Rainbow coloured birthday card

Hello everyone!

Here's another stitched card I made for the craft product review recently. The arrow tag die cut is made using the arrow tag die I received from In Love Arts Shop. I've been wanting to get me that arrow tag die for the longest time. LOL! I don't know why but I just love to use that arrow tag for my handmade cards. I used to cut my own arrow for my handmade cards but why cut it myself when I can use a die for it right?? It looks so much better too compared to the one I made on my own. There's something about cutting with dies that is just so much more professional looking I suppose. I'm sure a lot of people would agree with me on that. :D

If you guys are interested to purchase the dies I used for this card, do click on the links I placed below the photos of the dies. Apply the code : FSAZLINA when you make the purchase to get 15% off every purchase. Worldwide free shipping for orders over $25! Thank you so much! J

Arrows Tag Dies

United States

SKU: DMZH075

http://bit.ly/336lf8M

What I love most about this card would have to be the rainbow coloured background made by stitching several coloured embroidery threads on the card. I sometimes gets confused when stitching because there's too many colours involved, LOL! Great thing about stitched backgrounds is that when the stitches itself is already covering a big portion of the card, there won't be a lot to do other than adding just a simple touch to complete the design. Which in this case, I just added a flower and some leaves plus a sentiment. Done! 

I don't have a tutorial for the rainbow stitches but I do have quilling tutorials for the leaves and the flower. But not a rainbow flower though, it's the same quilling flower design but with different colours. You'll get the idea how it's done when you view the tutorial. Do check out the videos below! Thank you so much for watching :).

Rainbow heart pop up card

Hi there!

I'm blogging again today about one of the cards that I made using dies from In Love Arts Shop. I love this one especially because it has a pop up heart inside.

I've made a rainbow heart card like this previously but this one is a little different because the quilling rainbow heart has many more loops than the one I did in the tutorial. A bit more complicated and time consuming as well. I didn't really enjoyed myself making this one, LOL! It maybe my last time making it hehehe!

Anyways, I did however love doing the cross stitch! I think this pattern suits the card the best. Love stitches like that on cards. It's simple and pretty. Pretty simple to sew too.

Of course the die cut letters are the best! It was a little harder to cut that gold glittered paper because it was really thick but managed to cut it after rolling it through the die cut machine 4 to 5 times. The glitters made it difficult to cut through easily. But I really love the results. Really suits the card. I purposely glued the letters on a coloured plastic sheet so that it would look like the letters are floating on the card.

The pop up is just a simple one. I didn't want to make it too complicated. It's a small card anyways. Not much space to do a complicated pop up there. I made sure the heart pops on the left so that there's a lot of space to write wishes on the right side of the card. If you wish to learn how to make that pop up, do let me know so that I can do that tutorial for you.

If you guys are interested to purchase the dies I used for this card, do click on the links I placed below the photos of the dies. Apply the code : FSAZLINA when you make the purchase to get 15% off every purchase. Worldwide free shipping for orders over $25! Thank you so much! 

English Letters Alphabet Dies

SKU: DMZH194

http://bit.ly/2WudYNy

Love You Heart Arrow Decoration Dies

SKU: DMZH186

http://bit.ly/2ozWlPJ

Blue stitched card with blue quilling flower

Hello everyone!

I am excited to share with you today this handmade card because it has both the things that I love doing which are stitching on cards and quilling! 

I made that quilling flower a while ago but never used it for any of my handmade cards until recently when I got that happy birthday die from In Love Arts.

The various stitches on the card was made earlier too when I was experimenting with different yarns and threads for stitching on paper. It's like a stitch sample kinda method. I really love the results and it's a great method to use if you have many leftover yarns or threads that you can't use anymore for big projects but they're just enough for decorating on a card. 

The paper I used for the happy birthday die cut was given to me by a friend in USA long time ago and it was perfect to use with the die. It has this thick shiny like glaze on the paper with some glitters on it too. When cut, it looks like I heat embossed it! LOL! Love it! 

Although it looks like a simple card to make but actually it's not! It super time consuming and difficult to make especially the quilling flower. I love the big quilling flower but it sucks the energy out of me. So I can't make a lot of it at any one time. You can learn how to make it from the video below.

This is an easy card to assemble once all the stitching and quilling is done. I wouldn't mind making it again with a different colour combination. :)

I gave this card to my Aunty Hamidah who is my Mother's good friend  since primary school. We're good friends with her family as well. So we go way back. She is such a darling. Love her! :)

Sewing on paper for beginners

Hello everyone!

As promised, I made this very basic video tutorial explaining how I sew on paper and use them as part of the decoration on my handmade cards. Most of you would know how much I love sewing on paper for many years now but most of the sewing that I did before were pretty basic and simple. I wasn't brave enough to do a more complicated design until I figured things out and realised how easy it is to do it given the right method.

All these years, I've been doing it wrong until recently I started using graph paper. Graph paper is a fantastic medium for sewing on paper because it has all those guide lines all ready on the paper. All that is needed for me to do is decide on what design I want to do and mark them on the paper. Once they are marked, I simply just pierced the graph paper through, which will also pierce together the card stock underneath it. The graph paper is especially wonderful if we want to do cross stitch designs. I love cross stitch!

There's just so many designs you can choose from and apply them on the card and sew. Free ideas and patterns are available in embroidery books or on the internet. Thousands to choose from! There is no limit to what you can do with sewing. I love using ideas from cross stitch books or embroidery books. So many inspirations there. 

You can add beads and sequins too! Just like how I showed in the video below. If you haven't seen my previous post "Stitching on cards", do click on the link HERE . I posted a lot of photos of my work there where I did a lot of cross stitch and simple embroidery on cards. Do check out the video below to see how I begin sewing on paper/cards and how I end them. It's a little different compared to sewing on fabric and so therapeutic too. Hope you will give it a try yourself. Thank you for watching! ;)

Stitching on cards

It's been a while since I last blogged here and honestly I really miss it so much. I haven't been in the best of health lately, physically challenged and quite frankly it's draining me. Music and craft have been the things that entertained me and kept me positive all the while. Of course above all is having faith in the Almighty  that all the pain is just temporary and I will see that beautiful rainbow again. Nothing is permanent, so that's how I try to keep positive always. Learn to manage the problem and all will be well.

Those who have been following me here over the years would know how I much I love sewing on paper and how I love to use them as part of the decorations on my handmade cards. Creating simple lines with colourful embroidery threads and adding beads and sequins to them too. Well, this time around I wanted to do more.

I was inspired to do more when I stumbled upon this very creative lady named Jennifer McGuire on YouTube. She is also a crafter, and she loves to hand stitch beautiful designs on her handmade cards. Of course that's not just what she does as a crafter, obviously she makes other creative designs which I also love. I just fell in love with her work! Love them all!

So off I went to try hand stitching the way she does, unfortunately it's not as easy as how she does it because she has a cross-stitch die that is to die for!! Haha! I can't seem to find anyone selling the cross stitch dies here. There are a few different types of them for different projects. Even if they do sell them, I'll bet the dies would be very expensive to buy. But those cross-stitch die makes it so much easier to hand stitch any design I want. So since I don't have them, I had to do the hand stitching the hard way, which involves me poking the paper manually with a quilling needle like there's no tomorrow. LOL! Yes, it takes forever to finish poking those tiny holes. But once they're done, I'm all hyped up to stitch!

I could do cross stitch designs or any stitch design that I want on paper. All up to my creativity. I just love the idea of how easy it is to beautify a card simply by adding a layer of paper that is stitched. I don't even have to add any flowers or other embellishments if I didn't want to. Just add a simple sentiment and the card is done. 

I'll try to make a video explaining how I hand stitch on paper soon. It's actually very easy to do especially if you have tried cross stitch before or embroidery. The only difference is how to start sewing it and how to end the stitch on paper. I used to have problems sewing on paper, but ever since I learned the technique, I find it super easy. The only thing that's difficult is poking the holes of each design. That needs a lot of focus and concentration. One mistake will ruined the whole design.

Below are some random stitching I did for my cards! ;)

I really enjoyed stitching this purple and pink combo. So happy I could finally use this design that I got from an embroidery book I bought years ago. When I first got the book, I didn't think I would be able to do this type of stitching because it looked so hard to do. But now that I've learned a lot about how to stitch on paper, this design seemed easy for me to do compared to doing the cross-stitch ones and I could complete it a lot faster as well. I love the fact that I could embellish the card with some colourful bling bling on it too. They just gives it a more special effect to the card.

This cross-stitch design with just one white colour thread used took me the longest to complete. I hope to make another one with a different colour. But white can certainly match with a lot of embellishments or if I were to add quilling flowers and leaves to it.

I love the simplicity of this design. The easiest and the fastest to complete! Haha! It started as a cross-stitch design but I ended up joining the crosses to each other and suddenly it becomes another type of stitching altogether. I just love how it turned out. Of course colours can change according to what colour of embellishments you wish to add to the card. So, planning ahead about what you want to put on the card is always a good thing before you choose the colour of thread to stitch on paper that acts as the frame. At first I wanted to place the quilling flower on the card but I decided to use the printed cut outs I bought some time ago. The colours really matched the thread!! :) It's a simple design that I could easily do and use when I'm in a hurry.

Ok! So if you were to check out Jennifer McGuire's work, you could see that my design here was inspired by her work. She just loves to stitch design like this for her cards and her designs are just beautiful! It's like stitching samplers on the card. The colours she chooses and the thread she uses are a bit different from what I choose for my designs. Because I use what I have available. I don't want to buy new materials to create something new because I have too many craft goodies in my craft room that are begging me to use them! LOL!! Like seriously, I have too many things that I bought in the past or things that were given to me that desperately needs my attention right now. I need to use them up so that I can have more space in my craft room. And this sewing project is definitely helping me achieve my mission.

Stitching colours of the rainbow!! Oh God this one took a really really long time for me to finish sewing all those colourful threads. I just can't imagine doing this one again any time soon. I would have to be in a very very good mood and have a lot of chocolates at hand before I start doing this one again, LOL!! Too many colours and too time consuming. But I really love the final effect.

So these are just some random examples of what I've been up to since July. Now in September, I'm still experimenting with what I can do with thread and paper. I will definitely do more of this in future and I'll share it here for all to see. There's just a million things one can do with thread and paper! :)

My first twist circle pop up card

HR033

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!

Miniature hand knitted sweaters on Christmas cards

Hello everyone!

I'm sure a lot of you are in a holiday mood and can't wait to celebrate Christmas that is just around the corner. I've just finished making these cute pop up Christmas cards for my friends. Looks like I'm late again and the cards would probably arrive to them after Christmas.

I had it all planned out so well but God knows best. I thought this year I could get my Christmas cards done early and have them arrive to my friends a few days before Christmas. But unfortunately, things didn't work out as planned. Something horrible happened to my Mom and all my work had to be put to a stop! My Mom fell in her bathroom and hit her head on the floor a couple of weeks ago. She had to be warded for about a week and is on the road to recovery now, alhamdulillah.

It was really a difficult time for me and my Mom. None of us has ever experienced something like that before so it was an eye opener and we learned a lot from the experience. I hope to never have to go through all that again. We are indeed very very careful now. 

Actually I started making the knitted sweaters before the accident. I also made the Christmas cards as at the same time as well. But I didn't get the chance to blog about it earlier or completed the whole card because of the accident. So today I finally get to complete them all. There are actually 2 different designs of knitted cards that I managed to do for Christmas this year. The other one I will share with you here in another post soon.

I made the simplest pop up Christmas tree ever! In fact I think this is the simplest pop up I've ever made for any card. When you are in a hurry and do not have enough time, you just gotta do with what you can. I like it, and that is what is important. No point doing something you don't like right??

I can't believe that I made those tiny sweaters! They are so cute! I'm still a beginner so the pattern is very basic and very easy to do. I couldn't find any tutorial on how to make them so I just wing it! Can't believe I manage to pull it off! Hope to learn more on how to make a more realistic looking miniature sweaters in future.