The joy in a heart

Mind me, if this entry is going to be bombarded with lots of photos. I simply couldn't get enough of these, and keep on snapping the pics for the nth time, up until the day of delivery hehe.

Are-ween emailed me way back in January, and told me she wanted to give something practical and special for her friends during her wedding, which is going to be in May. After few discussions, we settled on bookmarks, and knowing that I have totally ample time on my hand (5 months, for 100 bookmarks! Yeay!), I took my own sweet time to design them. And I was totally satisfied with the result. And I wanted to share them here :)

The first 80 pieces was meant for the girlfriends of the bride, so the theme was pink and white. As I couldn't resist on the colour combination (hehe), I made half with white as the background, and another half with pink as the background.

Here's the close up:

And I quilled each heart excitedly, and got really addicted to making all 80 of them haha!

The other 20 pieces were meant for the bride guyfriends, so it took a while to decide on the design, and the colour.

Are-ween then wanted black and green, and since I don't want black to dominate the bookmark and become a stark contrast to the white and pink versions, I added on the creamish white to soften the effect. And with the brightness of the greens, I think they blend in well. :)

The quotation is simple, but goes straight to the heart.

I love the fact that each of the bookmark is actually different from one another, as I purposely arranged the quilled coils (the heart) and quilled marquise (the leaves) randomly. So each would be slightly different from the rest, and has that individualistic feel to it.

Now, don't you wish you're invited to Are-ween's wedding? :P


And before I end today's entry, I would like to thank Lin, for featuring Miyyah@Kertas at her blog. I've been a lurker at her blog for quite a while, as I love her cards, and her cute figure drawings (since I'm really bad at that hahaha), so it's a huge honour to be the featured blog of the month there. Lin, thanks so much for featuring me, and keep on paper crafting ya! It's great to be part of the small community of Malaysian paper crafters!

And special thanks also goes to Norlie and Miezam, for the wonderful awards they've given me. Miezam is the jack of all trades (he basically tries his hands on everything), and one of the few thorns among the roses. And Norlie is simply the felt mistress, and has never ceased to amaze me with her stitching and sewing skills,which I envy. :)

And to Are-ween, congratulations dear, on your upcoming wedding. Hope it's going to be a blast, and wish that your friends would love the bookmarks. It's been a pleasure to make these for you!

p/s:  These were the items meant for the black box. :)

A breath of fresh air

First of all, sorry for the long overdue posts. There's something wrong with the laptop the whole of last week, so I have to rely on the house's desktop to go online. But it was hard to put a blog entry as usual since all my photos are stored in my laptop and I couldn't even reach them. And when the problem finally settled (got my laptop running again yeay!), the Internet went haywire for a couple of days. So all the hustles finally being settled today so I'm back to my usual self! Yeay! You see, I can't live without my laptop and this past week without it felt like a part of me being taken away. Hehe. But at least the lappy got to rest for a week, right!

Let's go back to today's entry.

I've recently sent the frame to its rightful owner, so I'm finally able to post this online. :) This is my 2nd try at calliagraphy, and I thought it was much better than my first try. It looks neat, and has that wood feel to it.

It's very strong and sturdy, even though I just used mounting board and exacto knife for the design. The hardest part was during the measurement process, as calculations always tire me out! Told you I'm not good with numbers!

The process itself wasn't that tedious, but this time I pay more attention on the corners (those are the most difficult parts of the design. I painted everything in few layers of  red poster colour, and let it dry. I later coated it with few layers of mod podge, to seal everything (so it would last longer, and didn't collect much dust). I'm loving mod podge so much now and have been using it on most of my projects :)

And only after everything dried, I pasted the design on a thick white paper and frame it. And I'm loving the final outcome. It looked way better than my first try, right? :)

Fathiah, thank you for giving me the opportunity to explore on calligraphy, and I've enjoyed making this for you!

Thy name is Konn!

"Thy name is Konn.." I told him.
"Why Konn?"
"Just because." I said.
"Okay. Then Konn it is."

Isn't he an obedient piece of paper? Konn was born after Irie, but it took a while before finally being featured on Miyyah@Kertas.

I love everything about Konn. He's bubbly, he's dreamy, a neat freak, a claustrophobic and such a cutie. And he flaps his bulky hands every time he walks down the stairs. As if he has wings. Such a fool! Such an adorable fool with a little bowtie!

Since Konn has been a very obedient and loyal companion, I awarded him with magnet on his back (not shown in pics as they were taken ages ago!), so instead of being kept in the darkest alley in the embellishment box, I let him free and he finally chose to stay on the magnetic board at the living room, where he now proudly stands guard.

Isn't it nice to have Konn who's always by your side, to stand guard and to protect you, but expects nothing in return?

p/s: I seriously need to pick up on my social life!

Fasten things together

So many things to do, so little time!

These are some of the flowers and butterflies in my collections (told you I've made tons before), and since my paper clips collection are thinning down, I thought I should make some, and here they are.

It's good to have pre-made embellishments like the flowers and the butterflies, as it took me less than 5 minutes to glue them down on the paper clips.

Back in those days of quilled flower craze, I love to mix and match two colours for a flower, and ended up with some multi-colours flowers! (And the polka-dot butterfly reminded me of chicken pox haha)

On other note, my to do list just added up to another page from before, and I've officially started to get a bit panicky of not being able to settle everything on time. I still have few emails to reply, few orders to do, few trips to go, few itineraries to prepare, few resumes to send and a graduation to attend. Perhaps it's time to scream and grab a chunk of my hair now.

I have to stop taking bulk orders for now as I'm fully booked up until July. But I'd still entertain small, individual orders, if you're interested. To those whose emails I still owe a reply to, hang in there okay, need to sort everything first, and I will get to you back ASAP!

Rhythm of the falling rain

It's raining outside! *happily skipping to the window*

I love rain. I always do. And I love to listen to the rhythm of the falling rain. The tippy tap sounds when it hits the umbrella. The soft rhythmic beats when it touches the window pane. And I wish I could always dance with all the raindrops too.

Oh, listen to the falling rain
Pitter pater, pitter pater
Oh, oh, oh, listen to the falling rain
Pitter pater, pitter pater.

For every rain that fall today, here's to hoping for more flowers to grow! :)

Kiss from a rose.

No, it's not just a rose. It's a bunch of roses. But I love the song, and it fits the theme, so be it. :P And I think everyone should watch this:



I can't even read music notes, but I honestly think he's one amazing guitar prodigy. And his guitar rendition of Kiss From a Rose is simply amazing. He goes by the name Jung Sun Ha and he's just 14! (The above was an old vid). Try watching his other videos and you'll be amazed too. And the fact that he's Korean excites me more (haha - I have a very, very soft spot with anything Korean LOL)

Now let's go back to the card. Hehe. Remember the Another Paper Flower tutorial? Well, these flowers were from the tutorial and had been lying around ever since. So I decided to clear out some compartments from my paper embellishment box and decided to use the flowers on a card.

I still need to improve on my use of other embellishments, because I know ribbons and sparkles and stickers and laces etc are not really my thing (so did pattern papers), so I would normally limit their usage on my crafts to the minimum. I always envy those who could use these and make some gorgeous cards/ arts, since I still struggle to use mine. :P Hey, there's still room for improvement, right? Hehe.

I love these blooming flowers. And just because I'm feeling rather blue today, here's another video from Jung Sun Ha - Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. Yes, I'm a sucker for oldies, and I love raindrops.