Quilled flower handprint board

Some time early in February I received a rather unusual request from a bride to be to make a handprint board that will be used during a traditional Maiyan ceremony (a ceremony where they apply turmeric paste on the bride and groom), which is a ceremony held a day before a Punjabi wedding. Actually to be honest, I have never known about this tradition before. I've only seen an Indian tradition where the bride dip her feet on a plate which contains water mixed with vermilion powder and as she enters the groom's house for the first time she will leave red footprints across the home to bring success and prosperity to the groom. But of course, this handprint is totally a different thing altogether although it is related to weddings :).

So this handprint board is actually for the bride's Mother to print her hand on the board that is placed on the exterior wall of the house. You can see the photo above of the bride's Mother's handprint with turmeric. This is usually done at the end of the ceremony. Usually it's supposed to be handprinted 5 times on the exterior walls of the house but nowadays they do it only once. So my customer who is the bride to be at the time, wanted me to make this board so that her Mother can print her hand on it. She wanted to keep the handprint as a memory of the ceremony. If it was printed on the wall itself, they would wash it off later on so....that's why she requested for this board.

The quilled design made for the handprint board is actually a simple one. Based on an old quilled frame design I made years ago,which my customer loved so much. I had to make just minor changes to the original design and added more leaves and some bling bling to it. I changed the design of the leaves to make it a little different from the original design too. :)

A belated Happy New Year card

NY002

I know this seems kinda weird to blog about a new year card in February! Haha! But yes, I did make it early in February.....so that's why I added the "Belated" in the title.

This card was actually requested by my Mother's friend. I was asked to make it and post it for her to her old high school teacher. She knew that I was busy with my work and other card orders but she insisted that I make a really simple New Year card for her anyways. And so I did! :)

To be quite honest.....I just didn't know how to make a simple card anymore. Seriously. I had a hard time thinking about it. Because I always tend to add a lot of things to it no matter what. Since her budget was quite low, I had to figure out how to simplify it as much as possible.

I immediately thought of that one particular die cut template I had with me for quite a while now. I used to love using it a lot when I first got my Sizzix Big Shot die cut machine. But it's been a while since I used it and it was fun to use it again. 

I wrote the Happy New Year words myself with a watercolour brush. That was fun too! As I was writing it I realised how nice it is to send someone a New Year wish. I should make it a point to do it as well next time. Because I know it would definitely make someone feel happy to hear from you and to read all those lovely wishes especially at the start of the new year. New beginnings.....a brand new feeling....a fresh start.

Just thinking about it gives me a good feeling. Imagine getting the card yourself. Even better right? Funny how simple wishes could make people happy. It doesn't take a lot of effort. But the effect of the giving goes a long way.

Mini Chinese New Year card

CNY015

I just realised that it's going to be end of February real soon and I still haven't blogged all that I did from January yet! Yikes!!! That's what happens when I keep delaying the posting over and over again. Hmmm. Bad habit. 

Ok! About this mini Chinese New Year card that I made last January. It was actually meant for my neighbours. Most of them are Chinese. So I managed to make a few. I try to make cards for them every year no matter how busy I get. 

This is the first time they get a pop up card from me if I'm not mistaken. So it was exciting to do this for them. I'm sure they loved it. They are always so kind and appreciative of whatever I make for them.

It's a small horizontal card, just about a quarter of an A4 paper. If I had done it vertically, I won't have enough space to write wishes in it because of the pop up flowers filling up inside the card. Besides....I rarely make them horizontal....so it was nice to do it that way once in a while. 

I think this is the first time I made the pop up flowers really small for this size of card. Because years before, I had done a card this size but the flowers were bigger. I just love looking at the small flowers bloom up each time I open up the card.

Of course as always, I enjoyed writing the sentiments for the cover of the card. It's good practice for me. I don't always have the time to practice as I'm always busy making quilling tools and quilling papers. It takes a lot of my time away from this new hobby.

I truly enjoyed as well painting the branches of the cherry blossom tree. I feel like a little kid again doing that. It was fun....and no specific design....just a simple tree with small branches. Letting myself go and having fun, that what it was :).

Basically, this mini Chinese New Year card is like a small version of the Chinese New Year card I made this year for my customer. I really loved it but to make a big one like that takes a lot of my time. So in order to make a lot in a short period of time, making them smaller in size would be a good idea! Haha! Do enjoy watching the video of the card below. I know it's a little late, but I do appreciate it if you would take your time to view it. Thank you!

Pink pop up flowers and quilling birthday card

HB135

Hello everyone! Here is a handmade pop up birthday card that I made late last January.

This handmade pink pop up flowers and quilling birthday card is actually made for a regular customer of mine. He would always order my handmade card for his lovely wife each year for her birthday. Isn't he so sweet and thoughtful?! His wife is one lucky lady indeed!

For this year, he requested for a quilling card which he later wanted me to add a pop up in the card too. He agreed for me to make a quilling card similar to the one I've done last December but the main colour of the card had to be pink! At first I thought I could make the card design exactly like the original and just change the colours, but when it came to writing the birthday sentiments, I knew I had to make some changes in the arrangement of the design.

For example, the original design had simple short sentiments, but the sentiments that my customer wanted was a bit long. Because of that I had to allocate a much bigger space for the sentiments on the new card design. This however makes it difficult for me to put 3 big quilling flowers like the original design. After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to just put 2 big quilling flowers at the top and bottom of the card and add 2 more tiny ones to each of them to fill up the space. I was so glad that it all turned out well in the end.

As always, I did enjoy writing the sentiments with the brush. Every time I need to write sentiments for my handmade cards, I get to practice the brush lettering technique. Writing with the brush is never an easy thing....but it's always fun. We text and type a lot these days that we rarely write with pen or whatever medium. So if we don't practice, we will feel awkward doing it sometimes. I hope to never stop writing on paper. I don't ever want to lose the skill to write.

The pop up flowers inside the card is done just like how I did for the original design but of course I changed the colours of the pop up flowers to match the pink quilling flowers on the card itself. I really enjoyed making the leaves for the flowers too. The leaves with the veins were the most fun to make. I wanted to make a video tutorial for that leaf too.....hopefully soon! 😁😁😁

I do love the card a lot and it was hard to see it go.....but I'm glad it's with someone who appreciates handmade cards a lot. So it's in safe hands now. 

Anyways, do enjoy watching the pop up birthday card in the video below. You'll be able to see how the pop up flowers open and closes in the card. 😍💗

How to make two tone tear drop shape quilling flowers

We are coming close to mid February and I'm blogging about something that I did last January! LOL! It's been a month since I last blogged here. And soon enough, after this I'll be blogging a lot more on what I did last January because January was so packed with crafting activities. Unfortunately, I just didn't have the time to blog about them then.

Last year I made quite a lot of this two tone tear drop shape quilling flower for my customers. I made quite a lot of cute thank you cards for them and decorated them with this flower. I even made a birthday card with this type of flower. Since so may requested for a tutorial for this flower, I tried to make one for them. I don't always get some free time to do it, but when I do, I try to make a few if possible.

I do hope many enjoyed the tutorial I uploaded on YouTube.....and tried to make this flower your own. For those who didn't manage to check it out earlier at my YouTube channel, you can check it out at the video I embedded below. Have fun quilling this flower ya!  😍😍💕💕