Camouflage themed pop up box sorry card

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Well, what do we have here? A camouflage themed pop up box card! A first for me to do a theme that has military subject matters and my first Sorry card too! Obviously I've never had a request like this before from any of my customers. I was excited to give it a try. I designed this card early this month for my Malaysian customer who's fiance' is living in Canada. 

Since I didn't have any camouflage pattern papers to use as decorations on the card, I had do it from scratch. Her fiance' loves camouflage pattern a lot. So it's important to have them on the card. Luckily for me I was able to find the right colour papers for the pattern. I cut them up by hand just by using the scissors. It was crazy doing this! My hands hurt a lot in the process....huhuhu.....

I really enjoyed making the wedding couple silhouette. I've done wedding couples before but never done it this way. Silhouettes are actually pretty cool. I might use it more in future. Especially for wedding cards. It would be great addition to it.

I guess people might be wondering why the baby in the stroller? Well, it was her request....since they are planning on getting married soon......and that also explains why there is a wedding ring as well popping up in between the wedding couple.  

The wordings were hand written using the dip pen.....I'm still in the process of learning how to write with it. Some days it's good and some days it just doesn't seem right. But I'm working on it. It needs time.....needs a lot of practice and sometimes I just don't have the time for it.

Do check out the video below if you wish to see how the card pops up! Thanks! :)

Special pop up box thank you card for Tan Sri Zeti

It has been almost a month since I made this huge card for Tan Sri Zeti. I didn't have the time to blog about it when it was done as I had other commitments to focus on at the time. Things had been so hectic the past month, I haven't much time to rest and unwind. It's always work work work everyday. I wish I have more time to blog as there are a few more cards that I have made this month but have yet to upload them here due to the time constraint.

I have to say that this project was the most complicated I had ever done not because of the complexity of the design but because I was not given enough time to get it done. It was quite a rush indeed and it was a miracle that I got it done and posted before the due date. The card design is very simple as Tan Sri Zeti is a very simple person, and she does not like a design that is over the top and full of fancy decorations. So I was not able to decorate it much like I always do for all my other handmade cards. I had to keep it simple for her. That was their special request from me. Keep it simple.

I'm not a graphic artist by profession, I'm just a small time crafter and it kinda took a lot from me to complete the job. I kept wondering why I was chosen for this project, and maybe someone else could probably do it better but then I found out that it was because they wanted someone who could make the pop up box card as they really were fond of it and would suit their request. They didn't want any other type of card for this project and was really excited about those pop ups that I could do for the card. Since I have been making a lot of those pop up box cards in the past, so they figured I was suitable for the job. Although I have never done any pop up box card as big as this one, I just had to give it a go! I never thought it was possible for me to do it and it was quite a challenge but I did it on my own! Alhamdulillah, I believed that Allah helped me along the way.

I am proud of myself that I got it done they way they wanted it. I did it to the best of my ability, but perhaps if there was more time given, the design would have been different, I'm sure. When it comes to handmade craft, it is important that I have enough time to get the thing done.. It's a slow process and needs a steady hand. Can't rush it. But not everyone understands that. Some might think that it's something easy to do. Well, it's not as easy as it looks.

I also had to do some drawings and hand cutting some logos as they were not available for me to print them. So I had to draw them from scratch and cut them by hand. This was a bit challenging but because I'm used to cutting designs by hand before, so I managed to do them.

If you can't imagine how big the card is, you can view it from the photo below or the video that I have embedded below. The height of the card is about as tall as an A4 paper and the width is about the same too. It's huge and not that easy to handle. After making this huge card, I realised how small my pop up box cards were before. They seemed so small now......you can see the difference below...hehe!

One thing good that came out of this project is that now I am more confident of making bigger pop up box cards and believing that it is possible. Before this I never knew I could do it. I would have never done it on my own, thinking that it was too much for me to handle. Now I realised that I could if I set my mind to it. Of course there will be challenges along the way, but if I didn't try, I wouldn't have known my capabilities. I'm glad I did it.....no matter what. And I did it when I was sick too...that's why I said that Allah helped me along the way.....as I would never have been able to complete it without His help..... :).

At the end of the day, what's important is that Tan Sri Zeti loved the card so much as she has never seen anything like it before. She even asked them who made it.  I was happy to get the good news and that really really made my day and made it all worth the while. :)

DIY stationery holder

I think I've always been a very practical person. Not focusing too much about the esthetics of the things I buy, but more concerned about how the product will improve my life. I guess this has something to do with my Mom's teachings since small.

I also have the tendency of recycling things in the house that I find can still be of use to me. Why throw them away when they can still benefit me somehow. Some used products can't be recycled and are thrown away and some can be recycled and I will turn them into something useful and give them a new life.

Used toilet rolls for example. I have been thinking of how I could reuse them for months now. During Chinese New Year, an idea just hit me. I wanted to fill the box that I got when buying drinking water, with those toilet rolls and use them as stationery holders! I really needed one anyways since what I was using before could no longer hold all the important stationery items I use everyday. I wanted the important ones to be kept in one place and make it easy for me to find them.

Since the box I wanted to use is quite big, I would need a lot of toilet rolls to fill it up. So the collection began since CNY. I kept collecting them one by one until one day the whole box was filled up with the rolls. Since I am too lazy to decorate it with a lot of fancy decorations, I kept the decoration minimal. For me, what is most important is the function. 

The first thing I did after the collection of toilet rolls were complete, was to paint the box with white acrylic paint. Then I would glue all the toilet rolls together using a hot glue gun. Glue them one by one to the box. This way, they will stay put in the box and won't move around when I add my stationery items in them.

I then filled the rolls with all my stationery stuff. I was able to fit in all my pencils, pens, markers, rulers, glue, scissors, brushes and many more stuff in it. I was so happy they all fit in! But as you can see, it looks so simple and unfinished. I didn't even paint the toilet rolls. I don't have the time for it. I just kept it simple.

Then, I got another idea. Since the box is big, I thought of using the space outside it as a notice board!  So what I did was, I took an old Styrofoam sheet I had, cut it up to fit the size of the box and wrapped it up with a dark blue paper. Pasted it on the box and walla!!! I got myself a mini notice board that I can use to pin my To do List or pin other reminders.

I didn't stop there.....I continued with another idea, which is to paste on the other side of the box with magnets!! Yes, so if I wanted to use the other side of the box, I could use magnets to stick notes there too! 

I really love this idea and I hope this will inspire others to recycle the toilet rolls too. If you are not lazy like me, you would probably be more creative in decorating and painting the stationery holder. It would look pretty for your craft room! Remember to recycle those toilet rolls and keep them away from the junkyard. Make something pretty with them, and there are a lot more ideas to be found in the net that we can do with the toilet rolls. Have fun!!