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!!

                                                                                        

Lil Birdie Card

As I promised in my previous blog, I am back to share my second card with all of you.

Here it is:

 This is my Little birdie Birthday card! I had these plastic funky eye stickies in my stash since a long time. I received them in my first quilling set. Almost after 1 and half years, i thought of using them and I am pretty happy with the result. It really looks like the birdie is staring at you with eyes wide open :). I even quilled a fish similarly but I have still  not used it on a card. Need a fishy sentiment to go with it. Put it in comments if you think of a fishy line for an occasion and I will use it to make my fishy card!

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!

Make A Wish Card

Hi Everyone...

I guess it has been more than three months since I have written a post.. I myself don't know the reason very well. I have been busy but now if I think of it, I did have time to write but just didn't happen..Anyhow...Here is a card I made after ages...And I love the way it has come out.

Make a Wish Card

My photos never do justice to the real card. The colors are much softer in reality. Next time I would use a better camera to take pictures.

Do let me know what do you think of the card. I would be happy to know your views.

Navy Blue and White Thank you card

I have been soo busy... Its more than a month that I have done any craft...And I sure missed it...
Sneaked out a little time and made this.. I have also observed, I cannot force myself to do something creative. The creative juices got to flow :)

Here is a card I made yesterday.

 

Its a 4"x5" card. The layout is a self thought.  I wanted to do a navy and white card since a long time and finally I made one. The sentiment is hand written. Spare me for the poor photo quality. I need some photography lessons for sure :)

Another news!  A very good friend of mine who is a very good artist cum writer cum photographer cum guitarist and the list goes on has started blogging. Here is the link. Vinu's sketches and photographs are spectacular and I am happy, after a lot of urging, he has started writing. Do care to visit his blog.

Till my next card, a very happy weekend to all. Enjoy!

My Mother's day cards

I know its a little late in posting my cards for Mother's Day..But better late than never right!! Honestly speaking, I am not very much for these kind of day celebrations...be it daughter's day, father's day, brother or sister day. We don't really need a special day to celebrate life.. Do we? I don't intend to start a debate here... I am just being honest and everyone has a right to personal opinion..Why did I make these cards then...simple..I love making them :). I am sure my folks will appreciate my honesty !!

Did I mention 'cards'?..well, no typo here. One is for my birth Mom and the other is for my after marriage Mom..technically put Mother-in-law but I don't like the technical term anyways..

Well, here are the cards I made for my dear Mummies -The left one is for my Birth Mummy and one on the right is for my post marriage mummy :). The sentiment truly say what I feel for both of them. We are in different continents but lucky me is going to meet both of them soon. Love you Mommies :)

 

Card making details: The layout is from Clean and Simple stamping blog. I really love their layouts.  The sentiments are partially stamped and partially hand-written. Next thing to add to my Michael's shopping list - Alphabet stamps :) ..

Hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day.. I couldn't celebrate with them the same day but I am looking to all the good time I am going to have with them soon :) :)

Challenges: sparkles forum challenge
                   Paper Cuts challenge
          SNSDC Challenge
        

Cupcake card and the Award

Crafty Ann's Challenge blogNews ..News ..News .. My elder sister had a baby girl a few days back and she is such a gorgeous little angel..  Luck me, my sister is just two hours from my place and I got to spend some time with my niece. Hence, the long break from blogging.  I was waiting to share the new stuff I made since a long time.

Here is another digital stamp that I made. It's a cute little cupcake digi-stamp..my husband helped me watermark it. The water-mark would be my blog logo too. I ma working on it and soon it will be there!

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Cupcake Digi-stamp    

It is a freebie and you can grab the JPEG image just by clicking the below thumbnail:


I made a Happy birthday card using the same image. Here it is:

 

Cup-cake card

 Hope you all like the freebie and if you grab it, do let me know! I would like to see your work using it :) !!

And hey..I got one more news to share . I got this 'Stylish blogger Award' from Romina of  Romina's Creative Crafts. Thank you soo much Romina. Its my first award and I am thrilled to get one. Romina has lovely ideas and wonderful cards you all should check out.


Here is the Award. Thanks once again Romina !!

 

Stylish blogger award from Romina

         

Challenges: Moving along with times-Cake challenge, Paper craft star challenge  
                    Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog

Damask Patterned Card

I never really thought I would enjoy card making so much. Here is another card I made this weekend following the layout on clean and simple blog.

I have tried to make damask patterned paper here with a stamp that I got from Michaels. Lately, I am quite attracted towards damask patterns and I keep looking for them everywhere. The pattern gives a classy feel to anything it is used on. Be it fabrics, wall-papers, furniture, books and the list goes on.  I especially like it in the grandpa kind of armchairs. 

I wish I have a big house someday where I can have my own library.  I would place a big damask armchair there. What a bliss it would be to enjoy reading a book sitting on it with a cup of hot coffee. .. Okay...eyes opened...whooosh goes the dream!! :) Time to get back to work. Hope you all had a good weekend and yes.. happy crafting!

Challenges: Craft your passion , Incy wincy Designs 

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! :)