Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Love is in the air.......


I finally made a quilled card..........yippee. I have been fascinated with quilling since a long time....but never tried it out. I got hold of some quilling paper at a local craft store and decided to try it out. The store did not have any quilling tools, so had to do without them. I guess you don’t need to buy quilling strips; you can just cut strips of paper and start quilling.
I got the idea of the quilled heart from here http://quilling.blogspot.com/2008/02/one-world-one-heart.html

I also tried out some paper roses.......I guess I need some more practice :) . The instructions are available at http://www.handmade-craft-ideas.com/paper-roses.html

This site has a good quilling tutorial http://johannachambers.deviantart.com/art/Basic-Quilling-Tutorial-99717256

Happy quilling!


Friday, January 23, 2009

Personalized Photo Card

I think personalized photo handmade cards are a great gift. I made this card for my husband’s nephew’s 5th birthday. This was my first attempt at making a card with photos and I think it has come up really well (I know, I know I am quite shameless when it comes to praising my own cards ;) ).

I used two sides sticking tape to create different layers in the card. Two sides sticking tape is one of my favorites, using it to give 3-D effect can pep up even the simplest of cards; I use it liberally in my cards.

I used two kinds of gift wrapping paper (another one of my favorites) for the background. Punched hearts were folded around the corners of the centre photo to create a photo album kind of effect. I wrote “Aadi” with a calligraphy pen, I had got a set of calligraphy pens some time back but had never used them much; writing well with them requires some practice.

I hope Aadi likes it...........

Saturday, January 10, 2009

3-D Window Card

I really enjoyed making this card......even though it required a lot of work. I made it for my mother-in-law’s birthday.......she loved it. I cut out the window from the card using a paper cutter and hand stitched the curtains out of cotton silk, the curtains are put on a wire so you can actually move them. The window sill is made out of an old red cardboard box; I made ribbon roses to put on the window sill.

Thank You Cards.....





A colleague of mine asked me to make thank you cards for her son’s first birthday party. I had to make 50 cards in 2 weeks. Considering that I could only make the cards after office hours and on weekends I had to come up with a quick yet interesting design. I used hallmark gift wrapping paper with matching ribbons to add colour to the cards, used a scalloped circular punch to cut out the scalloped circle and used a set of clear stamps for the bears, coloured them with crayons and used another set of “thank you” clear stamps for the thanks yous.......and the card was ready.......I repeated the same pattern in 4 different colours to add variety.........and put a picture of my colleague’s son on the inside of the card..........

Friday, January 9, 2009

My Initial Days....


I really like the concept of giving handmade cards; it shows how much the person receiving the card means to you, as you spent so much time and effort in making the card for them. Though I have tried my hand at card-making as a child, mostly for my parent’s birthdays, I never took it up seriously until now.
Last year I decided to make a hand made card for my roommate a handmade card on her birthday, I had no resource required to make a card, I did not even have card stock, and it was quite late at night so I decided to improvise with whatever I had......I made a card using A4 size sheet of paper, postits and for coloring I used my lip liner pencil ;). Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the card, I’ll have to ask my roommate to take one so that I can post it here.
Next I decided to make a card for my mom’s birthday, and this time I was equipped with card stock and colors :) .
This is what I made (the pictures are not great as I never thought I would be posting them anywhere........)
And this is the card I made for my dad’s birthday.
I got both the ideas from searching on the internet.....I don’t remember what website now......
By now I was hooked......but I was still not aware of all the card making resources available today.
Slowly in the past year I have acquired quite a few card-making tools and have taken up card-making seriously.....most of my friends and family have received cards made by me (whether they like it or not ;) )....... I’ll be sharing my card-making experiences and ideas in the following posts.......I hope you enjoy going through my blog....