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. 

Envelope-book

Envelope-book made for a friend’s birthday. Instructions for envelope-books are very easily found online - this was one created using cloth tape for the spine binding. The front cover design is my own - hand-drawn, outlined and coloured in with glitter glue. :) The quote on the spine is ‘Stretch your mind beyond fantastic, Dreams are made of strong elastic’ (Mary Poppins!)

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.

Pusheen: Eat Everything!

A little Pusheen hand-made notebook (character does not belong to me!!!!) made for a friend’s birthday gift. It is a near-replication of a GIF of Pusheen. Blue textured card and regular A4 white paper (cut down to size) used. All the details were cut out of different-coloured paper and coloured in/decorated where necessary.

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? :(

Origami Roses

Bouquet of origami roses made from florist wrapping paper, for Mother's Day a few years back. 

The instructions for the rose can be found HERE.

Takes a bit of practice, but after that it's a breeze. :)