Soft purple and grey pop up hearts box card

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When I first got this request, I thought to myself....hmmm have I ever done this colour combination before?? I thought I had never done it before.....then I remembered I had done it years ago. It was of course a totally different type of card though, but there sure was purple and silver involved!!

The only difference though is that, for this one, the purple has to be a soft pastel purple and I was a bit worried about that. I kept thinking if I could actually make it work! I didn't have a lot of soft purple pattern papers in my collection. So the choices were pretty limited. Same goes for silver or grey colour. Although with the limited choices that I had, I was determined to make it work! :)

There is a really easy trick to match certain pattern paper that does not match with the colours from the other pattern papers if you plan on using more than one type of paper for the card. All I did was simply add those sparkly plastic rhinestones to it or matching ribbons! Immediately it will give the paper something in common with the other. So now they match! Haha! 

At the back of each box card that I made will have a small area for you to write down your personal wishes. I made it simple with just straight lines all the way from the top to the bottom.

Brush lettering the sentiments again for this card and at this point I already started to feel tired of using the brush. It could be because my right hand still hurts. I think I spent at least an hour trying to write this sentiment and ruined so many pieces of paper in the process. I haven't bought a dip pen yet but will probably do so soon for the sake of my aching hand. Still haven't made up my mind on which type of dip pen I should get. Arrrgghh....decisions, decisions!

While I busy myself making up my mind, why don't you check out my video below of the box card I made. Have fun watching it! Thank you!

Pink and green pop up anniversary card

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March must be a month that I concentrated a lot on making "card in a box" cards. This pink and green anniversary card is one of them and there's plenty more coming soon! I have always loved combining colours of pink, green and white. And so when I got a request to do a card with these colours I got really excited!

I have used that checkered pink and green pattern paper before for a tri-shutter card this year and I used it again for this card because the pattern looks good for the box. I had fun decorating the card with lots of green, pink rhinestones and pearls too. So the box looks so fancy with those little precious gems on it. It enhances the look of the card and makes it look a little fancier than usual. Just simple add ons can make a lot of difference to a simple design.

Brush lettering was simply something I can't seem to run away from lately as I am so in love with it these days. I just had to write the sentiments with that technique. Furthermore if I didn't practice writing with the brush every other day, I might lose the skill. So, why not just do it right? 

Arranging those craft punch heart shapes that pop ups from the box one by one was a little challenging because I have to make it look balanced. Not too many of the big ones and not too many of the small ones either. The quantity has to be balanced out.  

Hope there will be more pink and green combo handmade cards coming in future with a different twist to them. I just love exploring new ideas with it! Do check out the video I made with the card and see how it pops up when I open it! Thank you! :)

Dusty blue and rose anniversary card

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This is the third time easel card that I mentioned about in my previous post. I used pattern papers from the same package that I bought to make my second easel card. The colours of the papers from that package are mostly pastel and more subdued. Very light shade of blues and rose and some soft cream colours. I rarely get to work with such colours. Most of the time, the colours I used are quite bright. So it's nice to use pastels for a change once in a while.

In a quick glance, this anniversary card looks similar to the birthday card I made previously. The design of the roses and how I arranged them on the card are similar. The differences are minimal.

I started using the die cut rose pattern for the birthday card and I just couldn't stop using them for this anniversary card too. They are just so easy to make and a great way to decorate a card when you have no idea what to embellish the card with. It's an easy fix.

I'm getting used to making easel cards now and I'm positively sure that I'll make more of them next year. Do check out the video of the card below and see how it looks like when I open it up and make it stand on display :).

Happy 2nd Anniversary tri-shutter card

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I haven't made a new tri-shutter card design for a long time now. I think the last time I made one was in 2013. This new one has two photo frames attached to it for me to insert a couple of photos inside it. Actually, the whole idea was thought out because I wanted to make it easy for me to make the cards in advance and let my customers insert their photos in the frames themselves.

But in this case, my customer had posted the photos to me and asked me to do it for her. Perhaps in future, I'll let them do it themselves. I made the photo frames easy to insert photos in and out of it. I'm already having lots of ideas coming out for future card designs with photo frames attached to them. I love it when my customers get involved in the process as well. They can decide on their own which photos to put wherever they like on the card.

The colours for this card was decided by my customer. She wanted the pink and green theme. The first thing that came to my mind was these pattern papers I had and how I could pair them together with those sweet pink paper roses I made using my die cut rose pattern. I'm still not bored using those die cuts yet! Haha!! So perhaps you'll see more of them soon.

The Happy Anniversary sentiments in front of the card were hand stamped using clear alphabet stamps I got from Popular Bookstore. I just adore them to bits! I wish they would sell the same type of clear stamp font in a smaller size though. But this big one was really nice to work with and stamped really well on paper too. They were such a good bargain. I drew a pencil line across the paper before stamping the letters one by one. It was challenging but fun to do it. :)

Those sparkly stones were added one by one on the diamond checkered pattern paper too. I don't know why I just love doing that on this type of pattern paper! Somehow it gives the paper some added value and makes it look more interesting. Otherwise, it would be a bit dull. Do check out the video of the card below and view it in motion :). Thank you!

My first easel card

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Gosh.....I am way behind schedule when it comes to updating my blog lately. I have so many cards waiting in line to be uploaded and blogged about. Things have been really chaotic around here so much so that I'm forgetting a lot of things including not taking a video of my first easel card! I totally forgot! Arrrggghh! I hate it when things like this happens. OH WHAT TO DO! The card has been sent out last month and the occasion is all over. If only I could turn back time.

Yes, it was my first easel card. I took a risk doing it, with permission from my customer, as he only wanted a simple anniversary card for his wife but me being someone who likes challenges, I opted to do something different from the original design that I've done before. He wanted this card HERE, just click on it and you will see what it looks like. It's similar to the quilling birds that I did for this easel card. The old design was done in 2012. So long ago and I've learned so much since then, so I wanted to apply new techniques on this new design. I just don't see myself doing certain techniques anymore. Hence the new look. :)

I'm just glad that my customer let me do whatever I wanted. He's happy, I'm happy. That's all that matters! I get to try and do something new and I loved it. I never thought that I would like making the easel card but I did. Sometimes, there are certain designs that would look better using this type of card fold. So I'm glad that I decided to do it. 

I also had fun sewing beads on the card. I sew them all around the card to make it look like a frame. At first I thought of just sewing the green thread all around but since I wanted to do something different, I thought it would be nice to add those seed beads. I love experimenting and trying out new things. It just makes the experience a little more fun than usual :).

Ribbon heart

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Lately I've been playing a lot with distress ink. I just bought 2 more new colours to add in my collection and I've been having fun distressing card stocks with them. I gotta say....it's a new addiction. Before this, I was not successful in using this technique in my card design. I was doing it all wrong. So I took the time to study it closely by viewing a lot of video tutorials on Youtube and saw how other crafters use this technique. Now that I know how to do it, I just can't stop using them in all my new card designs. Now I wish I have more colors to play with!! LOL! 

There are a few reasons why I made this anniversary card and one of the reasons is because I wanted to use those quilled roses that I made using the mini rolled roses die cut pattern. I had so much fun making them! You can see from the photo below some of the rolled roses that I made. 

But for this card design I only used the smallest mini rolled roses. The medium sized ones were not used. Perhaps I'll use them for other designs soon. :) I've been wanting to make a tutorial on how I made these roses but I've been very busy lately and didn't have the chance to make one yet. But I will do it eventually :).

I've done heart shape iris folding using ribbons before like the card you can view HERE. I miss doing it and so I made another one for this card. It's so much easier using ribbons rather than using paper. believe it or not....I have yet to try doing iris folding using paper. Must try it one day for sure.

Have a look at the video below to see how the card swings in motion. I love looking at it swing :).

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Happy Anniversary

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After making a few Swing cards lately with the basic type of squarish shape layout, I was dying to try out another pattern for it. In other words, I just wanted to move away from the squarish shape for a while and try something new like the one I made here......or perhaps do ovals, circles or other more interesting shapes for my future Swing cards.

I was also dying to try out the decoration tape I got from Wholeport and you can view how the tape looks like by clicking at the link HERE. You can see at the photo here the decoration tape which I pasted at the side of the card. Love how it shines when it hits the light.

This is definitely a fun card to make and I had a great time playing with the die-cut frills which I cut and pasted for the front design and also for the inside of the card. I just love experimenting on how it can be used as part of the decoration. There's just so many things that can be done with them.

It's been a while since I last made an anniversary card. So it's nice to be able to make one again. ;) You can view how the card opens up and swings in motion at the video below. Do check it out :)

Rich colour combination

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This design is a remake of a trishutter card I made in 2011. That 2011 trishutter card looks similar to this new design and it was the one and only design I made because the pattern paper that I used for that design was so limited that I was only able to make one card with those pattern paper. You can view that card HERE. 

So when I suddenly got a request to do that same design again, I knew that I had to remake it using new pattern papers and luckily I had some pattern papers that had a similar colour to the original design. And lucky also for me that my customer didn't mind me using a new pattern paper for the card. So I had complete freedom to create a new anniversary card design for my customer. 

Although this design seems new now, I still manage to maintain some of the original design in this new one.....for example like those foam hearts at the top and bottom of the card.....and also the tiny flower sequins.....I still maintain the same colour combination ....the colours are red, dark red, mustard yellow and dark pink. 

The differences that are pretty obvious are the pop up heart.....which I hand carved some designs on it....I loved doing that... :). The original design just had a simple curved line that I hand carved but this time around I carved out something that is a lot more complicated for me to do. I enjoyed doing it though.

Another new thing for me is making those embossed flowers for the front of the card. Those flowers and leaves were die cut and then embossed using embossing tools. I gotta say I really enjoyed making them for the first time. I'll consider embossing more flowers from now onwards instead of just cutting and pasting them straight on the card like that.....embossing them, gives the flowers and leaves a much better effect....gives them some dimension. :)

I die cut a couple of squarish shaped paper and pasted them inside the card for my customer to use as a space to write on personal wishes since he didn't asked me to print any wordings for him. Hope that there are enough space for him to write on. I had another idea for writing spaces on trishutter card, but will use that idea for my next design. :) Have a look at how the trishutter card opens up at the video below :).