Window Card

Fairly frequently done so it’s not a particularly original idea, but it’s an easy way to make something very pretty. 

Window frame and window flower box cut out from cream textured card, the flowers and little butterflies were punched out from various coloured papers and pasted on. The green vines were drawn on using green Aqualip pen. The larger butterflies were cut using a pattern printed off the internet as I don’t have a large butterfly punch. The curtains were cut from patterned card and the ties are leather strips. 

The banner inside the card was made like the previous ones, just cut out and written on. 

For a friend who has been sad lately, in hopes that something pretty will cheer her up, even if only by a little.  

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).

Paper Wreath

Poor student me discovered last year that I could make a Christmas wreath for my dorm door with minimal and very cheap supplies - mainly, an Amazon delivery cardboard box, old issues of my university newspaper, and some tissue paper.

This project was inspired by another blog I found while searching for paper wreaths on Google. This is the blog - it has instructions on the writer's own method, although I made some modifications to my project.

For one, my base is not round as I didn't have a big enough piece of cardboard for that (it was one of those single-book Amazon cardboard sleeves), so I compensated by cutting one inch wide rectangular strips, and making a rough hexagon (six-sided shape) by laying the pieces at roughly 60 degrees to each other and stapling the ends together. Then I folded my newspaper sheets with an accordion fold and proceeded to cut out a lot of leaf shapes (I didn't count them, I just cut more when I ran out). The good thing about using newspaper was that it was so thin, it was easy to cut a lot without too much difficulty.

However, the thinness of the newspaper meant that the tip folding and twisting had to be done a bit more carefully. I didn't bother with glue, I just stapled the leaves onto the hexagonal frame and arranged them to cover up the base- it turns into a circle eventually if you arrange the leaves properly.

The paper flowers are made using the Martha Stewart pom-poms method - Tissue Paper Pom-Poms - it's ridiculously easy and I use it for many decorations. Here, I made several in apple green tissue paper and nestled them in between the leaves randomly, gluing them in place. Then I punched a hole through the cardboard and threaded yarn through it to hang it up.

Unfortunately this wreath was stolen from outside my door at some point during the year. Perhaps someone crashed into my door and wrecked it and was too afraid to own up? :(

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! :)

Thank you for the Awesome Experience

Hey guys!

I'm still compiling the improvised tools photos, so I guess I'll start off with one of the cards I made some time back (not the first ever card I made, but rather the earliest of the ones I started documenting).

Simple thank you card (I say 'simple', but it probably took me a few hours just to decide what I wanted to do. Too much of a nitpicky perfectionist) made from apple green cardstock and christmas-tree patterned tissue paper. 

The words are handwritten in black Aqualip pen, save for the 'Awesome!' which is from a pack of rub-ons I bought during a craft shop sale in Singapore (it was still expensive! But useful.). The card front is decorated with flower punch-outs (you can see the punch in the picture), as well as tiny butterfly punch-outs. I finished off the cover with scattered dots of light blue/silver glitter glue (RM4.50 from Kinokuniya, I CAN'T FIND IT ANYMORE TT^TT ) so it glittered very prettily in the light. 

The envelope is handmade from stiff kraft paper (RM1.50 for a big roll from Popular bookstore, I really really love the texture) and decorated to match the card. 

Now that I think about it, I will post a video or a tutorial on how to make those envelopes soon. :)