them for this Christmas card design and so I did.

I loved the design of the Malaysian flower card I made before and I wanted to give it to my dear friend but the colours doesn't suit the occasion. So I made this new one instead and the colours are perfect for Christmas.

The card does not have a pop up inside. Just a plain white paper inserted inside for me to write in special wishes for my dear friend. I love using the corner punch to punch out the corners of the paper inside. Love the look so much :).

I haven't posted the Christmas cards I've made .....gosh I hope it will be able to arrive on time. I'm always late!! :S Yikes!!

Brown and purple

HB095

HB096

I'm not sure how many times I've done this design. So many many many times hihihihi....in so many different colours too. This time I'm doing it in two other different colours. One in brown and the other in purple. Love both cards as the paper is metallic....shines when it hits the light :).

Usually this design comes with a pop up inside but for this two I didn't make any. Just a paper inserted inside the card for writing in special wishes. It's been a while as well for me to make quilled hearts. Combining few colours in one heart. Used to love doing that a lot last year. :)

These two cards are actually for a dear aunt of mine who ordered these birthday cards for her dear sons. Hope she likes it :).

From red to blue

HB076 (Blue card)

This design is actually a design I've made before but the original one was in a different combination of colours. You can view the old design here --> HB076. I made that design last year. I received an order to make the exact same design except I was asked to change the colours according to my customer's preference and I kinda like the colours too :). It's from a red card to a blue card.

I changed the pop up inside a bit as well. The original one was made with the weaving part a lot longer and this one I shortened it a bit. Perhaps you can spot the difference if you look closely :).

It's nice sometimes to revisit the old designs and get the chance to do it again. Brings back the memories of the earlier times when I started learning how to quill and this technique was the easiest ones to do for me at the time. ;)

A flower within a flower

I've been enjoying making quilled flowers pretty much lately, making lots and lots of them without any reasons...I just love making them during my spare time. Just yesterday I thought of making these flowers and I don't know what to call it but I love making it! hihi! I got the idea of doing this type of flower after I tried my hand at making the beehive flower recently. You see, instead of inserting the twisted strip of paper inside the petal, I decided to insert a quilled teardrop inside it. Super easy! Perhaps there are other quilling designers out there who have done this kind of design before, I'm not really sure but this is something I thought of when making those beehive flowers. I just wanted to insert whatever I can inside the flower and the easiest for me to do at the time was to insert the quilled teardrop :).

You can insert a quilled marquis or a tight quilled coil or a loose quilled coil or whatever you think is nice inside the petal. The other difference is that I made the petal extra thick compared to the beehive petal. You can see the difference in thickness and in size as well. These flowers are a lot less smaller than the beehive flowers I made.

The flower kinda looks like there is a flower within a flower hihihi. Noticed that? I love it. I made the petals using the quilling comb. This way I can decide what size I wish to make for the petals. You can see the difference in size for the two flowers I made at the photo at the top. Those who own a quilling comb can give this technique a try. Just try it, it's super easy! ;) 

The Beehive technique

I'm so excited!! I just wanted to share something today with everyone, something that I found out about yesterday. It's a new quilling technique called "The Beehive" which I found out from my fellow quilling blogger friend Pritesh Ananth Krishnan from Quilling Me Softly. She shared the video tutorial on her Facebook. I checked it out and I'm so loving it now! Yes! It's actually a new technique of quilling invented by Miss Susan from Susan Quilling Cards. Do check out her blog at the link for more designs of Beehive quilling technique that she shares at her blog. They are all so beautiful! It's just so inspiring to see all her artwork. I just had to give it a try myself last night and it worked! Pritesh's video tutorial was easy to follow. Check out her video tutorial at her blog.

When I first gave it a try I find that it was kinda tricky at first to put the quilled yellow part inside the orange quilled petal. Gotta be careful so that it doesn't get pinched so bad when I try to squeeze it all inside the petal. The twisted yellow paper was done just by using the slotted quilling tool. But I have to say it's so fun to make this flower. Definitely can be very addictive too! hihi!

The length of the quilling paper that I used for the petal is 29.7cm and the same goes for the twisted yellow paper inside the petal. I haven't tried to make them in smaller sizes though. Will try to make the petals smaller and see how it turns out. Because the one I made here is pretty big in size as you can see from the photo above where I placed the flower on my hand. :)

I haven't the time to make a card using this flower yet. No time to do so right now. I just love making different types of flowers lately but not so much in the mood of making the cards....hehehe *so lazy*.....just enjoy the process of making the flowers.....lots and lots of flowers. ;) Hope you'll give it a try too this coming weekend!! It's fun!! :D

Shades of pink

HB094

Pink, pink pink everywhere......different shades of pink on one card. But one of the flowers here, the colour looks like peach, when actually it's cyber pink... lighting problem :(. I'm experimenting with another type of leaf pattern that I've tried to turn into flowers. It's similar to the flowers I made yesterday but has a slight twist to it. 

Remember the quilling blog hop I did early this month? Have a look at the link HERE. Look at the leaves. It's the same technique I used for the petals of this flower. The only difference is that I squeeze the middle part of the petal close together so that it looks like a petal. It can look like a leaf as well, if you use green colour quilling strips :). 

Basically, there are a lot of quilled patterns out there that we often use to make leaves but we can also use them for making flowers. All we have to do is just change the colours.....colours that are suitable for flowers. This is just the basic pattern, but I know there are a lot more that we can do with it to make it different. All up to our creativity :).

This flower is made using the combing technique. And like the recent Christmas flower, I used the flat hair comb to make this flower too. All because I love the small loops I get when using the hair comb. But of course you can also use the quilling comb to make these flowers too. How I made these flowers is just like the flowers I made for the Christmas card. Same technique except the part when I want to fold it in half, I fold it the other way around. Kinda complicated to explain it here. But I will make a tutorial about how to do it one day. It's difficult to take photos of it while quilling it though that's why I haven't made it yet. Must get someone to take photos of it for me while I'm combing the quilling strips hihihihi. :D

I also tried to do the Royal flower using the same flower from the card above. I just took the slotted tool and twisted the loops inside each petal and this is how it turned out. Not as nice as the original Royal flower though. I still prefer the original one that looks soooooo beautiful. You can make the Royal flower using the husking technique. That is another quilling technique that I have yet to try. I must try it someday! hihi! You can see the tutorial on how to make the Royal flower at Simple Ryhme's blog link HERE. :)

Christmas flowers

CD007 (NOT FOR SALE)

At first I wanted to do the Christmas flowers (Poinsettia) for my Christmas cards this year but the flowers I made ended up looking like this in the end haha! Doesn't look much like the Poinsettia at all :D. 

I have seen so many card designers using this technique to make quilled leaves. Have a look at Suganthi's blog HERE and Anastasia's blog HERE for more photos of this type of quilling technique that they used to make quilled leaves. They are all so beautiful! 

But instead of making leaves with this technique, I used it to make flowers instead. I love how it looks :). I used a small flat hair comb to make each petal for the flowers. You can also use a quilling comb for this technique. If you use a hair comb, the loops will be smaller in size compared to the quilling comb. I guess it depends on the size of the gaps between each teeth of the comb and also the size of the teeth as well. The smaller the gap or teeth, the smaller the loops will be. You can view how to make these flowers at the video tutorial below:

I love the ribbon as well. If I'm not mistaken I bought the ribbon about 4 or 5 years ago.....way back when I was staying in KL. Didn't buy a lot of it.....just one meter coz it was pretty expensive....couldn't afford to buy a lot of it at the time. But I decided to use it today for this card coz it's for someone special. I made this card for a special friend of mine. In fact I'll be making another one soon for another special person in my heart. These two ladies have been supporting me and motivating me in my love for card making all these years and I thought of making this card for them this Christmas. Thinking of making a pop up inside the card as well..hope to be able to get it done on time and posted. Don't want it to arrive to them so late. ;)

New features to old designs

V041 (ADDED WORDINGS & BLACK CARD)

V042 (ADDED WORDINGS)

My V041 and V042 card designs were recreated especially for my customer who ordered these designs for her anniversary celebration. She adored both designs but just wanted some slight additions to it and I agreed to do it as it's just a minor one. The requests were to add names to the front of the card and some wordings inside it, plus the card itself was changed from white to black and the other one from white to metallic white. 

The female bird which is dark pink in colour, I decided to add the "veil" at her head with a tiny white sequin flower just like how I did for my wedding love birds card. So glad my customer didn't mind me doing that for the cards hihihi. Even the quilled birds has a slight change to their body shapes. I love the new shape as it is much slimmer and somehow the inner coils looks more like their wings. You can compare the differences from the old designs and the new ones when you look at the links here -------> V041 & V042. Spot the differences! ;)

Actually, I haven't made these designs for quite sometime now.....and it's nice to be able to make them again....brings  back old memories of making quite a few of the V041 card for my blog giveaways. Come to think of it, I got a lot of practice with quilling when doing those blog giveaways as most of the cards for giveaways are made with quilling decorations on it. :) Good practice for me! ;)

You can view how I make the quilled flower stalk from the video I made below: