And the flowers bloom for spring

I went to Mid Valley last Sunday and stopped by Art Friend at The Garden. There are sooo many things in the shop that you want to take all! They have different types of stamp pads that are priced reasonably and lots of stamps collection - from rubber, clear to foam stamps. I remember seeing a box of 6 stamps (wordings) sold at less than RM50. And I saw embossing tools (a set of three - with different size) that is priced at RM17++! I didn't buy much though, just some pattern papers (RM.90 each), replenishing some A4 cardstocks and a kid's stamp pad (since I'm very new at stamping and it only costs me RM8.90 - for 5 colours hehe). Not bad.

Ok. So this next card is actually made from one of the cardstocks that I bought at Art Friend. I love A4 size cs coz I don't have to scor and can just fold the card to the intended size (I don't use ruler!). I normally made a card and a gift tag out of an A4 cs.



Remember the tutorial on how to make your own Primas? The red flowers for the card used the same embossing techniques, except that they come in different flower shape. Different flower shapes can give different embossing result to your flower. The half-shape pearls in the middle of the flowers are actually for nail deco and art. I bought a small pack of them at a girl's accessories shop and it only costs me RM2.50 for the whole pack. I also bought some small red diamonds used for similar purposes and it only costs me RM1.50! I saw a slightly similar diamonds at Art Friend that priced at RM19.90! Now I know where to get my craft supplies with cheaper prices...

The Blues

Firstly, I am NOT a Chelsea fan. And will never be one anyway. But I'm going to watch Chelsea vs Malaysia tonight with my sisters and bro in law so it does inspire me for a card.

This card is also inspired by Farah's bookmark for Lovescrap bookmark swap. You can view the bookmark here.

And here's the card. This is my second time trying for stitches in my cards.


As you can see in most of my cards, I hardly used pattern papers, and I hardly limit myself to themes or special occasions' cards. It gives me more freedom in designing.

A wise old owl

A wise old owl lives in an oak
The more he saw, the less he spoke
The less he spoke, the more he heard
Why can't we be like the wise old bird?

The Brownies

I realised that my cardstock collection is thinning so I need to shop for some more tomorrow. And I'm left with lots of purples (haha), blues an d some dull colours. Once I was into dull colours - only lately I realised that bright colours bring more energy to my cards ;p

So this is actually an attempt to finish up the dull-colour cardstocks - the browns. Oh. And I got to experiment with my hand-made Primas as well!

I love this first card - and the whole simplicity of it. I use button to embellish my Prima. You're probably familiar with the pattern paper used as it's the same one from my previous projects! That's the good thing of using wrapping paper - you can do lots and lots of projects using the same material!


This is another card with slightly similar in design. And I used brads to attach the Primas to the cardstock (the pic quality is sooo bad)


Zoom in the Primas...


This next card is special as the striped pattern is actualy an IKEA serviette. Lovely isn't it. And the Prima used is from another wrapping paper (I emboss it).



Last but not least, a gift tag with another prima. I used a quilled ped as the bud of the flower. I just bought a scallop scissors few weeks back so I had fun experimenting with it!


* All the cards above are using plain cardstocks. The stripes shown on the cards (the one that look like its being embossed) are the effects of a very bad camera. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Prima Tutorial II

Allright. This is the second of 2-parts Prima tutorials.

You will need:

Papers
Embossing tool
Scallop punch (since I don't have any scallop punch, I use scallop scissors)
Mouse pad

First, if you have scallop punch, it will make you life a little bit easier hehe. I don't have the punch but I have the scallop scissors. So, to get the intended scallop. I draw a circle onto the paper first.


To get a perfect scallop out of this circle is by cutting it right on the circle line like this:


This way, you will never go wrong with your scallop and your end result would be like this:


You can erase the circle line as you won't need that anymore. If it's too much work for you, then don't coz it won't affect anything anyway hehe. (Just make sure it's a light line made by pencil as the above is thicker for the purpose of this tutorial). Next step, mark the centre of the scallop. You can do this by folding the scallop first.


Using the centre as your target, cut the petals of the flower. Make sure it does not reach the centre or you'll be cutting off your petals all together hehe. You can cut each scallop as the petal or you can skip two scallop point each to have a slight different design.


By using similar technique as shown in Prima Tutorial I, use the embossing tool to draw a curve line on each petal.


Then, crease a bone at the middle of the petal like this:



Do the same step on other flower petals and you will get this result:


Again, flip over the flower onto the other side and emboss the centre of the flower like this:


...And this is the end result. Happy Prima-making!

Tutorial - Prima flowers

Finally being able to blog after a hectic week. Ok, as promised, this is how you can make your own Prima flowers. Again, please mind the photos, due to the camera problem (will get it fixed on Monday!).


Prima Tutorial 1

You will need:


1. Paper (any type of paper will do but crepe paper would be much better. I use the coloured A4 paper that can be found in any stationery shop)
2. Embossing tool (other option: a pen that's out of ink, the pointed end of a paint brush etc)
3. Flower punch
4. Mouse pad

Punch paper flowers using the flower punch. You can use flower punch of any design, or you can cut out a flower shape using normal scissors (if you don't have flower punch).


Then, use the embossing tool to draw a curved invisible line as shown in the picture. Make sure you use the mouse pad as the base of this project. The mouse pad is used to give a bit pressure onto the flower.


Repeat the same step to other petals of the flower until it looks like this:


Then flip the flower to the other side and using the embossing tool, press the middle of the flower until the the flower petals pop up.


... like this (blame the camera!):


And you can do as many prima flowers as you want:


p/s: I haven't manage to use these flowers as embellishments for my cards yet. Will show you once its done ok!

LQ Challenge 4 - 5 things needeed in a layout

Senaraikan 5 barang yang WAJIB ada untuk menghasilkan layout.
- Kenapa anda pilih 5 barang tersebut?
Point : 5
Tarikh tutup : 11.59malam 1st August


My answer:

Challenge 4 - 5 Things Needed to do LO

1. Cardstock (wajib ada nih...)
2. Wrapping paper (ganti pattern paper sebab masih newbie buat lo)
3. Scissors (gunting biasa dn scallop)
4. Adhesive (dry and wet untuk lekatkan kertas n embellishments)
5. Flowers (biasanya buat sendiri untk embellishments)

Received my first award! :)

Thank you fliffy, Ida for the award. :)

The rules of accepting are as follows:-

1) Put the logo on your blog.
2) Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4) Add links to those blogs on yours.
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

It doesn't matter whether you've received the award, but truthfully, I think this award should go back to the queens:

fliffy, farah, ida, nana, sha, lina,ina, haniz, ayu, diva, liza, and my other lovescrapping friends.

Your own Primas?

Please be warned that the photos are a bit wacko due to the camera problem. (I just can't bother myself to edit using photoshop.

I'm proud to say that I made this:


this:


and this:


and many more...

care to know how to make your own Prima flowers?

On poppets

(this is the answer for Nana's questions)

Hi! Miyahh, all the LOs are so cutee. Buat camane? prepare on paper first then combine with digital?

I made everything on paper first - everything except the poppet heads (the photos). Since my photo albums are mostly at home in KT, so I decided to use my digital photos instead. In order to get the right 'head' to match the poppet bodies, I scan the bodies first, mantained their original size and get the measurement through photoshop. The original plan was to print out the heads photos later on and pasted them onto their respective bodies. So it could be a totally paper layout.

But then comes the problem. The printer was out of ink (and it can't seem to print too) so I decided to do the cropping of the heads and the bodies through photoshop (instead of paper & scissors). Given the disfunctional camera, I also decided to scan my layout (it takes 3 scans to complete the layout) and edit digitally. I know, it's triple work!

Normally a hybrid scrapbooking would see a scrapper print out the digital copy first then embellish it using paper, but in my case, it was vice versa. I guess those are little things you do for for the sake of crafts! ;p

Home is where the heart is

Challenge #3 (Poppets layout - HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS) Zoom in: My younger sis Nahar and me (doing what we do best) Ayah & my youngest bro Asyraf (with mum in the pic) My bro Hafiz and his wife Lisa My sis Kak Yong and my bro in law Abg Amad Their kids: Fiqa, Afiq and Afif Materials used: Cardstocks (Multiple colours) Wrapping papers (Tang's Art) Magazine scraps Ribbons Old eyeshadows (for distress effects) Techniques: Everything hand made dgn kasih sayang hehe.

Gift Box

Sorry for not being able to blog for the past few days. Been quite busy lately with presentations and assignments. I can't even find time to do crafts too. I can't finish the layout for the 3rd LSQ challenge since the printer is out of ink and my sis used the camera. I know the due date is tomorrow so I'm going to buy new printer ink this afternoon (and need to mail few cards to a buyer ;p) and try to finish up by today. For now, I'' leave you with this entry.

Remember this?


I blogged about this here.

Like I said before, these paper clips were part of a gift box that also consists of 2 accordion album. Well, this is how the gift box looks like:




And these are the accordion albums that I made based on Yatie's RAK (I won a hand-made accordion album from Yatie for winning the May Challenge @ Lovescrap.

This is how both albums look like:



I've done this in May but until now, I can't find time to start decorating the albums.

Oh, I went to Cineleisure to watch The Dark Knight yesterday (which was really AWESOME!!!) and took the time to stop by Papier and finally bought:

Flower Punch (1 small and one medium in size)
Inkpad for my stamps
Some cute little brads

I'm starting on creating my own (hand-made) Prima flowers. Once I got hold of the camera, I'll put up the tutorials ok!

The First Day

First on the update for the 3rd Challenge. I happened to be in a very creative mode today and managed to finished about 80% of the 3rd Lovescrap Challenge. Few last things left to do are to print out the heads of my poppets (I scan the poppets first, then use digital pic to match the poppets), paste the heads to their respective bodies (haha I sound like a serial killer or something) and paste the complete poppets onto the layout. I don't plan to do another layout as one is enough for me. And all I have to say is that I LOVE the outcome so much hehe. Lets just say that for this layout, I scrap about something really close to my heart. Will post here once its done (and posted on Lovescrap).

Ok. Onto my next point. I don't have enough time to do new cards lately, so for today, let's just share a card that I've done before. This is actually a very special card as it remains the first poetic card I ever did (long before I start using Shakespeare's words onto my cards). I love this poem by Christina Rossetti so I thought it would be good for a card (I didn't even learn about layout yet!) so enjoy the card. And the poem.


The cover

The Inside

I wish I could remember the first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me;
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or winter for aught I can say.
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it! Such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand! - Did one but know! - Christina Rossetti (1834 -94)

The Road Not Taken

Plan to use this idea for class presentation this semester. Enjoy!


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost (1916)

Shades of purple

It's not that I love purple, it's just that I suddenly realised that I have too many purple cardstocks with me, and since I prefer my cs to be equally balanced in colours (haha), purple has since become my in colour right now.

This is made with all shades of purple - my first try at purple quilled roses, and purple quilled butterfly. Enjoy the simple purple card!