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!! :)

Red and Yellow Roses tri shutter birthday card

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Red and yellow roses together! I don't think I've ever done that before! But I'm loving it now :). When I was requested to do this combination, I must admit I was little worried but once I found the right pattern paper to match the roses, I was able to figure out how to decorate the card with those colours.

 

These colours turned out looking really bright! I was able to tone it down just a little bit with the cream and dark green colours. This tri shutter card design is similar to the previous tri shutter card design I made before. The only difference is that I just change the colours and the sentiments. The one before was an anniversary card and I think I added less roses for that one. For this new one I figured out how to add more of it without disturbing any parts of the front design and photo frame. 

I had trouble deciding on how to add the sentiment on the front part of the card. The photo frame is big and there isn't much space to add any words without disturbing the photo frame. A decision had to be made and I decided that I would write the sentiments using the brush lettering technique coz then I'll be able to fit in those roses nicely on the photo frame. Unlike the previous design I made the sentiments by stamping the sentiments using clear stamps. They were big size fonts and would definitely not be able to fit all the words. So the brush lettering saved my day!

Here's how I wrote it using the smallest brush I had....

I'm having problems with my right hand now after a minor accident at home. It's a little bit challenging to write now as it hurts quite bad especially when writing with a brush. I definitely need to get me a better brush pen or calligraphy dip pen for writing sentiments as I love how the thin and thick lines form during the writing process. It's a little different than using a ball point pen where the lines are the same thickness. I'm a little over obsessed with the lines these days! haha! Who knew I would be? And it's all because of the brush lettering I've been doing the past few months that got me concerned about it. I think I would be for quite a long time! Haha!

Do check out the video I took of the card and see it in motion! Thank you!

Happy 2nd Anniversary tri-shutter card

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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!

Elephant and Horse theme birthday card

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I've said it before.....I'm not good at making cards for men. But I wanted to challenge myself when asked for the second time around from my customer to make a birthday card for her hubby that has an elephant and a horse in it. 

The elephant represents my customer and the horse represents her hubby. I was given full freedom to design the card. The time given to complete it was more than enough..... in fact, she gave me ample time to think it over and get it done. I took such a long long time to do it because the idea did not appear when it should have....if you know what I mean! hehe! 

At last I finally got it done. A lot of technique came to mind when thinking of how to do the animals.....but in the end I decided to go with felt as it is easy to draw on and form the shape of the animals.

I loved using distress ink to enhance the look of the card. It makes such a huge difference if the distress ink is used compared to when it's not. It's something that I can seem to let go of when making cards nowadays. I also fancy the designer papers that I chose for this card. I'll bet my friend Sandi Staley would recognize the papers since she was the one who gave them to me to play with! ehehe!

All in all I'm glad that my customer is so very patient with me.....I wish I am much more creative in thinking of new ideas for custom orders in future so that my customers wouldn't have to wait such a long time for me to get a card done. I'm so relieved that she loved the card so much. That really made my day! ;)

A combination of something old and new....

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Ok....I gotta admit.....I have used this purple floral pattern paper for my handmade cards more than once! In fact I've used it twice already. And now for the 3rd time I'm using the same ones. Have a look at the link HERE and HERE to view the older designs of tri-shutter cards that I have made using the purple floral pattern paper.

In this design I have actually combined some of the old designs from the other tri-shutter cards I've made and turned it into something new. Made some changes here and there and walla! It's done and I gotta say that this is my favourite among the three designs.

This is the first time I tried to make the double bow using a 1/8 inch satin ribbon. I saw a tutorial on how to make it on Youtube. I never knew how simple it is to make it until I saw the tutorial. Gosh, I've got a lot to learn! There's so many great tutorials on Youtube.....I just need to find time to view them all hehe!

Another part of the card that I thought was nice are the white polka dots on the dark purple textured paper. I punched out some white paper dots and glued them one by one on the dark purple textured paper. I love how the dots can make such a difference on the look of the card. It just changes everything don't you think so? :)

One other thing that I like about the card is the colour of the distress ink which I blended on all sides of the tri-shutter card to give a dark walnuty shade behind the pattern paper. I just love doing that for my tri-shutter cards these days.

You can have a look at the tri-shutter card and see how it opens up and closes from the video below:

Japanese motifs tri shutter card

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Someone requested me to make a card design months ago that is similar to my old card design which you can view HERE. It was an anniversary card that I made some time back but was very limited in stock because of it's pattern paper that I used for that design. I didn't have a lot of stock of that particular pattern paper therefore I was not able to remake it for customers who were interested in ordering it. But since so many liked it so much I decided to make a new design that is similar to it. But in this design, it will be a birthday card and not an anniversary card. But I can just simply change the wordings to fit the occasion because I feel that the design is suitable for both occasions :).

I had with me some pattern papers that I received from Wholeport which I thought would be suitable for this design. And sure enough, they fit really well together.....they compliment each other. Both pattern papers has Japanese motifs on them which I adore a lot.

I used the same type of flowers that I used for the earlier design. It's actually a die-cut flower which I embossed to get the 3D effect. I still maintained the foam hearts design except that the foam hearts which I used here are glittered ones. They are hand cut foam hearts by the way. I cut them myself using just plain scissors.

I gotta say I love the pop up heart that I made for this trishutter card. All because I used a die-cut heart patterns which I recently bought. I pasted 2 more die-cut heart pattern on the left and right side of the pop up heart for the sender to write special wishes on.

I'm so glad my customer loved it so much.....especially since she had to wait so long to get it.....thank you so much for your kind patience my dear ;).

You can view the trishutter card more closely at the video below:

Cherry blossom tri shutter card

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I was playing around with one of the the free origami paper I received from Wholeport the other day and I thought of cutting them up this way using the die cut machine and pasting them all over the tri shutter card. I've never done something like this before and I find it quite amusing :D. 

I wanted the tri shutter card to look like as if the card itself was originally with patterns even though it was not.....it's just a plain white cardstock. But now it is heavily embellished with pattern paper all over it. It looks a bit messy with the pattern paper all over it, which is not usually my style but I still gave it a try to see how it would look like in the end.

The yellowish scallop circles are for writing on personal wishes. I purposely made them in different sizes hehe.....so the personal wishes can be written in different sections of the card. :)

The pop up hearts I pasted at two different sections in the card is something I am excited about. I've never done it this way before.....usually I only make the heart pop in one section. It's new for me and I'm getting a few more ideas for new tri shutter cards to be done in a similar way.

Another thing I love about this design is the tiny cherry blossoms! I love embossing them this way and arranging them this way. It's simple and yet so cute because of their small size! hehe! I love making them! They suit the pattern paper a lot ;) You can view how the tri shutter card opens up and pops the hearts inside it at the video I prepared below....do check it out :).

Rich colour combination

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This design is a remake of a trishutter card I made in 2011. That 2011 trishutter card looks similar to this new design and it was the one and only design I made because the pattern paper that I used for that design was so limited that I was only able to make one card with those pattern paper. You can view that card HERE. 

So when I suddenly got a request to do that same design again, I knew that I had to remake it using new pattern papers and luckily I had some pattern papers that had a similar colour to the original design. And lucky also for me that my customer didn't mind me using a new pattern paper for the card. So I had complete freedom to create a new anniversary card design for my customer. 

Although this design seems new now, I still manage to maintain some of the original design in this new one.....for example like those foam hearts at the top and bottom of the card.....and also the tiny flower sequins.....I still maintain the same colour combination ....the colours are red, dark red, mustard yellow and dark pink. 

The differences that are pretty obvious are the pop up heart.....which I hand carved some designs on it....I loved doing that... :). The original design just had a simple curved line that I hand carved but this time around I carved out something that is a lot more complicated for me to do. I enjoyed doing it though.

Another new thing for me is making those embossed flowers for the front of the card. Those flowers and leaves were die cut and then embossed using embossing tools. I gotta say I really enjoyed making them for the first time. I'll consider embossing more flowers from now onwards instead of just cutting and pasting them straight on the card like that.....embossing them, gives the flowers and leaves a much better effect....gives them some dimension. :)

I die cut a couple of squarish shaped paper and pasted them inside the card for my customer to use as a space to write on personal wishes since he didn't asked me to print any wordings for him. Hope that there are enough space for him to write on. I had another idea for writing spaces on trishutter card, but will use that idea for my next design. :) Have a look at how the trishutter card opens up at the video below :).