Personalised cards are now closed for orders

Hello everyone!

I have given a lot of thought and I have to come to a decision to make an announcement today that I will be taking a break from taking orders of personalised handmade cards starting from today till further notice. 

As you all know, I'm also selling craft products and that as well has taken a lot of my time away from making handmade cards. I'm struggling to juggle both work at the same time.

However, I do plan to make ready made cards for sale here at my blog and at Facebook in future. Will be showcasing them when all are completed and ready for sale. You will be able to pick your favourite handmade cards at an album in my Fan page or in my blog and buy the cards that I showcase there. 

Truly sorry for any inconveniences and thank you so much for your kind understanding.

Twisted blue flowers

Played with my quilling comb again last night! hihi! And I made these twisted blue flowers as a result ;D. Remember the previous post where I made the leaves for the Malaysian flower using the quilling comb? Well, I used the same technique for these flowers. The only difference is that I used two different colours in one petal. One dark blue and the other is sky blue :). I just had to try make flowers with this technique. Just had to! haha! I just wanted to see what it looks like as flowers. :)

This card is was not meant for anything in particular.....just playing and it's suitable for any occasion. Will think of what else I can add on later to make it complete. Some wordings or pop up inside. Not sure yet. ;)

I made a video on how you can make the two tone cascading loops flower. Once you know how to make it, you can twist the loops inside it. Do check it out :).

Malaysian flower

Malaysian flower.......yes, that's what it's called :). This quilled flower is originally a creation of Miss Solehah Muhammad, founder of My Quilling Soul. You can view her tutorial on how she makes the Malaysian Flower at the link HERE. Ever since she created this design, so many card designers out there have tried their hand at making this special quilled flower. I myself have never tried making them until a couple of days ago when I had the urge to do so after seeing a friend of mine's Malaysian flower on Facebook :). I just had to try it once and for all! And now I'm addicted to it! LOL! :D

I've always had the impression that it will never turn out nice if I were to use shredded paper. Because all this time I've seen a lot of this Malaysian flower made by other card designers using clean cut quilling paper and they look so beautiful. The quilled design inside each petal can be seen so clearly when using the clean cut quilling paper. So since I myself love using the shredded type that has a lot of rough edges, I thought perhaps there was no point for me to try making them using the shredded paper as I thought it wouldn't look as nice. But after trying it out, I find that it doesn't look that bad after all hihihi. The quilled design inside each petal can be seen quite clearly if done the right way. :)

This is the first time as well for me to make the quilled leaves like that. I used the quilling comb to make  a few cascading loops of different sizes and then, with a slotted quilling tool, I twisted each loop inside each leaf, to the left and to the right :). Pretty easy! Love how it looks! hihi! 

Again I made the layout of this card similar like the card I made previously. I just changed the positions of the frame that's all hihihi! So simple! :D

Here's how I did it the Malaysian flower......first of all, for each petal, I used a shredded paper strip that is 29.7cm in length and and 0.35cm wide and about 80gsm in thickness. I personally prefer to use this type of shredded paper as it's easier for me to form the shape of the petal if it's not that thick. Although a lot of people have used thicker quilling strips for this, but since this is my first time trying it, I thought I should just try the 80gsm instead. Feel free to use any type of quilling strips that you are comfortable with :).

Do check out below the video tutorial I made and also step by step photos on how to make this quilled Malaysian flower ;).

At first I used the circle template as a guide for me to get the exact same shape of coils....but in the end, I just quilled each paper strip and then I let them loose on the cutting board like the photo above. 

Then I gently lift one of the quilled circle with my fingers and like the photo above, I used a bamboo skewer and pressed gently the quilled circle to fold it in half to form the shape of the petal. After that I glued the end of the strip. Then I wrapped a few rounds of the beige coloured shredded paper strip around each of the orange petal quilled shape like the photo you see below. Have fun making your own Malaysian flower!!  :)

Bright and sweet coloured flowers

I've been playing with the quilling comb a lot lately and been experimenting on new flower designs. Been thinking of what other designs I can do with the quilling comb and I thought of doing something like the above. It's actually a cascading loop technique that I used to make the petals. For one petal, I glued 3 loops together. So, there's quite a few loops to glue together in order to get just one flower. I used 2 different colour quilling strips for the flower. One cyber pink and the other is fluorescent pink. As you can see, I used shredded strips of paper, that's why the flower has those rough edges. I still haven't thought of getting those clean cut ones. Perhaps one day I will but for now, I still enjoy using the shredded type.

As you can see, I seem to love making layouts for my cards this way lately. Perhaps because it's simple and easy to do hihi! No other reason. :D The plain white metallic background highlights the flower designs and puts them in a frame. So the eyes are focused on just that particular part of the card. I was thinking of doing more to it but not just yet. Just enjoy making the flowers and leaves first and think of the rest later ;).

Bookmarks for Shruti & Ritesh

BM018

BM019

A request I received from a dear customer about 2 months ago to make some handmade cards and paper beaded bookmarks for her and dear husband. I took such a long time to get them done, but finally they are all done and ready to be posted. I'm so happy about that. I wish my customer didn't have to wait so long. Luckily for me my customer is such a sweetie. Such a patient customer she is. One of a kind :).

She was very much interested in my paper beaded bookmarks, especially the ones I made that has carved names on them. She requested for her name and hubby's on the bookmarks. One red and the other blue. The bookmarks are quite big in size, about 19.4cm x 7.7cm. I couldn't make them smaller because of the size of the letters and the carved out shapes around it that won't fit in a smaller size bookmark. 

I put extra beads as well for each bookmark since the size of bookmark is bigger. The more the merrier :). 

Sweet Leaves - Quilling Blog Hop

Hello!! Welcome to the Sweet Leaves Quilling Blog Hop at Lin Handmade Greeting Cards! I'm blog number 6! If you have just hopped from Anastasia's blog then you are on the right track! hihi! 

This is my second time participating in Leesandra Diaz's quilling blog hop! So exciting! 22 quillers from across the globe are participating in this wonderful event. This time around the theme for the blog hop is  "Leaves".

I didn't know where to start or how to go about it at first but being a card maker, I ended up making a quilled card after all in the end as it's something I'm familiar with hihihi.....plus I wanted to do this new technique I've learned using the quilling comb, which is my new love in my life hahaha. Yup, I love this new quilling tool. I've been experimenting a lot with it ever since I bought it and learning new techniques that I can do with it. I just love seeing the patterns made using this quilling comb on the card :).

I first got the idea to do the quilled leaves from Leesandra Diaz's post regarding the different types of leaves we can make for this theme. And she showed a PHOTO of Sonali's creations of quilled leaves that caught my eyes. I immediately wanted to try one of the techniques and I changed it a bit to make it my own :). I'm really loving it!

I made a very simple layout for the card and only made one quilled flower using the cascading loop technique and some quilled leaves attached to it. Just a simple design to showcase the quilling comb patterns. No ribbons, no fancy embellishments whatsoever. Just a simple, clean cut design, just the way I like it :).

Thank you for hopping by here and viewing my card design and the next blog in line to hop to is Thusitha's blog! Check the list below! Have fun blog hopping! :)

NORTH AMERICA 

Leesandra Diaz - http://sweetspotcards.blogspot.com/ (START OF THE BLOG HOP)

AFRICA

Jacquiline - http://cutekipepeo.blogspot.com/

ASIA

Syaz - http://syazcards.blogspot.com/

Suganthi - http://papercraftss.blogspot.com/

Anastasia - http://anastasiaw.blogspot.com/

YOU ARE HERE (Lin) - http://azlina-lin.blogspot.com/

HOP TO THE NEXT BLOG BELOW:

Thusitha - http://craftsimagery.blogspot.com/

Miez - http://miezam.blogspot.com/

Amna - http://alfardh.blogspot.com/

EUROPE

Cristina - http://cristina-funquilling.blogspot.com/

Suzana - http://quillingwithfun.blogspot.com/

Finnuala - http://quillingowo.blox.pl/html

Pritesh - http://quillingmesoftlee.blogspot.com/

Philippa - http://quilliance.blogspot.com/

NORTH AMERICA

Jennifer - http://www.creativequilledcreations.blogspot.com/

Paula - http://chillinwithquillin.blogspot.com/

Linda - http://www.myquillingnest.com/

Shruti - http://eenzybeenzy.blogspot.com/

Melissa - http://sleeplesswonder.blogspot.com/

AUSTRALIA

Bronwyn - http://quillme.blogspot.com/

SOUTH AMERICA

Regina - http://regina-ribeiro.blogspot.com/

Natilde - http://natiquill.blogspot.com

A tri-shutter card with pop up!

AC008

At last......it's done. And I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. :) I never thought that what my customer suggested to me would actually work out in the end. I think sometimes my own customer has more faith in me that I do with myself. She actually believed that I could do it even though I didn't in the beginning. And sure enough I did it. And I have her to thank for this. If it wasn't for her, I don't think I would have done it at all. So, thank you so much Sharifah, for believing in me ;).

If you are wondering what I'm talking about, I was actually referring to the pop up inside the tri-shutter card. It's a simple pop up. Much simpler than the one my customer requested in the beginning. When I told her I couldn't deliver what she requested, she then told me to just make simple one as long as there is a pop up inside it. So, I did a simple pop up, with a slight difference from my usual heart shape pop up. I did a cut out at the heart shape itself and added a couple of small hand cut heart shapes on it. All the heart shapes inside the tri-shutter card are hand cut by yours truly, including the foam hearts. :)

My customer loved my AC007 card, especially the foam hearts on it, so that's why I added them to this card but I chose a different colour for each foam heart and added gold and silver glitter glue on them to make them look fancy :).

This card has an Indian influence in it. That's why the I've chosen the these types of colour and patterned paper for it. It suits the occasion and gives it the touch of Indian fashion and design to it. I added those gold coloured sequins on the patterned paper. It seems to fit just nicely on it. I love the effect it gives. :)

I would have thank my dear friend Sandi for these patterned paper. She gave them to me for my birthday and I just had to use them for this custom order that I thought suited it perfectly. So, looks like I can't make the exact same design anymore because this paper is limited. Thus making this card a one of a kind. I won't be able to make another one just like it......... :)

Featured in Sinar Harian - Niaga Online

I'm featured in the newspaper today! ;) This time it's from Sinar Harian. A one page article about my online business. I was approached by a journalist, Miss Norhana Fariza from Sinar Harian a few months ago to do an interview regarding my online business and the whole interview was done through email. That's how easy it is nowadays, the distance is no longer an issue. So even though she is in Kuala Lumpur, and I'm in Alor Setar, we can still do the interview via email :). 

I answered all of her questions through email and gave her the permission to use my photos from the blog for this article. :)

I'm very thankful to Sinar Harian that I was given this opportunity to be featured in their newspaper. I didn't imagine that I would get the chance to be featured again this year hihi. So thank you so much for supporting and appreciating what I do for a living....I feel blessed indeed :).

I took the photo of me with the cards on my working table all by myself...hehehe......so please excuse the blurry photo haha. I put my digital camera on a box and pressed on the self timer and got the shot! I should get myself a tripod one of these days! haha! I said it before but never bought one yet......guess it's high time I did :D. It would have been much easier to take photos if I had that tripod around. ;)

Combing two tone flowers

As you can all see........yes, truly, deeply I'm absolutely addicted to this quilling comb tool nowadays :D, I can't help it. I don't know when is it going to wear off......hopefully not anytime soon haha. I happen to stumble upon another design in the net when I was doing my research on the quilling comb technique and I saw some images of the flowers with two colors in it. That really caught my eye! I kept wondering how do I do it??? I couldn't find any video tutorials on how to do it so I kept experimenting on my own until I found the way. 

It's actually quite simple. The concept is the same like the looping technique whereby you glue two different colours of quilling strips together at the ends and off you go and use the quilling comb to slip the strips each colour at a time through the quilling comb. I haven't the chance to do a tutorial on this yet but will do so when I have the time. :)

I love the blank cards I got from my friend Sandi and I used them to decorate the quilled items on it. I really adore the gold frame around it. :) Such a small cute card, suitable for using as a thank you card or just a note card. I wonder where can I buy cards like that here in Malaysia.....does anyone know? 

Below are a couple more cards I made combining two colours of quilling strips for the flower. :)

I'm not sure if you can see clearly here in this cascading loop technique the two different tone of pink quilling paper combined in one. One is cyber pink and the other is fluorescent pink. One darker shade and the other is lighter. I just love this particular technique the best :).

Creating cascading loops

Ok....it's official....I'm addicted to using this quilling comb!! I've been combing these flowers non stop. I should stop and concentrate on finishing up my card orders! haha! I'm just super excited that's all......it's like having a new toy and I just can't stop playing with it. I just found out another technique from the internet that I can do using the quilling comb and that's how it looks. I love it! Here's some more below. The one below is the one I tried making in the beginning and the one on top is the one I did later on. I got to make the petals in that shape just by pushing the ends of the petals inwards, thus making it broader in shape.

It's actually very very easy to do and I've taken some photos of how I made the petals. Have a look at them below. I hope you can understand how it is done just by looking at those step by step photos of the combing technique and try making the flowers yourself using the quilling comb :). You can also view this video tutorial I made on how to make these cascading loops. Do check it out! ;)

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

STEP 4

STEP 5

*As you can see at the photo above, every time I slip the quilling strips through the comb I would put some white glue at the bottom part so that each loop would stick at the ends and so the loops won't get loose easily.

STEP 6

The final result.......a petal.....which can also be turned into a leaf if you use green quilling strips. :)

I also tried to use two different sizes of petals in one flower and I used two different type of colours too. There is no limit to what we can do with this technique......we can also combine different colours in one petal too! I have yet to try that, but will do so soon! hihi! Below is the last flower I did for today. :) So happy!!