On a rainy day.

It was raining, and I was bored.

I found these items scattered around my craft space and they've been there for ages (especially the wooden-embellishment-box-turned-frame), so I figured I should make use of them.

This frame is like a jumbled-up thoughts that I have in mind - mostly it consists of rain, food, and some pretty colours. Heh.

Unbreakable.

When you're down and feeling blue,
And the world seems to go against you,
Pick up the phone and give us a ring,
We'll have coffee and eat something.

These are the crazy bunch of people I want to grow old with.

Let the good times roll!

Before blogs exist, I was an avid journal writer. I wrote in details of what's going on in my life and kept that habit for a very long time. I kept my journals from years back, and once in a while, reading the pages reminded me of who I used to be and who I've become (so far).

...Until I got tired of reading about the past, and decided it was about time to let go some of the memories. I'm not very fond of my handwriting, but since I've put in so much energy into writing essay-length entries, I thought it was worth being appreciated.

Hey, you need to let go of the old memories to make way for the ones, right?

So this idea popped up.

The cover pages of the book was from an old diary. They weren't THAT old, but I aged the pages by dumping them into coffee-filled water - it didn't work well apart from giving that faint coffee smell, so I cheated and used distress inks instead. Ha!

This was also a part of an ongoing bookbinding challenge by Little Syam (my bookbinding guru), where we had to use recycle materials in our book design.

I still have a lot of pages (tons of them) left from my old journals, and I'd probably blend everything together and do some scented-recycle papers for keep. I just can't find time for that... yet. +__+

Meanwhile, enjoy the book! (but mind the handwriting!)

Flowers in your book

I know it's easier to use punches or dies to cut the flower petals, but I guess I'm the traditionalist who cut everything using scissors. A messy  work, but I like it even more hehe.

Funny how I hardly use bookmarks (and thus, always scramble my way looking for the  right pages haha). I know  some people who love using them, so these girlish flowers are for them. :)

The bookmark tutorial was also featured in Remaja 15th June 2012 edition. :-)

Wordy Wednesday

It's made of gold. So..

Tips: Quilling Typography

Typography quilling using old magazine

I've received so many requests for typography tutorial. I couldn’t find time to do the exact tutorial, but I hope this entry will help a lot.

You can do your typography using one of these tutorials:

Craftastical Monograpm Quilling

Mezcraft for Instructables

Pritesh’s Quilled Lettering Tutorial

Typography on old mag using simple quilling designs

 However, there are also few crucial points I would like to add in keeping your typography neat and tidy:

• I like to use PVA white glue for all my typography works. It dries faster and hold your paper pretty nicely. A quick tip: I usually put a dash of pva glue on a paper plate and leave it for a while. By the time I started quilling, the glue would be sticky enough to hold the quilling shapes and dries faster. It would also be easier for you to clean if you mess up.

•  If you’re just starting typography, use thicker paper for the typography outline.

• The bigger the letters, the easier it is to quill. So start with big-sized letters. Once you’re familiar with it, you can give smaller-sized letters a try.

• Practice makes perfect. With lots of practices, and researches, I’m pretty sure that you’ll find your own favourite style :)

• Typography quilling is one art that requires lots of patience, and sometimes it took me days, or even weeks to finish (and few papercuts here and there). Don’t easily give up. The above tutorials are THEIR ways of doing it, but you can always bend the ways, and create your own. :)

Give it a try, and  good luck!