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!

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. :)

Quilled Mandarin oranges CNY card

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Quilled Mandarin oranges! A first for me. I've never  quilled any Mandarin oranges before so this was fun especially since I used the vortex coil technique for it. It's simple and fun to make!

I decided to use Mandarin oranges as my subject matter for my Chinese New Year cards this year because it symbolizes good fortune and good business! Hehe! Hopefully we will get all that this year, provided we work really really hard too!! Can't expect everything good to come rolling in without any effort. ;)

I tried to sew a little differently this time on paper. The thing is.....I want to sew on paper, and yet, I just didn't have enough time to do it. So what I did was, I made the gaps bigger! So I still got the effect I wanted but spend less time doing it! Yay! I thought of sewing the paper with the sewing machine, but somehow, I still prefer to do it by hand.

Another thing I was excited about was that I did the brush lettering on the card! I found a reasonably good black ink and wrote the sentiment on the card with a watercolour brush. That was fun! Nerve wrecking too! All at the same time. Haha! I can't afford to make any mistakes when writing it straight on the card. So I made sure I practiced writing it many times on another sheet of paper before doing it for real on the card. Somehow, writing using ink was easier compared to using watercolour for this particular type of paper. 

I had fun making simple cards like this and what's great is that I get to apply what I've learned so far this year on my own handmade cards. Simple bliss!

I would like to wish everyone who are celebrating Chinese New Year this year a very happy and prosperous new year!! 

Quilled lanterns on CNY cards

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I wanted to make some Chinese New Year cards for my neighbours this year. I didn't have time to make complicated and overly fancy cards for them this year, therefore I opted for something really simple and fast to do. So I decided to make these quilled lanterns. It's the first time for me to make them. They are not that difficult to make too.

I made two types, one vertical card and the other a horizontal one. The horizontal one has pop up cherry blossoms inside it. I haven't been making new pop up card designs for quite a while now. It was great fun making them this year. Really thrilling even though it was a simple one :). Gosh...I'm so easy to please hahahaha!!

You can view how the cherry blossoms pops up inside the card at the video below. :)

Blossoms everywhere....

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More stripe designs hehehehe......funny how I don't get bored doing it. LOL! This is another order I got from my regular customer. And as usual, I was given the chance to do whatever design I like. :) This design is a combination of that small design and the big design I did...hehehe.....except I didn't put any leaves on the flowers for this one. Because it will probably look too crowded.

I do like the pop up though.....because this time I popped up the wordings too! Not just the flowers with the vase, but yes, the wordings too. So that's a little different coming from me this time. It's all simple...nothing complicated. I just didn't have enough time to do something complicated because of the work load I'm having to deal with this month. It's just crazy lately over here hehehe......Well I hope you guys love this design as much as I do. I think it looks cheerful.....lots and lots of colors there. :)

Ribbon inspired.....

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At last....I get to post these two Chinese New Year cards tonight......I had problems doing so this morning. My PC is acting up again!! Urrrrgggghhh!! I hate it when that happens. But what can I do, I just have to be patient and wait till the time is right for me to get me a new one. In the mean time, I am grateful for this PC, for it has helped me a lot with my small online business :)

Ok, now......lets talk about the CNY cards. :) I made two.....one with stripes and the other without. Somehow I kinda like the one without. Why? Because for me it's already pretty without the stripes. I thought to myself, the cherry blossoms ribbon itself is enough. I bought the ribbon a few weeks ago, just so that I can use it for this occasion. It has cherry blossom flowers on it. Lovely! Quite big too! I bought a few types including a couple for Valentines Day. I hope I can show you the Valentines Day cards soon. If all is good with this PC, hopefully I can do that. LOL!

I have not decided on the pop up yet for these cards. I have no idea what to do. Perhaps a seven pop up flower would be suitable too. Like the one I did last year. It does match with the designs of these cards. Well.....what do you guys think? :)

Cherry blossoms...

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Thought of something really really simple for this year's Chinese New Year card last night. But I also thought of something complicated heheheh. The complicated ones I will post later on. For now, lets talk about this easy one. :) This easy one was made using a small note size card. About 10.4cm x 14.7cm in size. I used to love making cards using cards this size but nowadays when I look at it I realize how small the card is hehehe! Maybe because I've been so used to designing cards that are bigger in size lately.

I bought this new flower craft punch last year. I think it's a Unicorn brand craft punch. Anyways, it's super fun to use as it's really sharp. I love the cherry blossom pattern a lot. It's really pretty. All I did was just scatter the flowers on the cards, nothing challenging about it at all. Added some leaves next to the flowers and walla!! It's done! hehehe! I only added some glitter glue to add that special touch to it. I also made a simple pop up inside the card. It's a simple pop up that I cut so that I could weave the stalks of cherry blossoms in between it. :)

Red cherry blossoms pop up card

See how the flowers pop up when the card is opened! I just love how it looks! :)

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I must say that this must be my most favorite Chinese New Year cards for this year....I simply adore it because this is one of my experiments with making pop up flowers. I've done the simple pop up lotus flower already and now I've done the seven flowers pop up card! Yay! I've changed the flowers a bit, plus I added some decorations on the inside of the flowers to make it look like a cherry blossom. I just love watching it bloom up when I open the card!! It's so exciting! :) Funny how simple things like this can excite me so much! Silly me! hehehe! LOL!

I made this design on a smaller sized card, but it can also be done on a bigger sized card, no problem at all......this is because the flowers can be made in different sizes according to the size of the card. This card comes with a matching soft pink handmade envelope.

Thank you so much to my dear friends who have inspired me to do this!! Appreciate it so much......especially to Michael.... :) I wouldn't have dared to do this without your support!!! LOL!

Lotus flower pop up card

The pop up lotus in full bloom

Top view of the pop up lotus

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I was finding a pop up card design that I thought would be suitable for a Chinese New Year card and so I thought, why not do a lotus pop up.....? I searched for the simplest one I could find in the net that has a video tutorial for me to learn from. And so I found one! It was the simplest one of all!

One thing about pop up cards is that not only do you have to think of the design for the inside of the card, but you also have to think about the design you have to do on the front of the card! Double work! I just couldn't think of a good one for the lotus pop up.....and ended up doing this design that you see here......it's pretty simple....nothing outstanding about it except for the dragonfly which I thought is a cutie! hehehe! First time I am doing that too....never done a dragonfly before.....I just drew it out on paper and cut it up and pasted it on the card....decorated it with some glitters.....

The lotus flower for the front of the card was cut out by hand as well.....and I arranged it one by one on the card to form a lotus.....does it look like one guys??? hehehe hopefully it does! :D The card comes with a soft pink handmade envelope too and on the inside of the card, it has ample space below the lotus flower for you to write on personal wishes :)

Mandarin firecrackers!!

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What would Chinese New Year be like without firecrackers...? No Chinese New Year celebration will be complete without it. I wanted to do the firecracker motif this year for my CNY cards......tried making one of those Mandarin firecrackers with paper hehehe....and gave it some dimension. Created a spark at the end of the string to show that it has been lit and all ready to fire up! :) It's very simple and very spontaneously done.....

I chose the tall slim cards again for this particular design....it suits the design well. The inside of the card is left blank for writing on personal wishes and it comes with a soft pink handmade envelope too.

Here are some information regarding to Mandarin firecrackers that I got from the net:
Did you know that this Mandarin crackers produced a less loud, duller thud when they exploded, compared to modern flash light crackers (which utilize a different explosive composition known as flash powder). Mandarin crackers produced a dimmer, less brilliant flash when they exploded also. Individual Mandarin crackers were most often braided into "strings" of varying lengths, which, when set afire, would explode in rapid sequence. Generally, the strings (sometimes containing as many as several thousand crackers) would be hung from an overhead line or high hook before being ignited. Most Mandarin crackers were colored all red and did not generally have designs or logos decorating their exterior surface (AKA a "shell wraps"). Occasionally a few yellow and green Mandarin crackers were created and would be braided into the predominantly all red strings, to symbolized the emperor and the ruling class, while the numerous red crackers symbolized the common man.

Falling Cherry Blossoms....

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This is my first Chinese New Year card design for this year....there are a few more coming soon.. :) I really like this particular design for it's simplicity. Just a simple drawing of a few branches with cherry blossoms and having some of the blossoms fall on the ground.

For this design I am using a tall slim card, which makes it suitable for this design. In order to make it look like the blossoms fell from the tree, I would need a tall card to match the idea. This card too already has a simple wish printed on the inside of the card with 2 other layers of pink and red paper as part of the decoration. It has a matching soft pink handmade envelope too! :)

Chinese lanterns....

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I am so excited about this design :) as I have never made a Chinese lantern before...how cool! Another fun project :).

Raising the red lantern is a tradition that began in China back in the 1600's during the Qing Dynasty. Chinese red lanterns are a symbol of happiness and good luck. These traditional Chinese paper lanterns are used on the fifteenth day of the Chinese New Year for the Lantern Festival, are bright, colorful, and in many different sizes and shapes, but mostly they will be red in color.