My second pop up mosque Raya card in 2017

 

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Hello again everyone.....so how was your raya/eid celebration this year? Mine was good, hope yours were good as well! Had lots of goodies to eat after one month of fasting. Luckily I didn't over do it and gained back all the pounds that I've lost! Phew! Eat in moderation ok guys! 😀😀😀

So here they are, as I mentioned before in my previous post....the 5 pieces of pop up mosque raya cards that I made for the same customer who ordered those small ketupat ribbon raya cards. I think I was much more sad to see these go compared to the other raya card design. Perhaps because the papers that I used to make the flowers are no longer available. All used up for the 5 cards. I didn't even have a sample of the card in my collection now huhuhuhu.....it's just a coincidence that the papers used were just enough for that amount of card, not more, not less.

I started off by making the flowers first. I had to make sure there was enough of them for all 5 cards, otherwise I would have to choose other type of pattern papers for the flowers. After that was settled, then I can start thinking of the other parts of the design such as the sentiments on the card, pop up mosque etc etc.

The die cut flowers were fun to make. It's been a while since I last used the dies....I think the last time I used them was for the Happy New Year card. At first I thought of using the same gold ink that I used for the other raya card.....but unfortunately it was not suitable at all for this design because of the colour combination makes the card look dull. So I had to use the bright orange watercolour instead. So instead of using the calligraphy pen, I had to use the watercolour brush. There are times when using the brush can be challenging especially if you don't have a steady hand. So again, because of that a lot of mistakes were made and I had to make quite a lot of the sentiments so that I can choose the best ones for the 5 raya cards.

You must be wondering why I made the pop up mosque this way instead of making the pop up look like a square building just like the mini mosque I made before. Well, one thing I've learned when making those mini pop up mosque was that if I wanted to make that type of pop up mosque I would need a bigger card so that there is ample space inside the card for people to write their wishes in it. So to get that bigger space, the pop up mosque had to be done this way instead.

If you are also wondering how I made those mosques, well, they were cut by hand as well using the craft knife. Same goes with the green bushes as you can see I had to cut them up by hand as well. It was time consuming indeed. But somehow I kinda like the process of arranging them at the sides of the mosques. 

Well that's about it. That's what happened and hopefully next year I'll get the chance to prepare them again. The process was really interesting and I did all of them myself to the best of my ability. Do check out the video below to view how the card pop up opens up. Thank you!! 😁😁😁

A belated Happy New Year card

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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

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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

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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. 😍💗

Gong Xi Fa Cai pop up flowers card

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I think it's not too late to wish everyone, especially my followers a very Happy New Year 2017! Year 2016 brought a lot of good memories, experiences, ideas and opportunities and I'm excited to make more good ones this year. A fresh new start. A new page in my book. A new beginning. A new hope.

This new year started off with a specially requested Chinese New Year card. Actually the request was for an old card design I made many years ago. I believe it was one of my first pop up card  that I made back then. I was really excited to learn how to make the seven pop up flowers. I've always thought that it was really hard to make them but when I learned how to do it, I realised that it was not THAT hard. Lots of people are able to do it too.

Although I was requested to remake the card design, I was a bit reluctant to do it exactly the same as before. I just had to make it more current with what I am doing now. It didn't have the red lace like the old one did but I still maintained the idea of  the cherry blossoms flowers on the card . So the minute I got the green light, I head on to find what I can use to make it look similar to the old card design.

Since I have a love for brush lettering, so the sentiments are hand lettered using a brush and water colours. After it has dried, I added some Diamond Glaze on it. It looked really good. Love that effect on the letters. 

The flowers are all embossed and painted on, so that they don't look flat and lifeless. At least there is some difference in that part of the design. The pop up were made exactly like the old one except it's a little bit bigger because I used a bigger size card for this new design.

You can view it better in the video. Do check it out. :)

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! :)

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!

Red and Yellow Roses tri shutter birthday card

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Red and yellow roses together! I don't think I've ever done that before! But I'm loving it now :). When I was requested to do this combination, I must admit I was little worried but once I found the right pattern paper to match the roses, I was able to figure out how to decorate the card with those colours.

 

These colours turned out looking really bright! I was able to tone it down just a little bit with the cream and dark green colours. This tri shutter card design is similar to the previous tri shutter card design I made before. The only difference is that I just change the colours and the sentiments. The one before was an anniversary card and I think I added less roses for that one. For this new one I figured out how to add more of it without disturbing any parts of the front design and photo frame. 

I had trouble deciding on how to add the sentiment on the front part of the card. The photo frame is big and there isn't much space to add any words without disturbing the photo frame. A decision had to be made and I decided that I would write the sentiments using the brush lettering technique coz then I'll be able to fit in those roses nicely on the photo frame. Unlike the previous design I made the sentiments by stamping the sentiments using clear stamps. They were big size fonts and would definitely not be able to fit all the words. So the brush lettering saved my day!

Here's how I wrote it using the smallest brush I had....

I'm having problems with my right hand now after a minor accident at home. It's a little bit challenging to write now as it hurts quite bad especially when writing with a brush. I definitely need to get me a better brush pen or calligraphy dip pen for writing sentiments as I love how the thin and thick lines form during the writing process. It's a little different than using a ball point pen where the lines are the same thickness. I'm a little over obsessed with the lines these days! haha! Who knew I would be? And it's all because of the brush lettering I've been doing the past few months that got me concerned about it. I think I would be for quite a long time! Haha!

Do check out the video I took of the card and see it in motion! Thank you!