Holiday season cards!

Hi People,

I have not 1, but 2 cards to share in this blog post. They were all made for the holiday season.
Being a quilling enthusiast, I usually like to incorporate  small quilled trinkets in my cards. However, I would always shy away from making the most beautiful of all - the quilled snowflakes. I used to see so many quilling geniuses making these beautiful intricate snowflakes and I wished if I could achieve the same perfection. So here are my quilled snowflake cards following the tutorials from Ann Martin's blog. I am avid follower of her blog and I guess most of you must be following her too. She is simply awesome :)

Here are the pics:

Snowflake card

Snowflake in two colors

I wouldn't say these are my best quilled snowflakes. I am sure I can better this. Its not perfectly symmetrical. But never the less, I am happy with the outcome.

Hey people, have you noticed the textured paper?  You guessed it right! I got CUTTLEBUG...Yipppiee!! I got it as a gift on thanksgiving from my gem of a husband. I am sure most of my fellow crafters already own one, but the sheer joy of receiving your first is awesome. Isn't it? When my mailman got the parcel, I was jumping with joy.. (Well, not literally..but I am sure my heart did take a leap of joy !!)

Many more cards to follow and I have to tell you about the art exhibition in our community. I had my cards displayed there and...well well well..I will save it all for the next post. Till then..Happy Holidays!!

                                                                                        

Quilled Santa Claus Card

Hi People!

I am so glad I finally took out some time to write a blog post. Its almost after two months but believe me, I keep checking out your blogs and its fun to see all your lovely creations.

In the community where I live, we are having a small ART exhibition this weekend. I made quite a few cards for this exhibition and I am excited to share all of them with you. But it would come one by one.

Here is a quilled Santa Claus card I made as it is the Christmas  season.

Isn't he cute?? :)..I wish I could make a better beard for him though :) Sentiment is hand-written. Rest is usual. Let me know what you guys think of my Santa!

Punched flowers

I have been so busy since last few days. But it has been a good week! Since I am involved in a job where we need to send shipments to clients, I had made a lot of thank you mini cards to send along with them. I hope it brings a smile on their face when they receive it. :)

Here is the card I made yesterday with punched flowers. The layout is inspired from Clean and simple blog. They have super layouts laid out for beginner card-makers like me.  There was this good 40% off sale going on in Michaels for paper trimmers. And I bought the fiskars paper trimmer. Its such an awesome tool. Totally worth the deal :) I want to buy scrapbook floss and paper piercing tool and the stores never have it. Hope to find them soon!

Challenges: Moving with the times,Pals Paper Arts

Spring again!

I guess the spring season is reflecting in my work. Today I made a quilled card which I was so eager to share to with you all. Its almost 1 am in the night but I couldn't wait till morning to share this. Here it is!

The colors never come up as good in the picture as in reality. The twirls are actually in silver tone and not grey as it is seen in the picture. I think I need to buy a SLR to click better images of my projects..or may be its just my dumb photography. Anyways...To me, nothing looks as pretty as a quilled flower on a card. I just love quilling. It requires a lot of patience and hard work but its all worth it in the end. Here is the complete card.

I am quite happy with the stamped sentiment too. You know what, I made the entire card first, and then did the stamping, Now I am just a beginner in stamper and believe me it requires a little amount of skill. Especially with the wooden stamps, in which you cannot see the bottom of where you are stamping exactly. A little here and there, and your card is ruined. I literally prayed for a second before stamping this one ..:-D..And it worked huh !! :)..The screen seems to be blurring on me now..or is it my yawning thats got tears in my eyes!! I should be off to sleep :)..Have a great tomorrow!!

The color is blue!

Did you guys watch the cricket semi-finals between India and Pakistan? It was the god of all games I would like to believe. Wow..a huge huge win for India..And I am glad I witnessed it. The men in blue did an awesome job. I was especially impressed with our much under-estimated bowling line. Nehra made every Indian eat his words. What a game! Phew..Just waiting to see the Sri Lankans getting beaten hard at the Finals..Sachin, you deserve the World cup.. Currently, every Indian must be in love with the color blue as I am.So, I had to a make a best wishes card on this occasion and it had to be the Indian blue for sure. Have a look!

My beloved sister sent  the 3-D sparkling liner and the buttons from India for me. I was dying to use them and here I got the opportunity. The sparkling liner looks a bit tarnished in the picture but in real, it looks very pretty. The rhinestone, stamp and ribbon are from Michael's Art and craft. I still have to improvise on my cutting skills though. But I am happy with the card :)
 So, heres wishing the Indian team all my best wishes my style!

I am entering my card to the following challenge:

Paper Romance Bling Challenge

Spring..flowers..butterflies

The spring season is almost here and I am loving the weather so much. Nothing feels as good as enjoying the nice and bright California sun :). Though I would love to visit any place where it snows in winter, and all the trees have lost their leaves. And then with the arrival of spring, every plant starts budding. For a gardener, it must be a joyful experience to see his plants blooming with the first bud of the spring season. Year after year, after the harsh winters, the spring brings hope, cheerfulness and yes flowers and butterflies...And thats what is the theme of my card :)

Spring Card

For this card, I used a freebie digi-stamp saying 'Spring' available here. It is freebie for a limited time so grab it soon if you like it . This was my first time to use a digi-stamp and its fun working with them. Its simply a png or jpeg image which you can play with either coloring it yourself or using softwares. I tried my hand on photoshop with this. My hubby Pathik who is a photoshop pro was after me since so many days to learn using photoshop for my creativity. But the "old-school-me" never took it seriously. However, this time I did give it a shot with a little help from my hubby dearest :). Now at least I can play a little with layers.

Spring-hand-made-card

The flowers are made using a flower punch. Its 3 punched flowers stuck together. I just pinched each petal lightly to give it a little realistic feel. The center of the flower is a quilled tight paper coil. The butterflies are again punched and the trail i hand drawn. For the grass, I cut quilled paper in grass shape and stuck them on the card. It took me a long time but the end result looks good! Isn't it?

I am putting this card for the following challenges:

PCJ challenge 6 - Up in the air
Southern Girl Challenge
SCH-handmade flower challenge

Bee Carafty spring challenge

cheerful stampad challenge

Hearts and Ribbons

I think I am getting the hang of card making now. And I am loving my creations. Here is one of the cards that I made and quite pleased with it.

With love card

How I made this card? Here it is:
-The heart shapes are hand-drawn and thats why not very neat but still I am happy with them.
- The small pink hearts are quilled with 1/8th inch quilling paper.
-For the polka dots, I simply used an office hole puncher.
-I used double-sided tape for the pop-up effect on the hearts.
-The caption 'With Love'  is printed on avery labels.

I am still learning how to tie a neat ribbon bow. Will have to search for a tutorial for that.

Card making is so much fun. There is so much of creativity floating on the internet that you get addicted to it. I surely am :).

My card goes to the following challenges:

http://alyssundaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/03/asc-anything-goes-sponsored-by.html

http://stampingvacation.blogspot.com/2011/03/no-no-challenge-no-fancy-borders.html

Mini Cards

I have been a little busy in the last week. We attended a nice Indian-American wedding here in Los Angeles. The groom was American and the girl was US born Indian. so it was a fusion kind of a wedding and the irony was we were from the Groom's side :). So, we were the only Indians making the 'baraat' (wedding procession) dance in our typical desi style. It was so much fun...In fact one of the fellow American friend asked me, "Is it normal? Are we doing it right" with funny expressions on his face ..He was referring to 25-30 of us dancing frenziedly on the beach side road with cars swooshing by..:) :)..and I said, "Thats the way you do it !!". What is an Indian wedding without the baraat and the baraati? Isn't it? We had a gala time at the wedding and the best part was I got to wear a saree after a long time :). All in all it was a beautiful weekend. And that is why I didn't find chance to post on my blog.

Coming back to my card making, after a few poor attempts, I thought to myself..instead of wasting my good handmade paper, I should first try small cards first. And they I came up with these:

Mini Card 1

Mini card 2

Mini Card 3

Mini card 4

These are all 2"X3" cards. I have combined a little quilling with paper punching here. And I used address labels to print these quotes. You will find the software on http://www.avery.com. Isn't it a super cool idea :) Pat on my back ;). These cards can be used as small notes added to a gift or a bouquet and you may add a small message inside. Ain't it a cool idea? Do let me know which card you like the most, Mini card 1,2,3 or 4?

You may put your comments through facebook too!

Card Making - trial 2

I am trying and I am trying hard, but still the results don't satisfy me. I thought card making would be easy but it is not.  I see so many blogs dedicated to card making and I m literally in awe of all of them. I mean people who are doing it since a long time make seriously awesome and unique ones. But before I get a hang of the art,  I don't want to spend my money on all the fancy gadgets they use. You know what happens to me when I  walk into any scrapbook store, or Crafts shop, I am like a little girl in a candy store. There are stamps, buttons,colors, colorful papers, punches, stick ons, all sorts of funky machines,and I go crazy looking at all of them. When I was in Pune, I could spend hours in the 'Venus traders stationary store' on the FC road. It was heaven on earth for a stationary junkie like me. In such places, I have to control myself before my temptations to buy the entire store takes over me. I am sure there are many like me out there and thats why the stores sell :)

Well coming back to the original reason of writing this post,  this is my second try on making a card. Somehow I feel its not even worth a post but still I would like to know your views.

You are my star Card

Whatever you see on the card is hand drawn by me. Inspiration is a tattoo design I came across while surfing the net. I used a black gel pen to do the drawing and thats it.

All those who visit my post and know even a little about card making, please share your pointers and I will be a happy learner.

Card Making - My new found hobby!

Hello everyone! Since a few days I was trying to get into card making. And its been very interesting. After a few not-so-good attempts, this is something I thought is worth sharing. But I am sure I can do much better.

All the supplies used in here were bought from Michael's Art and Craft except quilling paper. I got the quilling beginner kit from 'Blick Arts and Materials'.

I have always liked to put a personal touch to any gift I have given to anyone. And I love to explore new ideas in handmade crafts. Its lovely to know when someone appreciates the effort you put in making a person happy! If anyone of you have craft blogs, please share your link in the comments and I will be happy to follow you. I have shared a few on the side-bar of my blog. I like Manasa's and Eden's crafts. They are both so creative.

I will be putting up my card in a few challenges. Crossing my fingers! :)

Needles and Threads - Project Complete!

Well..Well..Well.. After a good amount of hard work, a little patience and 2 seasons of 'Grey's Anatomy', my first project is complete. Following is the pic.

 

 The entire embroidery is done in the stem stitch. I guess its the next easiest stitch after the 'running stitch'. Now, I learnt this stitch when I was a kid, but you can always find them online. It's quite easy. First, I tried the  'Long and short' stitch to fill up the flower buds, but I couldn't do a good job with it. So I switched to simpler stem stitch. As the fabric was very thick, I had to use all 6 threads together to make it visible. Here is the picture of the cushion on the sofa chair -

 

So here is my first project complete and I am so happy. Now its time to take up something new! I will continue with embroidery but not right away. I would like to have a few suggestions from you all. Put on your thinking caps and I will put on mine too :). It will be great to know your suggestions and if something excites me,  I will surely take it up. Now its time to remain awake all the night as its India-England match coming up soon. Go India Go!!

Needles and Threads - Chapter 1

As this is a new project and a new activity altogether that I have taken up and its a total DIY (Do it Yourself), I am going to share every small bit of detail of it with you. I will try and cut the long story short but I really have to tell you all the small tough times this new activity has given me.

Firstly, I had to pick the fabric I would do it on. Recently we got a new couch for our home and with that we received three matching cushions. So, I picked up one and started my google search for the design. Here is the simple design that I picked.

Now, I didn't have any tracing paper or any kind of tracing supplies with me. And the impatient me wanted to get going. The fabric I have chosen is a thick upholstery material, so it wasn't easy to just draw on it. So I had a little crazy idea to get this done. I perforated the entire design with a needle. Tch-tch-tch-tch I kept on going around the lines of my design. My idea was to dip a cotton ball in thin color liquid and then placing the temporary stencil on the fabric, I would rub the cotton ball all over the design and it should be traced. So proud I was with the brilliant brainwave I had. Well, it wasn't easy as it seemed to be. 

Firstly, I didn't pin my design. I was super impatient in getting this done with. I simply dipped the cotton and started rubbing over the design. After making the  paper half wet, I picked one corner to see if the design got traced. All I could see was blots of red color all across the fabric.  I thought to myself, ok let me use a ball pen instead and simply tear through the perforated lines. But the paper was too wet to take that assault. Thus first try, total failure.

Second try, again I took a print of the design and started all over again ..tch-tch-tch-tch.  This time I pinned my design to the fabric and started to trace it with the pen. Blame it to the quality of the pen, it still didn't give me satisfactory result. Just then, came in my hubby dearest, Patty to the rescue. He said, instead of all this, I can simply draw it for you. And ta-da!...He completed it for me perfecltly! :)

If anyone has better ideas on how can I trace better next time, please share them with me :). Here is a pic of what I have done till now. I will share the story of stitches and colors in the next post! Let me know if anyone has done this kind of work before. It  will be great to know your stories too.

Prologue - Needle and Threads

As promised, I am back with a new and fresh project in hand, a new hobby which I plan to stick on to - well..as long as I can :). It is hand embroidery.Now are you wondering where did that come from..Well, keep reading!

Embroidery is something that I always wanted to take up since a young age - may be when I was 8 -9 years old. I used to see my mom filling up bedsheets with these beautiful intricate designs which would splash up with colors and come to life once she would complete it. I would nudge her to let me do some part of it, and she would let me do just a small leaf, a flower petal or may be just a swirl, coz my work wasn't that neat and she wouldn't let my untidy work show up in her art piece.  Then as we grew up, she got busy with us and with that the needles and threads just disappeared out of her life. And thus, out of my life too.

When I got married last year,  My Grandma-in-law (My mother-in-law's mother), Nani as we fondly call her, gifted us a beautiful bedsheet set fully hand embroidered by her as a wedding gift. And what a master piece of art it is. It is the most wonderful gift I ever received. The bed sheet is lemon yellow in color filled with a beautiful mesh of pink embroidered flowers and green swirls. It is a hell of a design covering the entire 7'X8' of yarn and she did it all by herself in just a month. Can you believe that? I mean it is a lot of hard work and seriously lots of patience. Its her unbeatable passion for it. You give her a piece of cloth and she would start off with her needle and threads and make it a piece of art. My Mom-in-law has a huge collection of bedsheets, pillow covers, sarees, frames all beautified by Nani with her skillful hand. When I go back to India this december, I will take pictures of all that beautiful work and share it with you, for sure!

And looking at all that wonderful work, it got registered somewhere in my brain, ok I got to do this. I really got to do this. So this time, before coming back to US, I randomly picked up a few threads and a pack of needles. And now the time has come to put it to some good use. I have already started with something which I will share with you all in the next post. And I have to make a promise to myself, I will complete it!