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! :)

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! :)

DIY Jeans bag

Hi guys!! Today's post is all about recycling my old pair of jeans. Actually I have two pairs that needs recycling. Can't give them away to the needy because they are not in good condition. Who would want to wear them anyways right? They are not wearable anymore. But even though they are unwearable, I am really reluctant to throw them away because I love the material so much. Besides, there are dozens of ideas on the net that I can Google to find about what I can do with old worn out jeans.

I've seen images on Google and also on Pinterest before of old jeans turned into simple jeans bag many years ago. Back then I never thought that they were something that sewing beginners like me can do. So recently I decided to give it a go after watching a few tutorials on YouTube on how to make simple jeans bag. I dusted my old Singer sewing machine and started the jeans bag project.

For the first try, I decided to use the oldest pair between the two that I owned because I might make mistakes the first time. So if I use the worst one for my first try, which is the one that is light blue in colour then I won't feel so bad if I ruined it HAHAHA!!! Actually to be honest I would still feel bad if it didn't work out because I love both of them.

To make the jeans bag, I don't actually need to use the whole jeans. As you can see from my photos here, you'll get the idea how it's done. To make the bag, you can hand sew it if you don't have a sewing machine. But I decided to use both hand sewing and the sewing machine, depending on which part of the bag I need to sew. Because there are parts of the bag that is impossible for me to use the machine. Especially when trying to sew the handles to the bag and also the zipper.

The photos above shows how I sew the parts of the pants to make it even on both sides.

Then I would measure the length of the bag, make a line and sew from one end to the other and cut off the extra. Now the jeans looks like a bag but not quite yet because I need to sew both ends at the bottom so that it will give the bag some space inside. Otherwise it will look flat. Now all that is left is to sew the lining and later make the handles.

I searched for old fabrics in the store and I found this old square scarf that I owned many years ago.....to be exact, I wore it when I was 17 years old!!! It's a very old scarf!! LOL! Surprisingly it's still in good condition!! Maybe because I rarely wore it back then. So I decided to use it for the lining of the bag.

No fancy lining for the bag.....I just cut the enough of it for the bag and sew. I didn't make any pockets for the bag on the inside either because the material of the scarf is a bit thin. If it was cotton, it would be more suitable. I totally forgot to take photos of how I sew the handles!! Yikes!! But I did take photo of the early part where I show which part of the jeans that I used to make the handles.

This is the part! I used the whole length of the leg for the handles. I tried to make it as long as possible. If it's too short I won't be able to hang the bag on my shoulders. For the handles, I sew them using the sewing machine as it is faster and neater. It didn't take that long to sew them. It's very easy.

As you can see from the photo above, that's what the handles look like and I sew the handles and the lining at the same time inside the bag. I had to hand sew them because the top part of the jeans had some metal studs that were in the way. If I used the machine, it might break the needle. So to be safe, I decided to hand sew them instead. I did the best I can to make sure the sewing is neat and strong enough, especially for the handles, because it's a big bag. The sewing needs to be done properly or not the handle may not withstand the weight of the bag if I put a lot of stuff in it.

After I finished sewing the lining of the bag and the handles, I proceeded sewing the zipper. It took me some time to find the right zipper for the bag in Alor Setar. There's not a lot of options here for zippers. But fortunately I found one that I really love and it's suitable for a jeans bag. It's actually not meant for bags, but it's for a jacket!! But I really love it because it's so smooth when I open and close the zipper. And the best part is that it has the length that I was looking for!! Yay!! It's so difficult to find a zipper that I wanted. Sometimes I like the design but it didn't have the right length or visa versa. So this jacket zipper was perfect!!!

The first part of sewing the zip was done using the sewing machine and the final part was hand sewn. I also had to sew the end part of the zipper because as you all know, zippers for jackets don't have a stopper. So if I didn't sew the end part of it, the zipper will come off if you accidentally open it all the way to the end. Luckily that is not a difficult thing for me to solve. Just sewing it at the end solved the problem. So that's the end of the sewing project!!

In the beginning, I thought of decorating the bag with laces or some beads and buttons. Funny how in the end I prefer the bag to be left plain as it is....simple. Maybe because I myself am a very simple and practical person. I always look for function and practicality in anything. The beauty always comes second. Hope to make more handmade bags in future. It's so much fun to wear something that I make myself. :)