I'm So Grateful For You - Die cut card

Hello everyone!

Today I want to share with you one of the 5 handmade cards that I made for the craft products review which I did this month on YouTube. This design is mainly made using die cuts! Kinda rare for me to just use die cuts as decorations. Usually I would mix it with quilling or other types of decorations. But this one is almost 99.99% made of die cuts. 

The floral frame die cuts that I used for the background for the card is made using dies that I received from In Love Arts Shop. Love it so much. First time ever for me to try to blending intricate die cuts with distress ink!! I really love the effect. The die cut looks like it's blended into the card itself since I used a red distress ink to match the colour of the card. 

The whole colour scheme and combinations are based on the die cut birds and roses. I really love them a lot. Too bad the shop where I bought them from don't sell them anymore. I can't even remember what year I bought them. Anyways, they are no longer in stock there. So I guess this card is a limited edition, LOL! Coz I can't make another copy of it.

The stamped sentiment is also from the same clear stamp set I got from In Love Arts Shop. I hope they will stock up more clear stamps that has handwritten sentiment designs like this. They are so pretty.

This card was done in just a few hours. That's why die cuts are great. It saves us time when we need to make a card in a hurry. When you already have the idea in your mind, you can make a card faster with the right materials. Easy to assemble and look fancy at the same time. ;).

Celebrate Your Day - Quilling card

Hello everyone!

Finally today I get to blog about this card here. I made this card last year after I received the metal cutting dies and clear stamps from In Love Arts Shop. I couldn't blog about the card until I uploaded the craft product review video on YouTube. As always I have to review all the craft products I received from In Love Arts Shop and create cards from them.  I took quite some time to get all the cards done for the review. Need to make the cards faster next time. :D

I really love the Square Lace frame dies a lot! The designs are so intricate and beautiful, that's why I chose it. I didn't know I was going to have problems cutting dies like this when I first got them. I never had intricate dies like this before so it was a new experience. A good one actually. I'm actually glad that I talked about my issues with the dies in my review video because, I gained some new knowledge about how to cut intricate dies the correct way. 

The clear stamps are great! They are of good quality and I didn't have any problems using them. I chose these clear stamps because their sentiments are combination of handwriting and block letters. A nice combo and the sentiments are not common like what usually see here in Malaysia. It's something new to me. So love them! 

Stamping and using distress ink to colour the die cut was fun. It's also something I haven't done in a long time. During this time I found out about the makeup blend brush that a lot of people are using to blend the ink on paper. I got so excited about that blending brush because it just so happened that my distress sponge are all spoiled because they are so old. Can't use them anymore. Luckily I didn't buy new ones yet. So finding out about the blending brush was a real blessing. Not only is it cheap, it worked better than the sponge.

I used the Martha Stewart butterfly craft punch to make those paper butterflies for this card. I haven't used it for my handmade cards for a long time so it was nice to use it again. I'm glad the craft punch is still working, LOL. Bought it so many years ago. I have a few more of Martha Stewart's craft punch that I haven't used in a long time. Need to check if they still function :D.

If you are interested to purchase the metal cutting dies and clear stamps, below are the links to each product I shared here. Do use my discount code FSAZLINA to get 15% off each product.

Hand Writing English Grateful Words Stamps

SKU: STZH145

http://bit.ly/2QKTD5H

Echoing Square Lace Frame Dies

SKU: DMZH409

http://bit.ly/2QRQUr0

Want to learn how to make the quilling flower on this card? Play the video tutorial below and watch how I make it. Happy quilling! :)

Goodbye 2019, Hello 2020!!!

Hi guys!

Day 1 of 365! Happy New Year to everyone! All my best wishes to all! Here's hoping that 2020 is going to be a really great year for all of us. It's a new day, new beginning, a fresh start!

Said my good-byes yesterday to 2019 and even though I wish I could have accomplish more, I'm still thankful for what I have accomplished in 2019. So today I'm just going to talk about my TOP NINE most favourite of 2019! 

To start off, I want to talk about the quilling flowers first! There were 2 quilling flowers I created last year that I was so happy about. They both have that vortex twist to them which a lot of people were interested in and wanted to learn how to make. I'm glad I could make video tutorials on them and share them on my YouTube channel for all to view and learn from. I gained more quilling fans from these flowers too! Because it was something new and exciting for them to learn. The Triangle Twist quilling flower was my favourite between the two. I made more of that compared to the Teardrop Swirl quilling flower. At first it was just a single colour, then three colours and the last was rainbow colours! I just had to make it in rainbow colours, LOL! Just because I love the colours of the rainbow a lot. I never actually made a card with them until later in the year because earlier on I was not in the best of health, so I was more focused on making a lot of quilling stock instead of creating something with them.

I also did a lot of stitching on my handmade cards last year. Like a lot!! Haha!! And yes, I'll be doing more of that in 2020 too. Watch out for that. It's just so therapeutic and it's something I enjoy doing during commercial breaks while watching TV! Not a time wasted in a day guys! LOL! :D It's not like I never stitch on cards before but last year, I went all out man! Like really came out of my comfort zone to stitch like I've never stitched before. And it was all worth it. I learned something new from that experience too. It was great! To be honest, one of the reasons why at one point in my life last year I stitched a lot on paper was because of my ill health. I was spending most of the time lying down. So stitching was a lot easier to do at the time. Not a lot of tools needed and I could basically do it anywhere in the house. I don't really need a special place to do it. Since I didn't like to waste time doing nothing and crying about my ill health, I turned to sewing to keep me sane. Because I can't imagine a day without creating something artistic with my hands. I didn't have the energy to knit or crochet at the time....but sewing on a small piece of paper was enough to make me happy. 

Still on the stitching subject, I tried the string art for the first time last year. Man... there's just so much to explore with this one. I've only managed to try two types of string art and I can't wait to do more in 2020. Just like stitching on cards, with string art, I could use different types of thread and yarn too to sew different string patterns on paper. I did managed to make a video tutorial on my YouTube channel for the square string art and it was because so many of my followers requested me to do so. Usually people would do string art on a piece of board with nails. But I don't fancy doing that and prefer to do it on paper instead. If there is a possible method to alternatively do string art on paper, then I'll do it on paper because I just love working with paper! ;) Yay to all paper lovers out there! :D

One good news for me in 2019, was when I was offered to do product reviews for 2 companies at the same time! One from Malaysia and the other from China. And to my surprise after the first review I did for both companies, I was offered again by them for the second time in December of 2019! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do the review immediately in December because to make a review actually takes a lot of time and so, therefore I'll be doing it in January 2020 instead. So watch out for those two reviews this month! ;) I love doing reviews for both companies, so I hope to be able to do more in 2020 if given another opportunity. I can't really choose which product review I love doing most because each one has it's own specialty. But as a designer, the review I did for the craft products really suits me the best because it's what I deal with almost every day. Getting free craft products is like a dream come true for me and also for a lot of crafters out there. I've had the opportunity given to me years ago, so it was nice to get it again last year.

There was one thing that I discovered on YouTube that really blew my mind in 2019 and that was the stamping tool! For many years I've had issues with stamping that was unresolved until I saw this stamping tool that could solve all the issues that had been lingering in my mind for years. I never knew that someone invented the wonderful MISTI tool a few years ago.....never heard of it here in Malaysia. But thank God for the internet, now I know! And I even made a DIY video tutorial on my YouTube channel on how to make the stamping tool that actually works really well for me. I really love the stamping tool a lot and ever since I made it, I've been stamping almost every other day! Thank God I didn't sell off my stamps and gave up on stamping! Life is beautiful when one can stamp again! LOL! :D

Ok, still on the subject of stamping....with stamps, I was able to stamp images that I could quill on! Yes, that pink red roses on the photo above says it all. The minute I quilled on the stamped rose, the rose looks so much more exciting to me. And that gave me an idea of what I want to try next in 2020. Stamping and quilling together! Hope to be able to do that! :)

Last but not least.....knitting. The last topic of 2019. I started knitting like mad in 2017. Clueless yet hyper excited about it at first. Was willing to go through lengths to get the tools and yarn anywhere in Alor Setar or outside my state. Anyways, I started knitting a shrug that year but was only able to complete it last December.  It was a tough journey but I was persistent. I never gave up on it. This first shrug is actually for my Mom. Made it with a special yarn I bought from Pinky Frog Shop. I really love the dot yarn a lot. It's so soft and comfy. It's definitely one of the best yarns I've worked with. As if I've worked with a lot of yarns already! LOL! I'm just a beginner! Yes, I have not worked with many varieties but the dot yarn is one of my favourites. I can't believe that after two years, the shrug is done! I did combined the knitted shrug with some crochet finishing. I do have another knitted shrug that I need to complete. That one is for me! Haha! Of course I will make one for myself too right?? But I'm using a different type of yarn for that one and it's not as heavy as the one I made for my Mom. Can't wait to finish knitting that one this year. Hope that is possible because I do have another project that has been postponed for too long. So that's two in the oven. Who knows maybe I can get both done by year end! ;)

OK! That's all I think is worth mentioning about from my crafty life in 2019! Let's create more and write new exciting stories of our adventures in arts and crafts in 2020. Let the fun begin!:)

Square string art on a quilling birthday card

Hello everyone!

Yes! I have another birthday card to share with you today. This time around I tried the square string art technique! Been wanting to do this one for quite some time now. Many more I wish to try out soon! 

I used white glittered yarn to do the string art technique and it was easy because the square die already have holes that I can sew through it. As always I learned how to do it from YouTube tutorials. There's so many to learn from. 

I also used dies from In Love Art Shop for this card, one is the big square die which I used to do the string art with and the other one is the arrow die for the birthday sentiment. Love them both! ;)

The quilling Fan Flowers was fun to make! I haven't made any for a long time so to do it again recently brought back good memories! I do have a video tutorial on how to make them so you can check it out at my YouTube Quilling Tutorials playlist :).

I made this birthday card for my Aunt Noraini and I also made a personalised mug which I ordered from Printcious.  I love customizing mugs with Printcious. It's so easy to do it and their service is good too! :)

Had fun celebrating her birthday today, chatting and eating with good company is always a good thing and I'm happy that I get the chance to do that today with her, my Mom and her family. May God bless her always with good health and a happy life.

If you are interested to learn how to sew the Square String Art on paper too, do check out the video below. I've also attached here a video of how to make the Quilling Fan Flower, like the ones I made for the birthday card. Happy quilling and crafting!

How to make your own stamping tool | CHEAP and EASY!!

Hello everyone!

I'm so excited to share with you about this diy stamping tool I just made! This really helped me with stamping again. I rarely stamp anymore but with this new tool I'm stamping like crazy once again! LOL! I have a lot of collection of clear stamps that I bought or received from friends over the years and recently I'm getting free clear stamps from a craft company, so I am thrilled that I can use them now and decorate the stamped images on my handmade cards!

A lot of people are so hyped about the MISTI Stamp Tool that's available in the market. I love it too! I've seen a lot of crafters online using it to stamp images for their handmade cards. But since it's super expensive to buy, that's why I decided to make my own. Hopefully one day I can afford to buy a good quality stamping tool like that.

Most crafters face the same problem when it comes to stamping images on paper. We never seem to get enough amount of ink the first time we stamp a particular image. But layering the image with an inked stamp again and again might spoil the image if you don't have a steady hand. So that's why it's every crafters dream to have that stamping tool. Luckily we have an alternative to that now!

Hope you will check out the video tutorial I made and have an idea of how I made the diy stamping tool so you can make one yourself! Thank you for watching! And have fun stamping!

Dusty pink roses easel card

HB125

Hello everyone! I have not been active here as much as I should and I seriously have to get back in action as often as I can here from now on wards otherwise I would be in trouble in updating what I've been up to for the past few weeks. A lot has happened since my last post and I've been busy making cards and quilling sets. So lots of blogging to do soon before the year ends!
 

This is actually my second easel card that I made in November and there is another one I made in November too which has a similar design but with different occasion. One is a birthday card and the other is an anniversary card. Both have different colours but almost the same layout though. Oh well, you'll see what I mean soon enough once I've blogged about it :).

I was thinking of new ways to decorate this card and I remembered the die cut rose pattern I bought years ago. I used to hate using this die cut rose pattern because I actually thought it was not pretty when rolled up. Not sure why I changed my mind this time around. I kinda love it now! Haha! Yes, I guess people do change their minds after some time. We just never know how we would feel about certain things sometimes. One minute we hate it, and the next minute we might just love it.

I used a few pattern papers that I was never going to use as a background layout for my handmade cards to make the quilled roses. The colours of the pattern papers for the roses somehow fits nicely with the rest of the colours of papers I picked for the card. So no pattern paper will ever be wasted from now on wards! Yay!!

This is what it looks like inside the card when you open it...... :).

I made two of this design so far for two special ladies. I've known them since I was little and they are fans of my handmade cards. So making this card for them was really great because they really adore handcrafted cards so much. 

Do check out the video of the card below. Thank you so much for watching! ;)

Happy 2nd Anniversary tri-shutter card

AC013

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

 AC012

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 :).

Seven flowers pop up birthday card

HB123

Way back in 2009, I made my first 7 flowers pop up. It was for a Chinese New Year card. I remembered how excited I was to see all the 7 flowers pop up each time I opened the card. I felt as giddy as a school girl. Back then, in my mind I thought that this pop up was the most difficult of all to make. But now I know, there are others types that are much much more difficult to make compared to this one.

There were little flowers and leaves added to the 7 flowers pop up to make it look like a bouquet of flowers. I didn't want to leave it plain and simple. I just had to add other things to the flowers to make it look more fancy. What do you think? Did it work? heheheheh!!!

I guess that this is the first time for me to use the Teary Loop flowers for my handmade card. I made a tutorial on how to make the flower long time ago and uploaded the video on YouTube, but never used them for any of my cards until now. In the tutorial, I made a small version of it, but for this card, I made the small and large version of it combined as a flower. I like the way it looks, either single or double.

The previous birthday card I made had cross-stitch on it too, where I used 4 different types of colour threads. In this one I only used two colours but had them stitched side by side. I love this idea and will probably use this idea for future cards. The cross-stitch took such a long time to sew on the paper but at the end of the day, the results made me so happy. 

Another thing I would like to mention here is the gold frame that I added to the card. I made it myself using a hard board. After cutting it up, I painted it with a gold colour to make it look fancy. I framed the washi tapes and patterned paper with this frame and decorated it with the flowers and sentiments. The rhinestones simply added some bling bling to it and made it look fancier than before. I just love how it all turned out.

This birthday card was made for someone who is very dear to me. I really hope she likes it. I know that she looks forward to receiving my handmade cards every year, but I sometimes don't have the time to make one for her. I'm so happy that this year, I can. Hey, even handmade card designers have problem sending cards to their loved ones, I kid you not! Hahaha!!

Do check out the video of the card below so you can view how to flowers pop up inside the card. Enjoy!

Green themed card in a box birthday card

HB120

This is my first new card in a box design for this year. Although I don't do anymore customized handmade cards, however, this design has about only 1% request and 99% freedom. My customer gave me the freedom to design this card for her hubby. Just knowing what his favourite colour is, was enough for me to know. The rest was up to me to decide.

I have done stripes designs a lot over the years when designing cards for guys. It's the most simple idea and the outcome is usually good. Especially when you combine a few colours together. In this case it's a combination of white background with, green and brown paper strips. He loves natural green and earth colours. And so that was how I envisioned the card to be on the outside. I cut the brown and green coloured paper and pasted them on the card one by one. It took me some time to arranged them together but I didn't mind because I love doing it.

However, on the inside, I made it a little cheerful because it's a birthday card, therefore it has to look fun and happy somehow....to create that festive look. I love how all those stars, wordings and all pop up when the card is opened. It gives you the feel to celebrate. And it's a good idea as well to pop up the wordings that way especially if you don't really have much to write for wishes. So all the wishes are already there for you.

I really loved playing with the clear stamps that I got from Popular bookstore. They are just the thing I needed for this project. The wordings fits perfectly like it was meant to be. They are so small and suitable to be stamped on the dialogue cut outs. I don't mind doing this again because it was really fun! :)

Love themed birthday swing card

HB119

Another swing card design for this month. It's a birthday card this time. A lot of dark red and green combination with this one. In fact I think there's quite a lot of red going on here! hehe!

I wanted to use the big wooden flower bead that I got last year as the focal point of the card. The one and only stock I have! haha! I guess this card is a combination of a lot of things that are limited in my collection. Some were given....some were bought. The ones that were given, was kept for quite a while with me because I adored them too much to use them..... But I can't keep them with me for too long ....I have to use them some day right? Otherwise, there will be too many craft stock inside my room and very little space left for me to do work there.

There were some parts of the card where I applied some molding paste. Flower patterns this time around seemed suitable since there are a lot of flower designs on the pattern paper itself. I enjoyed decorating the card using molding paste although it is quite a messy type of craft. But seeing the pattern formed on the paper somehow thrills me :D. Textures gives the card a different feeling. Hence, more molding paste artwork projects coming this year.

Played with a couple of clear stamps that I bought from Popular Bookstore. They seem to sell a lot of new cool designs there now. Super cheap too! I couldn't resist buying them every time I visit the shop. In fact I just bought some new ones yesterday. Ooooppppps! There goes my budget this year!! LOL! They also sell a lot of pretty acid free pattern papers. Very affordable as well. I like that very much!! :D Hope it stays that way for a long time hahaha!