Mr. Ian, the Penguin, is Turning 21.

So today is my housemate Ian's 21st, and it's a bit of a tradition for all of us here at the Woolly Mammoth to celebrate each other's birthdays (seriously, we've had the 'Happy 21st Birthday!!!!' banners up all around the house since Katie's birthday at the start of the year. I mean, why bother taking them down when there's a birthday to celebrate nearly every month?), and I have whipped up a card for everyone's birthday this year so of course I couldn't leave Ian out.

One of the hardest things about making cards is trying to get inspired - I find myself spending days trying to figure out what sort of card to make for specific people, trawling through sites like Pinterest and Tumblr for any sort of idea at all. Therefore, it was a pleasant surprise for me when I thought 'right. Ian. Birthday. Penguins!!!'.

This may or may not have something to do with the fact that Ian's one of the quirkiest people I know and owns a penguin onesie. And has pictures of penguins taped up in his room next to pictures of other wildlife and tennis players. (Why not a tennis theme, you ask - and I answer: penguins are wayyyyyyy cuter.)

So penguin it was. I typed 'penguins' into Tumblr search to find some references, and found this adorable GIF of penguins in sweaters. I mean LOOK AT THEM. In all different shapes and sizes and sweaters with hearts on!!

My workspace as I'm about to start crafting. I am a happy, happy child at this stage (because the stress of things not working out hasn't settled in yet).

With the reference picture (GIF) in front of me, I grab a piece of scrap paper from my stash (I'm not kidding, I collect discarded printouts from the university printers (which only print one side, usually), and use it for my own printing paper) and start sketching:

 I also sketched out the shape of the sweater so that I could use it as a template to cut my felt. Although, if you look at just the bottom half of the penguin, he kind of looks like I just left him in his underpants.

Once the sketch was done, I turned the piece of paper over, grabbed a 2B pencil and shaded in the back area of the image. This helps me transfer the sketch onto the actual cardstock/paper I want to use when I place the sketch over the cardstock/paper and re-trace my lines with more pressure. You could use carbon paper to skip the shading part, but childhood experiences with the carbon paper tells me that it smudges very easily - and dirty cardstock/paper is not something you want to be dealing with.

I transferred the image to three separate colours of card - a dark grey for the main body, a pearlescent white for the inner portion, and yellow cardstock for the beak and feet; I then cut them out and assembled the pieces using glue tape.

Next, I used the penguin itself as a guide to drawing the sweater - I placed Mr. Ian face-down on my felt and outlined the body (leaving about a 2mm margin down the sides so the sweater would look thicker) using a ballpoint pen. I also sketched out the collar and hem before cutting the sweater out.

Mr. Ian, about to get dressed. 

The sweater went on with double-sided tape (I don't think he's ever going to take it off), added 'IAN' to it using some glitter letter stickers I had, and that was Mr. Ian done. Yay!

I had a pre-cut kraft square card base that I bought some time back, so I started trying to figure out how to place Mr. Ian on it while leaving some space for '21' somewhere. That was when I realised I should have planned this better because Mr. Ian was rather chubby and took up a lot of space on my card. What to do. 

In the end I did another sketch of a balloon shape, which I transferred onto green and yellow card and cut out, before putting '2' and '1' stickers on each balloon. Further arrangement told me that the balloons would have to come off the card (which, in retrospect, is a very cool effect as it makes the balloons look like they're really floating. Here is the final arrangement:

The balloon strings are essentially a separated cross-stitch thread strand that I tied around the balloon stubs before dipping my fingers in PVA glue and running them down the length of the string. This stops any fraying, allows me to glue the string down more easily - and as an added bonus, allows me to add shapes to the string - I laid the glue-covered string down on a surface and twisted some parts into loops, leaving them to dry. I love the fun curls this technique gave the ends of my balloon strings. :D Meanwhile, the balloons themselves were attached using foam adhesive and left to hang off the edge of the card - isn't the floating effect awesome? 

Finally, I cut out a party hat for Mr. Ian out of crazy-pattern paper, just to fill up that empty space above his head. I edged the hat and balloons in glitter glue and added a few mini-stars, outlined the card in white dash lines and there it was, my adorable penguin birthday card. I really hope the actual Ian will like it. 

Mr. Ian looks like he could use more cake. 

Hope you enjoyed my post!! I have to get back to placement preparation and stop fawning over my adorable penguin. 

Love,

Hui. 

Quilled 21st Birthday Card

I'm back! After ages of no updates - sorry about that! Uni work has been piling up and life is crazy as usual.

At any rate, I've been somewhat addicted to quilling projects lately - although not to the amount of time and effort involved - and this was a project I undertook for a friend's 21st birthday. I think the toughest thing about quilling is even knowing where to start - you need the right sort of paper in the right colours (and I'm terrible at coming up with good colour schemes), and a nice design that takes well to being quilled. And after that you have to sit for hours on end, painstakingly rolling/curving each strip of paper into just the right shape and size, and then glue it on carefully (without the help of tweezers = the most excruciating job ever)

But the end result was SO WORTH IT. <3 I almost wish I'd made this for myself! I sort of ruined it with the atrocious writing, but the recipient loved it anyway so thank goodness.

More projects to be up on my blog soon!

Washi Tape LOVE.

Finally, FINALLY got my hands on some authentic washi tape - and at an amazing price too!!!

I think I finally understand why craft bloggers are so crazy about this - I catch myself looking around my room nowadays, wondering: what else can I cover with washi tape? :)

Double Happiness

Congratulatory card for my cousin and his fiancee, whose wedding I will be unable to attend. :(

I found this beautiful Chinese-wedding-themed wrapping paper in Kinokuniya (cost a small fortune) and it made my life infinitely easy for this card - I selected a section of the paper, cut it out and centered it before splitting it in half. I like the double-door card for this because it feels like two halves becoming one.  

As a note to the significance of the design I chose for the centre of the card - this is a Chinese character commonly used in Chinese weddings - it consists of two 'happiness' characters, side by side, hence the name 'double happiness', and represents the joy of a couple coming together in matrimony.

I used Chinese-knot buttons (used for cheongsams etc.) as a clasp to hold the card closed. 

Thanks for everything!

Another really quick and simple card made, basically, using my entire set of Pilot Spotliter highlighters to make rainbows. I then added letter stickers and star punch-outs, and dots of glitter all over.

The Most Awesome Dad Ever

This is a variation on the previous paper cut-and-paste starburst cards I made - this was blue cardstock masked and painted with silver paint. (Will put a link up to the tutorial on my blog later)

Then I used a mathematical compass to draw a circle from the point of radiation of the starburst, and cut it out. Using that as a template, I drew the circle onto a square of tracing paper, and then messed with some fonts on my computer to design the sentiment ('awesome' and 'dad' are copied from fonts) I copied the fonts and handwrote the rest on the tracing paper using Artline Drawing System 0.1 black pigment pen, and coloured some of it in with blue and red Sakura Aqualip pens, and drew over the rest with clear Sakura Aqualip to give it a slightly raised/shiny look. 

Then I stuck the tracing paper behind the front of the card so that the sentiment showed through the window. I finished it off with dash lines in a white gel pen around the circle window. 

Hello, Little Miracle.

Someone I know has just had a baby, so  congratulatory card for the family :).

I did a variation of the 'Starburst' theme I've used before on congratulatory cards, but I thought it would be nice to do stitching instead for a change - and for once, I remembered to take photos of the process!!

There are products available on the market to make card-stitching easier - a sewing machine would be one, and I've heard of something called 'Sew Easy' that the talented Kristina Werner has used in some of her videos. It's a tiny pizza-cutter like thingy that punctures cardstock with specific patterns to make it easier for stitching. However, I don't have either of those, so here's a more time-consuming but equally effective method to puncture card for stitching.

Here's what you'll need: 

- cross-stitch thread

- cross-stitch needle (this has a bigger eye so it's easy to thread with the thicker cross-stitch thread, and it is also blunt-tipped - which means your fingers will suffer less.)

- a compass (not a directional compass, but a mathematical compass - which most of us would have, presumably, from our school days. You need one that has a sharp point.)

- a ruler, and a pencil.

Step 1: Choose a point on your card front and mark with a small 'x' or dot. I prefer this to be off-center, but it really depends on what sort of arrangement you're going for. This point is where your starburst will radiate from. Then taking your ruler and pencil, draw lines radiating outwards - you can make the rays as thin or as wide as you like. Because I was just going to stitch them in without filling in the 'rays', I didn't bother checking if there were an even number of 'rays' and spaces in between ( I will post another tutorial soon about how to create starburst rays like those in my previous card here).  

Step 2: Now, taking the sharp end of your compass, start poking holes along the lines you've drawn. Try to space them evenly, although there's no need to be too perfect about it if you're stitching the entire line fully. I find it best to perforate the card once on a harder surface (like my cutting mat - do it on a protected surface or your table will be riddled with holes!!!) and after that, lifting the card up and carefully widening the hole by wiggling the sharp tip a little. You could not bother with the second step, actually, because when you start stitching the cross-stitch needle would widen the hole anyway. 

Step 3: Once that's done, start stitching! I'm no expert on sewing, so I just improvised with some sort of backstitch so that the whole line was stitched through. You can see in the photo I didn't bother stitching the centre of the starburst because I knew that it was going to be covered anyway. 

So there you have it, that's how I do stitching on cards. You can finish of the stitching at the back with a knot, and then cover the messy back with a piece of card cut to size and attached using foam adhesive so that the awkward bumps of all the knots and stitches don't warp the card when it's laid flat. 

On the rest of the card:

I had a 'new baby' sticker set lying around so I picked one of the round stickers to be part of the sentiment. The turquoise/white stripes pattern was added by using some washi tape on a piece of white card. (Might be obsessed with washi tape now) 

Also got out my tiny star sequins to spruce up the card. Haven't actually used them in awhile!! 

News of births make me warm and fuzzy inside.  Can't wait to go visit the new baby!!!

Panda!

Second part of commission. A card for a panda lover... which didn't turn out like I originally envisioned it, but ended up being pretty damn cute anyway. 

I hand-sketched a panda face and cut it out to use as a template for the base card (China White) that was folded in half with a small hinge left on top for the card to open. The separate bits - ears, eyes, nose and mouth were cut out of dark Mocha cardstock (I'd completely forgotten to buy black, but this colour worked well too) and pasted on.

For the inside of the card, I used letter stickers to make the word 'panda', and I drew a cupcake on a separate sheet of cardstock, coloured it in with Copics and Aqualip, cut it out and put it on with foam adhesive.

The face can be flipped to the back so that the inside is displayed with the ears still visible :)

They say a good book is like a good friend...

First part of commission, finally done! :D Couldn’t go to bed until I’d finished it. Someone commissioned a birthday card for a friend who’s apparently loves books amongst other things, but I chose books as a theme (resonating with my inner bookworm). 

The ‘bookshelves’ were inspired by a few sources - all the bits were cut out from various scraps of card/paper, and I have no idea if the quote is from somewhere else but it just popped into my head so I used it (lemme claim credit? XD ) 

Thanks, Octonauts

The cat is Kwazii and the penguin is Peso. They’re characters from BBC’s children’s show, Octonauts. Also the favourite of a child I’m visiting. (These visits are making me learn a lot about current children’s shows).

I printed out the two characters and traced them onto corresponding coloured paper, cutting out the bits and pieces. (The faces were coloured in though, too much effort to cut everything - the collars/boots/feet were cut out). 

The ‘thanks’ banner is an old technique, I just cut out banners from a strip of kraft paper and wrote on them in funky fonts. The white string is cross-stitch thread.

I drew in the ‘bubbles’ (the Octonauts are an underwater search and rescue team) using blue Sakura Glaze, coloured some of them in with the same pen and coloured the others with glitter glue. 

All in all, two hours?