Orange pop up flowers and quilling birthday card

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A birthday card made for someone I've known all my life.....a very good friend of the family... :). I wanted to do a pop up card for her and since she has never received a pop up card from me before so I decided that making the seven pop up flowers for her would be great! And combining quilling with it would even be better since I don't think she has ever gotten a quilling card from me either hahahaha!!

I think I went a bit overboard with the quilling leaves in this simple quilling flower arrangement for the card. There are a lot of quilling leaves in different shapes and colours here. I don't think I've ever done it this way before so it was quite a fun and interesting experience for me. I get to do something different with the quilling leaves especially since they were made using different types of hair combs. Different types of combs will make different sizes of quilling leaves and styles too.....so the more types of combs you have, the more variety of leaves you will be able to make with them.

As you all know by now, I happen to love writing my own sentiments on my handmade cards these days. It's good practice for me since I'm still learning how to write with brushes and calligraphy pens. Writing with brushes has it's own set of difficulties, same goes with calligraphy pens. I guess it depends on the size of the sentiments too. For bigger sentiments I prefer to use brushes. For this one I used water colours and it was great because I could combine two colours to suit and match the orange flowers that had some mustard flower in the center.

A couple of months ago I tried to sew on paper using my grandma's old sewing machine. It's a treadle type of sewing machine and it was so hard to sew with it and making the stitches look neat. So in the end I realized that sewing by hand is much more calming, therapeutic and neater. I guess my old method is still the best for me. :)

Do check out the very short video of the card I made below. You will be able to see how the card pops up those flowers. Thanks! :)

Birthday easel card with pink quilling flowers

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I guess there's always a story behind every art work that I do and this one is no exception. It all started when I was playing with my quilling comb about a week ago. It had been a while since I last held one in my hand and made any quilling shapes with it. I then tried to make quilling loops with the comb and started layering each one on top of the other and somehow created this quilling pattern below.

After doing that, I kept thinking of how to turn it into a petal because I wanted to make a flower with it. But since it was so big, I turned it into a flower bud instead. Then when I did so.....it somehow reminded me of a strawberry ...doesn't it look like one to you?? Hahahahha....Check out the photo below....

No matter how it looked, pink strawberries or flower buds, I still loved it! And decided to use it for my new handmade card design that I was requested to do for a very special person.

These days I prefer to hand letter all my sentiments for my handmade cards. I guess, it would make the card more special and unique instead of just printing them. Plus by doing so, I get to practice writing with the brush again too. Which I don't get to do everyday. So it was fun. :) Do check out the video of the card below.

Like I said earlier, this card was made for someone special. And that someone is actually the founder of Jamu Mandara, Puan Azliza Ahmad. Her birthday was earlier this month but I was only able to give the card to her a week later. A little late but better late than never right? Hehe! :) Below are a couple of photos of her and me when we met a few days ago in Kangar, Perlis for a business meeting.

I also made her a hand bound book. A simple coptic stitch hand bound book. Actually, both the card and the hand bound book had the same colour combination of bright pink and lime green. This is because the product she sells uses the same colour for the packaging. So I thought that it would be cool to use those colours for the design of the handmade card and hand bound book. So it's something that she would appreciate because it's related to her products. 

I started taking her Jamu products since August this year. I've been getting really great results ever since I took them. I feel so much lighter, more energetic and I've been able to do my work better ever since. I can't imagine going through a day without it. So I am very much grateful to Puan Azliza Ahmad for her help in making me feel good through her products and I couldn't be happier to be able to meet her in person to thank her personally for that. The meeting was also for us to talk more about business since last October I decided to become an agent for Jamu Mandara because I was so confident of their products and would like to spread the word about it to all my friends and family about how wonderful Jamu Mandara is. I would certainly not hide whatever good things I know and would like more people to feel good like I do. Below is Jamu Mandara's advert and description of their product that I take every day. So if you would like to give it try, you can contact me at my WhatsApp 017-6508141 for orders. I would definitely give you a special price for it :). 

Twisted quilling leaf tutorial

I've been quilling and revisiting some old quilling techniques that I've done in the past and made some video tutorials of them about week ago. That was fun!

I remember many years ago when I made some twisted loops leaves and flowers as decorations on my handmade card, so many of my followers wanted a tutorial for it. But at that time I didn't even have a YouTube channel and I didn't know how to do a video tutorial either. I did however do a tutorial in 2012 on how to use two coloured quilling paper for the looping technique. So I did what I could by explaining it to them plus with the help of some photos and text that I added in my blog post. Back then I also used the quilling comb as a tool to do the looping technique. But in my latest tutorial here, I did it without the use of the quilling comb. You can try it with both.

Later, I learned how to twist the loops from a fellow quiller named Asma' Ahmad Bahari. I adore all her quilling art. She did a tutorial on it at her blog back then. If I am not mistaken, she did the twisting technique for her husking flower that she called the Royal flower. It was love at first sight for me. After that, I used that twisting technique whenever I made any quilling flowers that had loops. It's inevitable. I just had to do it. Because twisting the loops is fun! :).

As you can see from the photo above, you could also use one coloured quilling paper for this twisted quilling leaf technique. And you can also wrap around it with a few layers of quilling paper. It's all up to your imagination.

The photo above is an example of quilling leaves that I made in 2012.....I used only one dark green colour for the leaves. 

This is another throwback photo of my handmade card that I made in 2011 that shows how you can also make flowers with this the twisted quilling leaf technique. Yes you can. Just by choosing colours that are suitable for making flowers. I made this card in 2011.

Ok I hope you have collected some ideas here and hope it inspires you to make some quilling art with this new tutorial. Have fun watching the video tutorial below and happy quilling! :)

How to make quilling sprigs using a hair brush

I remember making these sprigs of leaves for the first time after learning how to make them last year from watching YouTube video tutorials made by a quilling artist. If I am not mistaken it was a video made by Anastasia Wahalatantiri. She is an amazing quilling artist and I really admire her work.

Anyways, I received a lot of requests from my followers for me to make a video tutorial of it too after I posted photos of the quilled sprigs that I made last year. Although I wanted to do it as soon as I could but I always find it hard to find a suitable quiet time alone at home to do it. 

So after a year since then, I finally get to make it this month! Yay! Truth is, my video tutorials are actually not only made for my followers but they are also made for me! Yes, me. Because sometimes I might forget how I made the quilling design after a few years and so it is good for me to record how I made it in the first place. Haha! Sad but true! So it's always nice to get to see and reminded of how I made it before by yours truly instead of being reminded by someone else.

I bought the foldable hair brush and comb from MR DIY. It's pretty cheap and easy to use for making the quilling sprigs. The quilling papers that I used are papers that I cut with the mini paper shredder machine. I pretty much use a lot of shredded papers for quilling instead of store bought ones. They are 80gsm type of paper and I realised that if you use thicker quilling papers for this technique it would be better. The sprigs would look a lot nicer and stand out. I tried using 120gsm paper before and it works really well.

You can also use more than one colour paper at a time so that the sprigs don't look too plain. I've tried to use two different colours to make a sprig and I really loved it. It's not that hard to do two quilling papers at a time. 

You could also make bigger size sprigs that would look just like big ferns just by using a much longer quilling paper, which means you would have to glue two or more of those shredded papers together and deciding how many pins on the brush that you would use to make the leaves long or short.

You can also use different colour of green papers, cut them up in smaller lengths, and then join them up together to get a very long strip so that you can turn it into leaves like you see at the photo above.

Below is the video I made and I do hope you will enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it for you. Do give it a try too! :)

New look for my quilling beginners kit

I am happy to introduce to everyone here the new look of my basic quilling kit for quilling beginners. From now onwards, the quilling kit will have a more colourful set of quilling papers for quilling beginners to play with. The previous ones were more on pastel colours and since I received a lot of request for more cheerful colours, I decided to give it a change of look.

Each basic quilling kit only costs RM20.00. This is a SPECIAL PRICE. You would only get it if you buy all those items in a set. If you buy them individually it would costs more as the total costs of each set is RM23.00. So it's definitely a good bargain. The cost for delivery depends on your location and weight of package.

 Items in quilling kit:
1 handmade rainbow slotted quilling tool
1 mini circle template
1 small nozzle white glue
4 packs of 80gsm quilling papers (200 pieces altogether)

I also sell these handmade slotted quilling tools and the price is still RM12.00 a piece. I make these tools myself by hand and it's definitely not an easy thing to do but I do enjoy making them. To date, it has been almost two years since I started making this quilling tool and I have learned a lot a long the way. From using glitters, to beads and now quilling papers as the decoration inside the tool. I have perfected the process and tried to make it look as neat as I could. And of course to make it as comfortable for the users as possible.

So if you wish to purchase this quilling kit or quilling tool, do contact me at:

WhatApp number 017-6508141 
Email me at inaabdul_21@yahoo.com.

Two toned heart shape quilling flower tutorial

To be honest I have been wanting to make this quilling flower tutorial for a long time already ever since I made my own handmade slotted quilling tool way back in 2014. At that time I was experimenting with the tool, and I got an idea of rolling more than one strip of paper with it since it had a big gap in the slot. You can actually roll up to 4 strips of quilling paper with it at one time. But using 2 strips for me is really good because you can see clearly the contrast between the two colours when combined together. A standard slotted quilling tool that has a much narrow or tight gap in the slot so it's difficult to do this with it.

I started making this two toned heart shape quilling flower since last year. I made some for a birthday card which you can see at the link HERE. The only difference is in the size of each petal I made for the flower. I made them a little bit chubbier compared to the ones I've made now.

It is best to use contrasting colours when using this technique as you can see from the photo above how the lighter colour stands out. How you wish to decorate the center part of the flower is all up to you. You can use a tight coil, coloured bling bling stones, pearls or whatever you fancy.

Do watch my video tutorial below to learn more on how I make this flower and you can make some too! Thank you. :)

Red roses easel card

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Red roses!! Oh how I love making them for this card! I made so many of them too mainly because the person I gave them to love red roses so much. I actually made this card in August. But didn't get the chance to blog about it back then so I did it in September. A bit late but better late than never at all. How can I never! Haha! I had to share it here sooner or later.

The design for this birthday and easel card is actually very easy to make. The front part of the card is just mainly pasted with die cut roses and a simple sentiment that I wrote myself using a dip pen with gold ink. I used a patterned paper that had some red roses as part of the design on the corners of it. So that leaves me some space in the center for me to add those red roses and sentiment.

To beautify it a bit more, I simply added some  plastic rhinestones of different colours and some white flower stigma in between the roses. That somehow will help make the red roses stand out a bit more on the card.

I embossed all the die cuts that I used for making the red roses and leaves. It somehow makes them look less stiff and a little bit more real. Although that means it will take me more time to get them done but the results are worth it.

You can check out the video tutorial that I did below of how you can make your own paper roses. It's actually very simple as long as you have all the tools and materials to make it.

Do check out the video of the card below to see how looks like when it opens up and closes. Thank you! ;)

Marquise shaped Malaysian flower tutorial

Oh my goodness.....how time flies when you're so consumed with work each day. I just realised that I forgot to blog about this new thing I did last July. I made lots of quilled Malaysian flowers but, the shape of the petals were marquise (pointed oval) instead of the tear drop shape.

I really love the way it looks and they were actually done for my customers. I have been making cute thank you cards for customers who purchased my quilling kits and those flowers were used to decorate the cards with.

I have been thinking of making a video tutorial on how to make them since many have been asking me to do so but I've been occupied and distracted by other projects and have neglected on making any videos. Been a while since I made any video tutorials. I miss teaching.

Actually it's not that difficult to make this flower. All you have to do is just make the shape of the Malaysian flower and then pinch it a bit at the petal to get that shape. Similar to making shapes of leaves or marquise or some call it the eye.

Hope you will be inspired to give it a try too. See if it is to your liking as well. It is what I do most lately. :)

06/11/2016 - Here's an update.....I've finally found the time to make a video tutorial on this flower. So many of my followers requested for this tutorial, so I just had to make time to do this for them. Thank you for requesting for it too!! Have fun watching and quilling!! Do check out the video below ;).

Apple Toner - For all your Printer ink and Toner Cartridge needs!

Hello everyone!!

So you must be wondering what do I want to blog about today? I usually talk about arts and crafts here but for today, I would like to talk about convenience for a change. Recently I found this really cool website called Apple Toner that specializes in tending to all your commercial printing needs. That means they sell household and office printing equipment like laser printers, printer cartridges, ink refills as well as repairs and maintenance services (in my case it was for the standard HP ink cartridges). They carry most of the mainstream brands so as long you don’t go all hipster or pick out some obscure brand, you’re good. It’s easy to find a compatible toner for your machine as long as you know what you’re looking for. A quick type on your printer brand and series and the site lists down all the things you’d need.

Apple Toner is a local company based off in Klang but offer nationwide delivery for all their products, even same-day services if you order before 12pm on a weekday. Like most others, I get a bit uneasy when purchasing certain types of products online, and these guys even addressed that issue by placing a 1-year warranty on all their items. So buy something from them and if it doesn’t work out the way you want it, then BAM!!! They’ll sort you right out! So I think that’s pretty cool.

There’s this one part though I thought was a considerate touch - they made a step-by-step walk-through on how to place an order with them. I think it may not seem like that a big a deal for most of us, but I can imagine quite a few beginners to online shopping would appreciate the gesture.

The above photo is a screenshot of the page where they teach you step by step on how to make the order. Like most e-tailers these days, they offer a variety of payment options which makes it super easy to deal with.

It seems they’ve got quite a fair amount of companies as well, tending to government and private companies alike. All in all I quite like what I see so far. Not too bad. I know where I’ll be getting my next refill of HP ink cartridges next time around. Ha! But do note that these guys offer compatible toner types only. NOT the original printer cartridges. But they do boast about its high quality and they’ve got a strong line of customers so that’s saying something. So do check out their FAQ to find out more about this.