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 :)

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? 

Fire and Blood

A birthday card for another Game of Thrones fan - a House Targaryen dragon-lover. :) The Targaryen dragon was referenced from a banner online - traced and cut by hand from brown cardstock. Not fun. I later outlined it in clear Aqualip and shaded in some details using Copic markers. Some glitter was added for effect.

To embellish the base card, I went around the card using the point of a circle compass and then threaded red cross-stitch thread through, for the ‘fire and blood’ element. 

The dragon was attached using foam adhesive too add dimension. I mildly regretted this decision when I got to the tiny parts like the forked tongues and cursed having to cut pieces of foam tape small enough to fit onto them without being visible. 

The greeting was written on tracing paper with one of the LoTR fonts - First Order, I think, I screwed up slightly and smudged the still-wet Aqualip ink - and I cut the backing strip out of an old Kinokuniya catalogue page. I then folded it and trimmed both ends into a ribbon ‘v’ to make it look like a banner. 

Merry Christmas

A Christmas card inspired by Kristina Werner's Washi Tape Christmas Tree. Since washi tape is pretty out of my budget, I used leftover strips of green paper and tore them carefully to create the jagged edge effect, before giving each strip a light coat of Pentel Silver Poster Colour for shimmer effect. I glued a piece of white string down and arranged the green strips over it, adhering them using foam adhesive. The presents were cut out from random scraps and wrapped with string.

For the sentiment, I'd actually bought a beautiful gold-on-kraft wrapping paper with framed Christmas sentiments all over it from Paperchase, picked one of the sentiments and cut it out, putting it on a brown cardstock background and pasting it on. The tree was decorated using a gold star and fuchsia sequins, and glitter glue.

To The Lovely Gentleman

Birthday card for a lovely gentleman in our class with a love for all things classically British. 

Black cardstock, cut to shape using a rough template of a top hat printed off the Internet, and outlined in copious amounts of black Aqualip. Cream cardstock cut out in the shape of a hat-band, and pasted on. The Union Jack was printed out and attached to a pin I sourced from my sewing kit, and the letter ‘Q’ is an alphabet sticker.

The whole thing was given a very light coat of Pentel Pearl Silver poster colour (if you dilute it enough it gives a satiny sheen to the background paper without colouring it silver).

Birthday Hearts

For mum. Letter stickers, felt flower and ribbon were bargains from Popular’s BookFest - and I broke them out for this project. :) They were nice, and saved me a whole lot of time cutting out letters from paper. 

The heart squares in the background were formerly a huge sheet of valentine’s wrapping paper that I cut out, square by square, and now stash and assemble when I need them for projects like these. 

The lace border at the bottom was cut the way I did it in the previous pink doily card (it’s going to be a staple favourite now) :D

Mum loved it. ♥

Fabulous birthday

A belated birthday card for an acquaintance… Before I knew it, it had turned out really pink and girly. 

The lacy borders were strips of pale pink cardstock cut using Victorian pattern scissors by Unicorn, then the little holes were punched using the sharp end of my compass to create more patterns (improvisation!). It turned out beautifully, and I will definitely be using this method again.

The doily was cut from pink tissue paper using the paper snowflake cut-out method - except I rounded the corners instead of cutting points as you usually would when cutting a snowflake. I may make a video tutorial of it sometime. It’s one of the prettiest snowflake/doilies I’ve ever cut and I’m pretty proud of it~ It was a real hassle to put on the card though - first I used glue stick, then white craft glue to get the stubbornly not-sticking parts. It would be lovely to have spray adhesive, I think, but that's one of the pricier things I've never gotten around to buying.

The girl holding the heart was copied from an old tracing of a stamp I saw in a craft book years ago (this would work with any interesting images too - just copy with tracing paper, and transfer!). The little details were drawn using Artline Drawing System 0.1 pens, coloured in using a white Signo Choose pen, as well as various Gelly Roll pens - then cut out and put on using dimensional adhesive. 

The journaling box was hand drawn and cut from kraft paper, outlined in black and white, and the sentiment hand-written. It is also on dimensional adhesive.

Finally, flowers and butterflies punch-outs were used to accent the card (fill up space, more like).

Purple Peacock

Purple Peacock

A peacock-themed birthday card for a lovely friend. The front was inspired by Googling 'peacock cards', and I created this by hand-cutting teardrop shapes out of thin purple paper as well as using a hole punch on shimmery purple paper. I built the tail by first lightly sketching out the curves of each tail feather, and then adhering white cross-stitch thread following the sketch lines using glue. Once that dried, I added sparkle to the thread by going over it with a silver pen. The purple pieces were then adhered to the card using dimensional adhesive.

The additional feathery details were added using Gelly Roll Aqualip pens, and coloured with more glitter pens. 

This was massively time-consuming simply because I am a perfectionist (well, there was also all that cutting to be done). And because I liked it very much.

However, I don’t think I will be working with white card again anytime soon. It’s too easily dirtied, especially since I’m prone to getting ink stains on my fingers. 

Starburst Series

This little series was inspired by Kristina Werner @ kwernerdesign.com - you can see the original card here.

A personalised good luck card for a friend who’s going to study abroad. The radial pattern idea was recreated by cutting out triangles of paper and pasting it on the card. 

The name ‘Eric’ is also hand-cut (letter stickers are so very expensive) - I typed out the name using the Varsity font in Word, and changed the font size before tracing the letters and transferring onto coloured paper, outlining and cutting out. You can also print it out for convenience, but I was rushing this and didn’t have a printer at hand.

And a star sticker was added, from a bunch of stickers I’ve had for a long time. :)

Should’ve done the radial pattern in shimmery paper though, that would have been much nicer. As it is, the glitter on this card was added by colouring my finger tip with a very watery silver pen (Uniball Signo, a priceless set I got from Japan years ago) and rubbing it over the paper. It creates a very subtle, shimmery effect, and is watery enough (like paint, without the wet-warping effect on paper) to spread out fairly evenly. 

Since I had paper left from the radial pattern cut-out from the card above, I decided to use it for another good luck card, again for another friend going overseas (EVERYONE’S LEAVING. :( )

Anyway, I changed the orientation of the card to landscape, to make it different, and pasted the pattern on. The cardstock is a glittery light blue. The ribbon banner is made from strips of paper cut from pages of an old Kinokuniya (one of the awesomest bookstores ever) Christmas catalogue (coincidentally, there was a part of an Archie Comics cover in my set of cut-outs, and this friend LOVES Archie Comics. Unfortunately it was covered up by the other elements). Tracing paper, cut to shape, was pasted over it to soften the colours. 

Like in the previous card, the letters for the name ‘Jo’ were hand-drawn with reference to the Varsity font, with some variations. They were then outlined in black Aqualip and white Signo pens (this is another new love of mine) to imitate the look of the font. I also traced ‘good luck’ from my computer screen using the font The Quickest Shift, then cut it out and pasted it onto kraft paper and cut a banner out of that too, before putting it all together on dimensional adhesive.

It’s a real pity the glittery parts don’t show up in photos, because they look amazing. :)

Pusheen says 'Thank You'

Pusheen says Thank You

Because Pusheen is too cute not to use more than once! 

Pusheen character cut out of grey card, outlined in black Aqualip pen. Ball of ‘yarn’ created by cutting a circle from hard cardboard, sticky-taping the back and wrapping cross-stitch thread around it. 

It was a really enjoyable little card to make! :)

*Pusheen cat character does not belong to me.

Giraffe and Rainbows

Another thank-you card. Giraffe template obtained from an old stained-glass paint template set… cut out from yellow card and spots coloured with felt-tip pen. Rainbow created from strips of differently coloured and textured papers, lined up in order. Sentiment was handwritten, although there was a bit of smudging… whoops. >.< All in all just a cute card. :)

Be fabulous: Drink coffee!

Birthday card for my bestie, who is a coffee (read: Starbucks) fanatic. >.< The flower used for the outside of the card is a cut-out, using the same technique as cut-out snowflakes (Google is really useful here), except I rounded the outside edges instead of making it pointy. To fill up the empty space, I glued rows of fuchsia sequins extending from the tip of each petal - one of my new favourite ways of jazzing up cards.

The 'be fabulous' sentiment is a rub-on that I bought a few years ago in a specialist crafts shop in Singapore (on sale!!). I put it on white cardstock, and completed the sentiment with 'and drink coffee', which was handwritten on a thin strip of kraft paper with black Aqualip pen.

The little coffee cup (ADORABLEEEE) was hand-drawn and cut out of white cardstock, outlined in black Aqualip and coloured in with red Gelly Roll pen. Loose glitter was then glued onto the heart.

The big paper cup inside was again, cut out of white cardstock, the cover from shimmery red paper, while the cardboard holder is an actual Starbucks cup holder I'd saved and decorated with flower punch-outs. I added a little pocket made from patterned tissue paper and cut a mug-shaped card slipped inside with my message. 

Thanks!

Small thank-you cards for a some people I felt indebted to. The banner idea was taken from a cardmaking video (www.kwernerdesign.com) I watched sometime back, a lovely way to add dimension to a card without too much fuss.

The Union Jack card has some mistakes on the flag - I apologise for that! It was created using layers of red and white card on a dark blue base. 

You're My Anchor

Father’s Day card. My anchor, indeed. :)

Wave pattern painstakingly created using the very tips of a small circle punch to chomp off crescent-shaped pieces off the edge of bright blue cardstock - and a lot of patience. 

Anchor traced onto tracing paper, then outlined with black Aqualip and filled in with glitter glue (which totally warped the paper, but this was solved by waiting for the glue to dry, then flattening it between the pages of a book.)

The little dots are just turquoise dimensional paint. :) 

You're a Winner: Hole in One

Birthday card for my golfer dad. Had quite a bit of trouble with the pulling mechanism… very amateurish work I’m afraid. The cardstock layering used to create the landscape was very difficult to deal with too.

But oh well. He loved it. :)

The golf ball was a large, shimmery white brad dotted with black permanent marker for a dimensional look. All other details, apart from the 'Winner' rub-on, were hand cut/drawn and pasted on. 

Cherry Blossoms New Year

Chinese New Year card made for my darling Grandma who had never received post in her life. :) I was told she was very, very happy. 

Paper cut-out on red cardstock, using a brush design from a downloadable brush-set from DeviantArt… unfortunately I can no longer find the owner of those brush designs to credit her. Screwed up the cut-out a little, but it wasn’t too noticeable. Later outlined in black Aqualip (I told you I loved this pen) and then some cherry blossom details drawn in by hand and coloured using GellyRoll.

Flowers and Candles

The birthday cake image is from another stamp I saw a long time ago in a craft book, roughly imitated by hand on plain white paper with a black lineart pen, and coloured in with deep red felt-tips before being cut out.

If you noticed, the front of the card is a layered rectangle of bright pink speckled cardstock attached to another pale pink card on the left side which forms the back of the card. This is a pretty good way to use oddly-sized pieces of leftover cardstock that aren't really big enough to be made a card by themselves. I then layered cream cardstock and bright pink corrugated paper and stiff kraft paper by rotation to create interest, before topping it all off with the cake image. The embellishments are punch-outs of flowers and butterflies.

Hope you liked it! :)

Green Makes Me Happy

I made this several years ago - while pressed for time, really, which kind of explains why I maid an envelope-card (so that I could stuff the gift and note in one place). It was a birthday gift for a friend who adores the colour green - surely you can tell! :P

The envelope is handmade from stiff kraft paper, while the embellishments are mostly cut-outs from various places. The flower is from a patterned wrapping paper, the strip of rainbow colours cut off the description sheet of a pack of colourful construction paper (recycle whenever you can! Pretty things are everywhere), and the rest (the tag, the balloons) cut from scrap cardstock. I used thin silver wire (a very soft and pliable craft variety) and leather strip to put it all together.

The adorable little sheep sticker and the 'happy' sticker is from a sticker set I bought in Singapore - I got a whole bunch (about four big sets of stickers I think) for just a few Singapore dollars - bargains are everywhere you care to look. :)

Finally, I added little dots using emerald dimensional paint for interest.

Hope you enjoyed the card!

Craft Shopping

 Look at my beautiful new collection of cardmaking stuff!!!! <3 <3 <3

So. Popular's Bookfest was on again, and how could I not go?? What I certainly didn't expect was the huge crafts section Popular's own brand, Pop Basic, had set up in the exhibition hall... with everything dirt-cheap. 

 The embellishments on the left - felt flowers, an array of green sequins and a set of four ribbons - were three for RM 8. Like seriously. The original prices were about 6 bucks each. There was a lot to choose from, but most of the combination packs had stuff I didn't like so I decided not to buy them even though several bits of them were amazing.

The stickers on the right, a baby set and an animal set were RM 4.90 each with 30% rebate. Awesomeness. I can't wait for someone to have a baby now just so I have an excuse to use them. :D

STAMPS. RM 20 for both sets - an absolute bargain. I also bought the three pigment ink stacks for less than RM 10. The brand is Pretty Colour - sounds pretty dubious so I'm not sure how good the quality is... but they'll do for now. I'll tell you guys how they work out once I get around to using them.

The stamp set on the left is beautiful though, a family/home themed self-cling rubber stamp set. I regret buying the one on the right cause I don't really like it after all - it's all solid blocks and definitely don't stamp as pretty as the images on their blocks suggest. Oh well... I'll figure out some way to use it.

There were a load of stickers at the sale, but most of them weren't big enough to be useful for cardmaking so I skipped them altogether and went straight for the alphabet stickers - 3 for RM 10 if I remember correctly~

They're foam. I haven't tested their adhesive strength yet, but they look pretty good quality and I hope they'll be perfect to use. There were a range of glittery ones, too, but the flaking glitter bits in their packaging put me off them - I make enough messes while crafting without having glitter coating my fingers and work table.

Anyway, the black foam alphabets will be really versatile. I chose two different font types, in case you can't see clearly from the picture - you can draw on them with colour pens (I will definitely try my Gelly Roll and Signo pens on them!) and they'll work on almost any background.

I thought the bright green ones were a good contrast colour if I ever want to mix and match the stickers so I picked them. :D

I haven't bought corrugated card in some time... I've really exhausted my last pack which consisted of deeper, richer colours.

The colours in this pack are lighter and brighter. I'm not really sure how that'll work out with my cards, but I guess we'll see!! Really can't wait to start using this stash!

And, before I forget, look at my new stash of books!!! :D So excited to be reading again~ I've finished Graceling and Girl in Translation already - READ THEM. Graceling had a rather unsatisfying ending, but the concept of the story is highly interesting. It had a lot more potential though, that was left unexplored. 

Girl in Translation... you've just got to read it. 

Well, that's it for now! I will be putting up more card posts very soon!!! <3