Each Passing Year is Another Journey Travelled

Hi everyone, hope all of you is enjoying the week so far.

I'll be flying back to Indonesia on Thursday evening as it's Eid ul-Fitr (which translates to lots and lots of yummy food for the whole weekend, wooohooo!!!), so I thought I'd publish another post tonight.

Today's card is a card for my brother in law's birthday, which falls sometime this week--I've already mailed out this card a couple of days ago but I'm quite certain that's it's gonna reach him late! Oooopsss, my bad!

Anyway, here's the card using Card Pattern's Sketch 80. Not sure that the pattern is 100% as sketched, as it turned out that the bicycle image was too wide for a rectangular card T_T.



My brother in law loves cycling, so choosing the bicycle image as the topper was not a hard choice :). I created this bike silhouette digistamp from an image from Modish at SXC.



The cardstock and patterned paper I used were SEI's Oasis range; it's definitely one of my favorites although I think they might have discontinued this range :(.



As an embellishment, I printed a verse on kraft paper and adhered it to a punched scalloped circle cardstock (cut by my new Marvy Uchida Scalloped Circle Punch). Font credit goes to Kevin and Amanda's Free Scrapbook Fonts.

I'm submitting this cards to these following challenges too: CCCB Week 21 (One for the Boys, using the color blue), Paper Cutz Challenge #57 (1 ribbon, 2 button, and 3 colors--blue, brown and cream), and also enrolling them for the second time at Bee Crafty's Anything Goes (with digi-image), Daisy Doodles Creative Challenge's Anything Goes, and Digi Doodle Shop's Best Challenge (Write Me a Message).

Okay people... Gotta go now, got some packing to do :). Hope you enjoy the rest of the week and keep an eye out for my next post 'cos I may be posting loads of photos of oh-so-yummy food!

Cheerios!

Much love,
F

Happy Birthday Dad! (And A Discount Coupon for All of You!!)

Hi there!

Well, two birthday cards down last week, three more to go :). Next week will be the last week before we have to move house though, so with all the bits and bobs we have yet to pack, I don't know whether I'd be able to finish and mail all the cards in time :(.

Anyway, in the midst of folding and packing a sea of clothes while listening to Jason Mraz's I'm Yours - Remix (trust me, this song really makes any kind of house chores more enjoyable--albeit slower as I'd dance like fifty per cent of the time!), I managed to squeeze in making one more birthday card for my beloved dad.

I haven't submitted any cards to the CPS blog for the past two weeks, so this week I played along with their sketch #178 Challenge :). I loved their sketch this week; very clean and simple, so I'm also submitting it to the Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturday Blog challenge--their theme for this week happens to be clean and simple as well.

I managed to create AND finish a digital paper kit on Saturday, which is very, very fast by my standards :), so I got to use it for today's card. I have yet to find a suitable name for the kit, though, LOL. I also used a digital stamp of a tree for the topper.


The interesting part of this card is the embellishment; I used three wooden-carved letters to form the word "DAD". I bought these wooden letters from a local craft shop a few months back, and I've actually forgotten that I'd bought them. Luckily I found them amongst my pile of paper scraps when I was making this card, LOL.


Now on to the discount coupon!!

Since my dad's birthday's coming up, I want to celebrate it by sharing a little joy with everybody :). If you have a special man in your life that you'd like to give a present to, now is the perfect time!

Hop on to Brookstone Online Store today for a wide selection of unique, thoughtful gifts for dad or that special someone that you love.

~ February Lane ~ readers will get to enjoy $10 off any online purchase of $70 or more!!

Enter this coupon code when you purchase from their online shop: 22SAVE

That's all for now, hope you'll enjoy the discount coupon! Thanks for visiting!

Much love,
F

Birthday Lilies ♥

Yes, yes, I know, another flowery card this week... Hope I haven't bored you with all my girly cards yet!

Well, if I can blame someone for my obsessive infatuation of flowers, it will be my dearest mum (love you mum, but the truth will out one of these days, LOL). Yep, my mum really loves gardening and she always decorates our house with flowers, fresh or plastic :). But since I have neither the time nor the green thumb she does; making girly, flowery cards is a perfect enough outlet for me :).

Anyway, I've mentioned in one of my previous posts that both my parents' birthdays are coming up in August. So I made this birthday card for my mum, and I thought this digital stamp of two lilies that I made earlier this week is perfect for her. I printed it on heavy white cardstock and colored it with water color pencils.

I used Papertake Weekly Challenge Sketch #45 for the pattern, and the color theme was taken from Color Throwdown #103... but the red turned out to be much too pink... :(.


I also wanted take part in the Digital Tuesday Challenge #69, Dazzle Me, so I used one of my most favorite SEI papers, Mimosa Sangria glitter paper. Unfortunately my photos don't really show off the glittery texture of the paper, sorry ladies!! :) :) But don't worry, I've got three Prima Marketing jewel drops to add some sparkle!


I made a flower embellishment from cotton crochet lace and added a plastic brown button--tied to the flower using a piece of jute string--to finish off. That made up seven elements that I used for this card, people: cardstock, patterned paper, digital stamp, jewel drops, cotton lace, plastic button and jute string. Yayyy, I get to submit this card to Practical Scrappers' Challenge too, which is to use 7 items or more on my card!!



Well, all that said, I'm also submitting this post to Stamp Something's Weekly Challenge, albeit last minute (I literally a few hours left on the clock for its InLinkz submission, LOL!). Their challenge this week is to make a flowery design, and I think this card is a perfect candidate :) :). Last but not least, I am also posting this entry to Dutch Dare Card Challenge #83, Anything Goes.

Thanks so much for visiting, do visit again for another one of my posts this weekend!!

Much love,
F

Birthday on Wheels

Hello there!

If you have been reading my previous posts, you'd probably know that August will be a super busy month for me. Not only will I be moving to a new house (yaaayy!!), but I also have to make five birthday cards to send out throughout the month (pheeww).

So I may as well get a head start, I thought, by making one of the birthday cards this weekend.The first person who's having his birthday in August is my brother in law, who's a huge fan of cars. Yep, you guessed correctly, that's why finding a theme for this birthday card was a piece of cake, LOL. Today's card will be the card that I'd send to him next week, so I'm basically keeping my fingers crossed that he won't be reading this blog post before the card's off in post, LOL :).

As I was blog hopping, I also happened to come across the Paper Cutz Blog's Challenge #51, which is to make a creation that features something with wheels, which is a perfect match with this project's idea. I combined the theme with Sweet Stampin' Challenge Blog's Challenge 36, create something vintage, and came up with the design for this card.


I used Martine's Sketch from Simon Says Challenge Blog, although I think I might have made quite an alteration on the sketch as I thought following it as is might disrupt the topper's balance on my design--sorry, Martine :).


I also used Donna's recipe from the Cards for Men blog, which is Challenge #15. They'd asked readers to combine one image, two papers and three embellishments, which is exactly what I've done (well, although I used more than three embellishments. Couldn't resist the temptation! But I did use three buttons, though).

The Fussy and Fancy Girls over at the Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge have also posted an exciting challenge a week ago, which is creating a design with scallop, stitches and sparkles. I used faux stitches for this card, adhered scalloped edges to one of the papers, and used four sparkly (well, metallic, to be exact) eyelets to embellish the card. And last but not least, I'm also posting this card to Digi Doodle Shop's Best Anything Goes Challenge.


Again, I used two of my "For His Eyes Only" digital papers for this card. I have not grown out of it for now :), plus I haven't gotten around to designing another kit for men :) :).

Well, that's all for tonight. It's gonna be the start of a busy week tomorrow, so I'd better kick it off with a good night sleep!! Thanks for visiting and have a great week ahead!

Love,
F

My Grandma's Birthday Bouquet ♥

Helllooooo...

Wow, two weeks went by so fast and I did not even realize that I have not posted anything in more than two weeks. More than two weeks, people!! Amazing as this translates to, of course, two weeks without crafting, cardmaking, taking photos or writing. Pheww.

Well, I have a pretty good excuse for being MIA, though. My husband and I are on the hunt for another apartment as we need to move out of our current one by mid next month. I have mixed feelings about this; partially excited over getting a new place to ransack :D, but also slightly saddened as this house is, after all, the first house we've lived in after we got married :(.

Anyway, I'm sure it'll turn out for the best and we'll find a great place soon :).

Two weeks ago was my husband's birthday and just so happen that we were invited to one of our friends' wedding in Indonesia. (And this means that hereafter, on every 3rd of July, I will have to make a birthday card for my husband AND an anniversary card for my friend :P)

As much as I would like to post the must-have-been-lovely photos that I would've taken at the wedding, since I had to leave the office late that day and headed directly to the airport, my darling husband had forgotten to pick up our camera from the house :( :(. This is despite him knowing that disuniting me from any types of camera on a holiday can and will send me on a catastrophic tantrum that costs him no less than a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough to subdue.

The day after the wedding was also my grandma's 78th birthday, so while we were there, we made our way to her house to celebrate. It was a great party as most of my mum's entire family was there, which doesn't happen often.

The birthday party reminded me of one of my fondest childhood memories, which was staying over at my grandparents' house on almost every weekend. I remember that every time I walked into my granny's bedroom--where I would sit for hours listening to her stories--I would smell the Yardley English Rose fragrance that she used to wear. And I would really, really love it.

Even now, every single time I visited her house (although she does not wear the same perfume anymore), I think that I can still smell the scent in my head. Frankly speaking, I suspect my unexplained fascination of English roses was cultivated by this memory somehow :).

Needless to say, this birthday card was made with the same inspiration--English roses. Yeah, yeah, I know, I've been creating so many rose-themed cards recently, but what can I say :), I really adore them.



The backing paper I used was one of my digital paper set, English Roses, which I finally finished designing after a month (yayyy!!). I printed the topper using a clip art from the digital set and cut out the circle using my Marvy Uchida Clever Lever circle punch. Then I adhered the circle on a punched-out scallop circle cut from recycled paper with my Woodware Scalloped Circle punch.


To finish off, I cut a piece of white printer paper with scalloped scissors and glued it on the backing paper, and stuck the topper on a 2.5" blue satin ribbon, which has been tied loosely to give a knotted effect.


Chic and simple, don't you think? Perfect for my beloved grandma :).

That's all for today; it's quite late now and my eyes are neither closed nor open, LOL. Tomorrow is a new day, hopefully with some good news on our house hunt. I'm off now and see you soon!!

Much love,
F

Happy Birthday Super Star!

Do you like sports? I don't. Wait--let me just rephrase that--I detest sports. My husband (or my poor, poor PE teacher back in the days) would have to either drag me by the feet or bribe me with a ridiculous amount of money just to get me into my trainers and burn some kilos. The closest thing to sports that you'd see me do is listening to the occasional snippets of World Cup 2010 coverage from the BBC's World Service (yep, I don't even like watching live sports on TV, LOL).

What I do like, though, are challenges. Just like when one of my cousins turned seven a few weeks ago, as it was the first time I created a birthday card for a boy.

I was browsing through my favorite craft shop--UrbanWrite--for ideas, when I came across this lively American Crafts' Junior patterned paper collection. Perfect for an active young fellow.

But what do you know, since I don't exactly adore sports, nor have I done any design with this theme, I didn't have any stamps or embellishments that would go with it. So as I got home, I only managed to sit still in front of my desk, doing nothing except for staring blankly at the cute patterned paper.

An idea popped into my head a couple of days later, irrelevant as it may be, when I was washing my hubby's Judogi (which is, by the way, an incredibly bulky uniform for judo, made from tremendously heavy fabric. Can you imagine how physically draining it is to hand-wash this thing?? Thank god he only practices once in a blue moon nowadays). I decided to make my own hand cut topper from a plain cardstock and embellish the card my self.

I cut a jersey-shaped topper from a red cardstock, adorned it with white stripes and a number "1" from plain printer paper, and stamped the name of the birthday boy on the jersey.


The topper turned out to complement the paper perfectly, but as I thought the card still looked pretty plain, I decided to make a mini "medal" that says 'Super Star'. Perfect for a star of any field!

I adhered the topper onto the patterned paper, and attached it on a red pre-folded cardstock with golden brads.

Although I must say I am quite proud of myself for creating this sporty card :), I do hope that one fine day something can change my mind about sports, that I'll be more active, that I'll be healthier and that at least I'll lose some weight :P. But for today, I guess this card will just have to do!

Much love,
F

CPS 173 - Woven Ribbon Birthday Card

Hello there!

I couldn't believe last week went by so fast, but what's worse is, now the weekend is almost over! Pheew! My husband and I went house hunting almost all of yesterday, so between doing the laundry, making Macaroni Casserole and cleaning up our second bedroom-cum-my craft studio, I have not been able to get my usual dose of crafting :(. It has also been raining cats and dogs here in Singapore for the past few days. This morning I woke up to the sound of a blazing thunderstorm, which, to my regret, has soaked all the clothes that I washed last night!!! Aaarghhh!!

As some of you probably know, the creative folks at Card Positioning Systems always release a new challenge every Saturday. Their sketch this week, CPS Sketch 173, is clean and simple--which is a style I quite like. Here's my take on the sketch:

It's my husband's birthday next week and since we're going away for the weekend, I thought of making a birthday card for him :). But since he poked around the studio when I was making this card, I think I may have to dismiss that idea and create a new card for his birthday now, LOL!

The original sketch included six ornamental squares at the side of the card, which I was going to create using patterned paper. But at the end, I decided to weave a piece of cream satin ribbon into the cardstock topper. I cut twelve slits on the bottom of the topper and wove two pieces of ribbon into the cuts; one piece from the right end and another from the left.

As a finishing touch, I tied the ends of the ribbon to a wooden ring that I bought at my local haberdashery store (which is a treasury for amazing cardmaking finds!!), and embellished the knot with a brown plastic button, tied with a piece of jute string.

Here's the list of materials I used for this card:

Cardstock: ArtFriend pre-cut cards
Topper: American Crafts AC Cardstock Caramel
Patterned Paper: SEI Poppy Espadrille
Stamp (for sentiment): Anna Griffin by All Night Media

Well, that's all the crafts for today and I'd better get back to doing the ironing now :(... Hope all of you had a great Saturday and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Much love,
F

My Super Hot Crush

Have I mentioned lately that I am head over heels for SEI's paper collections? If I haven't, well, here goes, I am officially mad for SEI papers. I think their designs are just so sophisticated, while whimsy and pretty at the same time.

My personal favorite is definitely the Moravia range, although the color scheme is not my usual cup of tea (being the self-proclaimed girlish design addict). Regardless, the designs and color moods just go well with mature and sophisticated looking cards, especially if you're making one for a grown-up.

I made the card below for my father-in-law's birthday. The background paper is SEI Moravia Vevcie, which comes with a beautiful die-cut edge.

The Mimosa range is another one of my personal favorites, and this range really portrays the inner me! The patterned paper are both pretty and fresh at the same time, with a playful combination of guava, mango and key lime colors. Love, love, love!


I made the card above with Mimosa stamps, and the paper is Sangria glitter paper.

I still have a few more cards made with SEI's collection, but I'm gonna keep it for later as I really have to get out of bed soon and get some shopping done :). I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with a new card for the CPS challenge!

'Til then,
F

Float, Flutter, Fly!

For no apparent reason, I have recently developed an unprecedented fascination of butterflies.

Well, it's probably not for no reason at all, actually.

It all started one sun-stricken day when a few of my colleagues and I ran out of lunch options and decided to go to a Chinese fast food restaurant a few blocks away from my office. The food wasn't great (which was a given counting there was barely any crowd at lunch time, which in turn is usually a bad sign), but the wall behind the serving counter caught my eye.

Yep, it was covered, top to bottom by tiny little paper butterflies. Handmade, accordion-fold, paper butterflies. Apparently, as and when the waitresses were free (which is probably quite often, judging from the non-existence of any type of diners that day), they gathered in a corner and folded scrap papers--used receipts, brochures, leaflets, and other tiny pieces of colorful papers, to make these dainty, little charmers.

Needless to say, once I got home that evening, I Googled "accordion paper butterfly" and found a handful of links that gave me the step-by-step instructions of how to make it.

This was the first card that I made that very evening:



I made the butterfly from leftover wrapping paper that I found in my studio and used florist wire to make the body and antennae (PS: If you're making one too, be sure that you use thin or low gsm paper as it makes the crease look sharper and you'll get a more streamlined shape). Shaping the wire was unexpectedly difficult, though! Note to self, I really should buy smaller diameter wire next time.

I adhered the butterfly onto a piece of white cardstock and placed this topper on a violet pre-folded cardstock, and I also found some leftovers of my most favorite, beloved DCWV Spring 2009 paper stack. As a finishing touch, I embellished the card with three dainty jewels from Prima.

Another photo of the card:


As with what happens every time I get fascinated with anything new, come the following weekend; I found myself with a new Carla Craft butterfly punch. I was quite excited because that was the first craft punch that I'd bought in a long, long time!

I forgot where I saw the inspiration to make this card, but I remembered that it was a framed image of three butterfly collages that gave me the idea for this design. I actually intended to send this card for a friend's birthday, but somehow I didn't send this card and ended up making another one.



By the way, the button that I used for the embellishment was rather 'special' because I bought it in Cebu, the Philippines. Yep, even when I was having a holiday with my hubby I managed to scour a few scrapbooking shops and bought a few bits and bobs, LOL ^_^.



The last card in the butterfly series is a simple birthday card with a cut-out shape of a butterfly, which was made with one of the papers out of my DCWV Spring 2009 paper stack.


Unfortunately the paper was a bit too thin for this shape, so I had to stick quite a few pieces of tiny craft foam squares at the back to support the form. As I was out of the violet cardstock, I used a shocking-lime-green colored pre-folded cardstock, which is a color I'm not typically in favor of. But it works out quite well at the end I think, thanks to the light green elements on the wrapping paper that I used as a base.



I've only created three of these butterfly-themed cards, but surely I'm still anticipating more to come. I am thinking of experimenting with felt... needle-felt... tissue paper... crochet... OMG! The possibilities are endless! I'd better get crafting now!! Bubye!!


Much love,
F