My first twist circle pop up card

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Hello everyone!

In continuation from yesterday's post, today I want to share another Eidul Fitri card that I made this year. This one is a little bigger in size compared to the other design that I blogged about yesterday that is only half the size of this card. I only made two Eidul Fitri card designs this year and as I said in yesterday's post, this year's card designs are all about flowers and I chose the Rose flower as the subject matter for this one.

I also made a pop up for this card and the thing is, the mechanism for this one is similar to the one I made for the other Eidul Fitri card. When I was learning how to make the pop up twist from the various YouTube tutorials, I found out that the base for the pop up twist is the same as the base for the pop up twist circle. The only difference is how the position of the circle is glued to the base of the pop up. They both twist as they pop up but in a different direction and I find that to be so interesting!! That's why even though I don't have the die cut for this pop up, I still challenged myself to do it manually. The pop up twist is definitely easier to do compared to the pop up twist circle. I almost gave up doing it in the beginning but my many experiments finally became successful in the end. So NEVER give up trying!! :D

I just love these Rose flower die cuts from Die-namics. I have two different types of Rose flower die-cut patterns, but this one is my favourite. Once the patterns are cut, they need to be embossed in order to get that look similar to of a Rose flower.

Another thing I love doing whenever I make my handmade cards is sewing beads on the card. I think this is the first time I'm sewing these beads this way. Usually I would sew them on a square or rectangular shaped paper, so it's a first for me to sew them along the lines of this oblong shaped paper. 

Although I didn't make any quilling flowers, I did however made some quilling sprigs to use as part of the decoration for the flower arrangement. Not too many of them though, as I don't like seeing them too overcrowded. They seem to blend well with the Roses ;). 

You could see that I used a Rose pattern corner punch to punch out the corners for the pop up insert inside the card and also for the front layer of the card. I really like this puncher because not only I can use it to punch out Rose pattern on the corners but I can also cut out pieces of Roses with it. And I used them to decorate on the twist circle pop up. I love playing with the Rose puncher and see what else I can do with it for future projects. It's nice to buy a puncher and to find out that it can be used for multiple of things, not just one. :)

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

Salam Aidilfitri pop up twist card

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Salam Ramadhan everyone and hello again!

It's already June! That means I missed out blogging in April and May. Sigh! To think that I wanted to blog everyday this year and end up not even blogging every month. The guilt is always there, ok!!.HAHA! Oh well, hope to do better next time!! So today I want to share about what I've been up to the past couple of months. 

This year's Raya card design is all about having fun! Fun means that I just don't think too much about the Raya theme and just focus on how to make it look pretty. Previously my Raya cards had to have Ketupat or Mosque as the subject matter. But this year, I decided to do something that has nothing to do with Raya at all. So it was all about flowers! Lots of them! 

I was thinking of doing quilling flowers, but they are a bit time consuming and I didn't have enough time to do it this time. Maybe next year, I'll be more prepared, if I start really early. As you all know, I was a bit distracted early this year with the knitting, weaving and crocheting, which took my mind off from paper craft for quite some time. When I got the order to make the Raya cards, I had to shift the mode from playing with yarns and focus on paper craft. Somehow it didn't turn out as well as I thought it would in the beginning. I had a hard time deciding what kind of design I wanted to do versus what I can do.

What is certain is that the Raya card has to have a pop up inside no matter what. I've always made sure that my Raya cards have pop up inside. For my Raya cards this year, I wanted to use a pop up mechanism that I learned from various YouTube tutorials. It's the Pop Up Twist mechanism that really interest me this time. I watched a few tutorials before deciding on how I would to do it. Because watching different tutorials means that different teachers will give me different tips on it, so it's always wise to watch more than one tutorial so that I will have a better understanding of how to do the pop up. 

I also thought of my craft punches. I have lots of them. But not enough for a showcase though! LOL! So, the idea is to figure out how to incorporate all these craft punches in one card design. That of course took me a lot of time to figure out, hahahahaa! I wanted to make a simple design, nothing too complicated because I need to make a lot of the cards. So if it is too time consuming, I have to think of something else to do. 

To be honest, decorating the card with the punched out flowers and leaves are not that hard to do and not time consuming at all. The only reason why it was time consuming was because I embossed them. The embossing took so much of my time. I embossed hundreds of the flowers and leaves. I had to do that because the embossed look was so much better than if it was not. So, for the sake of beauty, I sacrificed my time and energy. HAHA! It was worth it though! :D

OK, the butterflies, need not be embossed....so I just stick them on the pop up spirals I made. The pop up spirals were cut by hand by the way. No die cuts for that. 

I think I used about 11 punches for this card alone! That's the most I've used for any of my handmade cards before. I really made used of them this time, HAHA! As you can see, I had to make the pop up twist from scratch. No die cuts. I've seen on YouTube how they use die cuts for this pop up and it's so easy when you have that at hand. But it's also good to learn how to do it yourself. It's more challenging and interesting. Keeps the brain working you know.

Last but not least.....my love for writing my own sentiments for my handmade cards. In a way, it's my way of forcing myself to write with the brush. It gives me the practice I needed. You know how it is if you don't get the practice every now and then, you tend to lose the skill. 

All in all, making this card was a good lesson for me. I learned a lot in the progress. It's always good to try new things and work the brain a bit. Do check out the video of the card below. You can see how the pop up twist works inside the card. Thanks for watching! ;)

Sweet pink and blue card in a box birthday card

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Second card design in August! Woohoo! Excited about that since I only managed to make just one in July! LOL! Been busy with other projects, I hardly have the time to make cards like I used to back in the days. It seems that making quilling kits is more in demand nowadays and preparing them do take a LOT of my time. I also have other work to do that keeps me away from the craft table. However I do hope to have more time to spend on designing cards if possible this month. I also have to make a few birthday cards for birthdays that's coming up soon. Gosh....there's just so many things to do and so little time. 

This card was requested by someone who ordered the tri-shutter card that I made in July. I was supposed to get this one done at the same time but I was just too busy at the time to do it. Luckily for me that I got me a very understanding client. She gave me all the time that I needed to get it done. 

You know it's not that easy to get new ideas for handmade cards sometimes. You get stuck halfway through and start staring at it, hoping for a miracle to happen. But sometimes the ideas just flows like water. Well in this case.....I got stuck in the beginning and later on it just flows non stop. I haven't been making any card in a box for quite sometime....I did however made lots of them last year. They can be pretty challenging sometimes to create as there are so many sides to decorate on them. And they all have to match and harmonize. 

I did however get a lot of help making this card by using die-cuts that I bought some time ago. So I don't have to spend too much time cutting everything by hand or make them myself from scratch. All I had to do was to just figure out how to match them altogether in one card. Find the same colour combinations and matching theme and then BAM!! It's done! You just have to know what fits where and enhance them to make them look fancy with the sticker and bling blings.  But I did however do a little hand lettering to write the name of the birthday girl and her birth-date as per request. 

Do check out the video of the card design below and see how the card opens and closes. Thank you so much for watching :).

Pop up 3 layers birthday cake card

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First card for August! It just so happens that on the 1st of August, my Mom and I celebrated a dear old friend's birthday. So for that I made a card for the birthday girl who turned 62 this year. I still can't believe she's 62! Wow! Feeling a little old myself right now! We're 20 years apart! Known her since I was in kindergarten. Always thought that she was the prettiest school teacher at the school where my Mom and Dad taught in.

Anyways...back to the card design hahaha....as always, I would be rushing like a mad woman trying to get the card done on time as I was extremely busy at the time with orders. In the midst of figuring out what to do....I realised that she has never received a pop up card from me before. So, I thought, it would be a good idea for her to get one from me this time around. The fastest and easiest pop up for me to do when I have very little time is that pop up 3 layers or tiers birthday cake I bought from MR. DIY two years ago. I bought quite a few of them so that I can use in times when I am in a hurry haha! I love that the cake comes with numbers that we can use to show how old the person is. It's a diy pop up cake...you would have to assemble it yourself. Luckily for me since I know how to assemble that type of pop up, it was easy peasy for me to do.

Usually it would take me about 5 to 6 times to write Happy Birthday with the calligraphy pen before I can get it right. I was surprised I only did it once this time and was happy with it! LUCKY ME!! Saved my ink! LOL!!!

Do check out the video below and see how the card pops up!! Thank you!!

Tri-shutter birthday card with pop up cake

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How long has it been since I last made a tri-shutter card. It's been ages I'll bet! Oh how I miss making it so much! So much so that when I had a request to make a pop up cake birthday card, I couldn't help but use a tri-shutter card stock as the base. 

I've never made a tri-shutter card with a pop up cake inside it before. Big pop up heart shapes.... I've done that before in tri-shutters....but never a pop up cake in tri-shutters. I just had to give it a go! The pop up cake that I did was a 3 layer birthday cake...so it was a bit big for the space inside a tri-shutter card. If it was just a 1 or 2 layers, it would have been easier. But since the request was for a 3 layers cake (because I've done a few before on other birthday cards ....hence the request 😁).....so I did my best to fit them in. The pop up cake is not die cut by the way. It was done from scratch....hand cut....by yours truly 😀....not something that was easy to do. Painstakingly hand cut and pasted inside the card.

Die cuts pattern from Die-Namics Prima Donna petals seem to be a favourite with me lately. I just love using them for decorations on my handmade cards. They turn out beautiful every time because they are die cuts. Never have to worry if I didn't cut the petals in uniform shapes and sizes. They will always look the same. That's the beauty of die cuts! Yay! The only thing different will be the types of papers used to make the flowers. You could always change the colours to make them stand out and fit any card design. I personally love to use pattern papers nowadays as opposed to plain ones. Because the pattern papers gives them character.

The birthday wish on the card was done with a calligraphy pen. I just love using that gold ink! I'm obsessed with it really! It's just so pretty as it looks embossed when it's dry. Nothing beats writing it yourself. Even if it's not perfect....it's yours. So I'm happy with it. It took me a long time to get it right. It's normal. Because I'm no expert. Experts usually get it right the first time, but it usually takes me 5 to 6 times to be happy with it hahahaha.....yes, I do waste the ink a bit.....but that's how you get your practice. Otherwise you'll never learn.

This birthday card was actually made for a very special lady who is currently struggling with her health right now. I do hope that when she receives this card, it will cheer her  up and make her feel happy. I also hope that she will recover soon from all her complications. May Allah bless her always with good health. 

Do check out my video below too. You'll be able to see how the tri-shutter card looks as it opens and closes. Hope you'll enjoy it!! :)

My second pop up mosque Raya card in 2017

 

HR031

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!! 😁😁😁