Making quilling papers with the pasta machine - REVIEW

Hello everyone!

Once again I'm experimenting with a new tool that could help me with my quilling crafting. This is something that I've been wanting to try since last year. I saw a few videos on YouTube that shared how we can make quilling papers using a pasta machine or a pasta maker, whatever you'd like to call it. When I first saw the video I was really shocked to see how easy it was for them to cut an A4 paper to make quilling papers of different sizes with the machine. It was really exciting to see the demo and I wished I could do the same.

I only have a manual paper shredder and it only cuts 3mm paper strips. If I wanted other sizes, I would have to cut the paper with a craft knife. I do wish that there is a machine that could cut other sizes as well. That's why I wanted to try the pasta machine. So I went to searched for it in town and found a cheap one that I could try at home.  I wish there was a better quality one here but I couldn't find one. In this post, I just want to do a little review on the product and share with everyone my experience using it. 

In the beginning, I did have problems using the pasta machine as it didn't cut well and the paper strips didn't come out straight. The edges were not clean cut either. So I was a little frustrated. But I didn't give up and tried to figure out what I did wrong. After numerous tries and lots of spoiled papers, I managed to cut the paper straight enough and less paper went in the dust bin. I needed to be patient went running the paper through the machine, must slowly crank the handle. I cut the A4 paper in half and run it through one piece at a time. The best weight of paper to use is 80gsm. The thickest I've tried with the machine is 120gsm.

The pasta machine that I bought could only cut 2mm and 5mm paper strips. I was happy about that especially about the 2mm strips because I've never used a paper strip that small before. I'm used to 5mm already, and I liked it too.

As you can see from the photos above, I really love making those leaves using the 2mm strips. I could also make it look like a 3D leaf and yet it doesn't look so bulky. That's what I love about it! Awesome!

I also made small little flowers with the 2mm strips. I really love them! They will compliment the bigger flowers really well. I've always wanted to have different quilling paper sizes for different purposes and now I can make it happen because of this machine.

I cut the 5mm paper strips and made bigger sized flowers with them. It's nice to make flowers with different size strips. I'm so used to using 3mm paper strips for so many years so it was nice to be able to cut a lot of 5mm strips at one go and work with them.

Another thing that you can do with the pasta machine is use it to emboss your cards or papers. But the emboss is not that deep which I actually like because sometimes there are times when I use the Big Shot machine to emboss, it pressed the embossing folders too hard and tears the paper. So the pasta machine does not tear the paper at all. Love it!

All in all, I don't regret buying this machine but I don't necessarily recommend it to anyone especially if you don't have the patience and don't like rough edges on the paper strips. The machine has helped me cut the 2mm  and 5mm strips that I wanted even though it does have some rough edges. I really don't mind it that much because I'm used to the rough edges already. I've been making quilling cards using shredded quilling papers with rough edges for 10 years now and it has not stopped me from being creative. Hope to make more interesting quilling shapes with the new quilling papers!

Do check out the video below to see how I use the pasta machine. Thank you!

Four colours shell shape quilling flower

I made this flower a few days ago. Uploaded photos of them and a short video of it on Instagram first because I just couldn't wait to share them with everyone, as usual, hahaha. I need to learn to be more patient I guess and blog about it here first before sharing it anywhere else.

I was kinda obsessed with making those shell shapes petals over and over again. Then it occurred to me that I should try using more than 2 colours per petal and see how it would turn out. To be honest I think 4 colours is the limit for me! More than that, it would be so difficult for me to hold on to the petals without messing with it's shape.

The plastic lice comb is the most suitable comb to be used for me to make this 4 colours shell shape quilling flower. This is because the tooth of the comb is very small and thin. Thus giving more room to comb more layers of quilling paper. The bigger the tooth and larger gaps in between would make it harder to add a lot of layers. It's hard to explain, I guess you have to try it yourself to understand what I'm trying to say.

So far, I've only tried using these colours like soft pink, cyber pink, fluorescent pink and red. The combination is great! I would love to try more other colour combinations in future and show them to everyone here. Till then! ;)

Quilled flower handprint board

Some time early in February I received a rather unusual request from a bride to be to make a handprint board that will be used during a traditional Maiyan ceremony (a ceremony where they apply turmeric paste on the bride and groom), which is a ceremony held a day before a Punjabi wedding. Actually to be honest, I have never known about this tradition before. I've only seen an Indian tradition where the bride dip her feet on a plate which contains water mixed with vermilion powder and as she enters the groom's house for the first time she will leave red footprints across the home to bring success and prosperity to the groom. But of course, this handprint is totally a different thing altogether although it is related to weddings :).

So this handprint board is actually for the bride's Mother to print her hand on the board that is placed on the exterior wall of the house. You can see the photo above of the bride's Mother's handprint with turmeric. This is usually done at the end of the ceremony. Usually it's supposed to be handprinted 5 times on the exterior walls of the house but nowadays they do it only once. So my customer who is the bride to be at the time, wanted me to make this board so that her Mother can print her hand on it. She wanted to keep the handprint as a memory of the ceremony. If it was printed on the wall itself, they would wash it off later on so....that's why she requested for this board.

The quilled design made for the handprint board is actually a simple one. Based on an old quilled frame design I made years ago,which my customer loved so much. I had to make just minor changes to the original design and added more leaves and some bling bling to it. I changed the design of the leaves to make it a little different from the original design too. :)

Salam Aidilfitri pop up spiral card

HR028

OK! So here's what happened. Some time ago, I had received some really pretty card stock that I got from a good friend of mine. I'm not really sure what they were for, they looked like wedding invitation card stock or something. I never asked her what it really was. It has this really pretty gold lining on all sides and twin gold heart shape on it.

You can see what it looks like in the photos below. Anyways, I have been wanting to use them for something but didn't have an idea back then of how to use them until recently I came up with the idea to recycle them as Raya cards. It doesn't necessarily need to be a Raya card. It can be used as any type of card for any occasion. But I decided to put a Raya sentiment inside so that I can use it myself to give to my loved ones this year. :D

On the inside of the card, once it is folded, you can see like an impressed image of the twin hearts....I really love it! So even though, I don't get to use the twin gold hearts on the outside as part of the decoration on the card, at least I get to see it on the inside.

Oh yeah, one more thing....I got this beautiful pattern papers from her as well. The papers are actually paper scraps that I received in different sizes. I couldn't use them for big projects, so I thought the idea of cutting them this way like small size washi tapes and pasting them on the card as a background design would be a great way to recycle them. I don't have a lot of washi tapes, so using scraps of pattern paper such as this in this technique would be great! And it's so simple too!

The Malaysian quilling flower! Gosh, I haven't been making these in ages! So it was a little awkward trying to make them again after a while, but I quickly got the hang of it after a few tries. They are so much fun to make and pretty too. Definitely not that difficult to make either. You can find a tutorial on how to make them on my YouTube channel and give a go if you are interested to make them yourself.

 

See all those teeny tiny paper dots?? Those are paper dots that I got whenever I use one of my craft punch. I was reluctant to throw them away and they make great background decorations if you know how to use them :).

These are some spiral pop ups I made for the pop up that I plan to paste inside the card. They are probably one of the easiest pop ups that I can make. Simple and fun to look at. :) Once I've cut them up, all that was needed to do was to just past the spiral pop ups with flowers and sentiment. I really enjoyed making this card as I can to recycle all the materials that I had in my craft room. I don't like keeping scraps of papers or card stocks in the room for too long. Need to make way for new materials and have fun experimenting with new ideas. Do check out the video of the card below. You can have an idea of how the spiral pops up inside card! :)

3 tier pop up birthday cake card

HB124

Just recently I made a handmade birthday card for a good friend of mine whom I've known for many years. We were room mates when we were studying in ITM. I had wanted to do this for her for quite a while now. Planning and planning but the plan didn't work out as it should and in the end I had to post the card to her instead of giving it to her by hand. I guess God had something else planned for me on that day. I'll just have to make another plan! haha! :D What matters is that she loved the card so much and that really is all I could ask for. To make her happy even if it was just for a day :).

OK! Back to the card! I came across some really nice DIY pop ups at a stationery store recently and I was really excited about it since I love pop ups so much. I never knew they sell these things! I've never seen them before. So you can surely imagine my excitement. Hahaha! Unfortunately, the choices that they had were quite limited. I wish they had more.

Usually I would make the pop ups myself from scratch but I thought it would be nice to once in a while use a ready made one instead for my handmade cards. It's so convenient especially if you are in a hurry to get a card done for someone's birthday. You can also add some personal touch to it if you like to make it different from the original design. But if not, you can just use it as it is.

It was not that difficult to fit the pop up birthday cake in my handmade card as I am quite familiar with the mechanics of the pop up. So it was easy peasy for me. Besides, they do have some photos in the package that explains how to fit the pop up inside the card. 

I also did something I've never done before with quilling flowers. A difference in technique in this case. Usually when I add more than one colour to each petal, it's mostly done using the combing technique.....but for this one I used the slotted quilling tool instead. Perhaps I should consider making a tutorial on how to get that effect on quilling flowers and leaves. If there is a demand for it....or not....I just have to find the time to do it. :)

Another different thing I did was sewing all around the decoration with multicoloured embroidery threads. No cross-stitch this time....just plain straight line. That was really fun! It created a texture on the card and a colourful background that would match the decorations. The gold painted soft clay that was pressed with a birthday sentiment was something new for me to experiment on with what I can do with soft clay. It reminded me of what I used to do with real clay back when I was studying ceramics. Gosh I missed it all so much!

Do check out the pop up birthday cake at the video below and you'll be able to see how it pops up in the card. :)

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!

Double star loop flower pop up birthday card

 HB122

The pop up craze and cross-stitch continues. Not to mention the washi tapes and soft clay too. I guess, you'll be seeing those things a lot in my future designs.....well at least for the next few weeks until I get a little bored using them for my handmade cards. Hehehehehe!!

I've been making a lot of the smaller size cards lately and for today I wanted to share a bigger one for a change. It's not that big though, just half the size of an A4 paper. I started with sewing the cross-stitch all around the edge of the card to form a frame for the decorations. I used 4 different types of red colour embroidery threads. I love the effect it gives compared to using just one type of colour.

The polka dots washi tapes was then lined up with the patterned papers, birthday sentiment, quilled flowers and leaves, and lastly touched up with the rhinestones. I made those double star loop flowers long time ago. But only now do I use them for my design. The flower itself is so tedious to make. Takes such a long time to complete one flower. I guess that's why I never used them before. I do have a tutorial on how to make them if you are interested to try. Check out the video below:

I've always wanted to make this type of pop up technique for my cards. It's not that difficult to make either. I like it a lot because I can paste so many flowers together and not worry about any of them bumping into each other whenever the card opens and closes. Basically, you can use all sorts of subjects to pop up with this technique. I'll definitely make more of this type of pop up in future now that I know how to do it. :) Do check out the video of the completed card at the video below and see how the pop up flowers spread open like a fan when the card opens up. Hope you all like it! :) Enjoy!

Just for you on this new year :)

Hope it's not too late for me to wish a very Happy New Year to everyone!! How's the new year been for everybody so far? Really good I hope....at least for me it's been a good start. I want to do my best to focus on good health and enjoying life as it comes. Don't want to stress myself too much. Last year was a really stressful year for me. So for this year, hopefully, more fun will come my way :D.

It's been a while since I last posted a handmade card design on this blog. I kept posting too much of handmade books. So I'm excited today to share a new card design here for the first time this year. It's a simple swing card design with a simple quilling flower arrangement on the front cover.

I haven't been quilling that much last year. Just some small projects done on quilling because most of the time I would be spending on making quilling starter packs instead. So it was a little exciting to do the quilling flower arrangement even though it was a simple one.

I love the huge wooden button because the design on the button was perfect for the pattern paper I chose for the card. It was a perfect match! It's not always that you can find two patterns of different material that compliments each other really well. So I had to add that button to the card. :)

I really like the olive green colours and how it combines really well with brown and other warm colours of the pattern paper. It gives a warm fuzzy feeling to it. This card can be used as a birthday card or a card for any occasion for that matter. And quite suitable to be given to a girl or a lady :).

More cards coming soon in shaa Allah......:)