Flowers in your book

I know it's easier to use punches or dies to cut the flower petals, but I guess I'm the traditionalist who cut everything using scissors. A messy  work, but I like it even more hehe.

Funny how I hardly use bookmarks (and thus, always scramble my way looking for the  right pages haha). I know  some people who love using them, so these girlish flowers are for them. :)

The bookmark tutorial was also featured in Remaja 15th June 2012 edition. :-)

And one for the wedding

These simple bookmarks are made for a close cousin's wedding last November. She designed her own calligraphic wedding signature (it's the combination of her name and her husband's in Arabic), and sent it to the rubber stamp shop (told her she should have it hand-made, but it was too late for that).

The red butterfly bookmarks looked pretty simple, but they actually took about the same amount of time to be done as the green bookmarks.

As you probably know, the green bookmark design is a repeated design from the previous ones that I've done. (Sure is a popular design, eh?)

To Nihayah and Rezalman, CONGRATULATIONS on the wedding!

(that's the bride)

Purple Plait

I've tonnes of fun making these. I like the fact that they are so simple in design, and yet the simplicity is what makes them stand out. This is definitely one design I won't get tired of making. :)

I've used purple before, but only limit them to pastel colours.This marks my first time of combining purple and black, and those are really some joyful colours to combine!

I love making sets of these repetitive patterns for Nabila. Thought I should add more to the collection - pencils, pens, tags, notebooks etc so it could be one giant hand-made stationery set hehe.

Oh well, there's always next time, not?

The 2 yellowish brown bookmarks are definitely my favourite too - from the colour combination to the fact that it looks more like woodcarving than paper quilling haha. Should. make. more. of. these. :)

Twins again

I've been caught up with lots of things to settle before the week ends. There's a cousin's wedding to attend on the whole of Saturday, and my flight will take off on Sunday night. (And to think there are still few more World Cup games to catch up...)....So I have some very limited time with me right now, and am seriously hoping that I could settle everything and take off with a light head. Who wants to worry on their summer hols?

Here are some bookmarks to please the eyes. I made them for Hamimah, whom by now should have finished with her practical training. She wanted a little something for her colleagues and friends, and had already decided on the design.

As you can see, I've made the designs before, but I've re-arranged the theme and switched the colour around (just a bit).

Enjoy while I finish up my things-to-do list, and prepare for multiple pre-posted entries later ok!

Child's Art (Part 3 of 3)

This is the last of the three-part tribute to Child's Art.

Fiqa is the first born in our family. She's the first daughter, the first granddaughter, and the first niece we ever had. She's now 9, and strangely enough, I think she skewed more towards the left brain (must inherited that from the parents, not the aunt, heh!), and she herself claimed of not having the hands of an artist :P  And yet, she surprised me with her designs most. I'm loving the cute little figurines that she made, as they fit the qualifications of being the citizens of my Wonderland perfectly (here goes the Land blabbering again!). For example, she first made this:

.. and I was totally in love with it! Yup, that's me and my little obsession with aliens, freaks and weirdos. This little 'thing' looks like a mutated being, and I just love its two giant rabbit-like ears. Can you see those little sensors inside the rabbit-like ears. And it feels like this mutant could even fly, with the two wings. I could even picture this little thing buzzing around the lake, admiring the Narcissus flowers.I think I should call it MT (a short form for mutated thing hahaha)

I think MT is feeling very lonely, being the weird mutant with shocking green ears. It must have felt so left out. But again, each of us is a weird mutant in our own way anyhow. Don't we always claim how we're so different from others, and how our minds are so complicated no everyone can understand us? I know I did, and I'm sure most of you too. :) So MT and us didn't make that much of a difference, right?

Hence, since MT looks so alone, of course it needs a partner. So Fiqa designed MT's partner, which we should call...... MT v2. Hahaha. (I should really be more creative in naming things!)

... and I could just feel the mood being lifted and fluffy feelings fill the air! v2 has that vibe of making everyone else around her feels good. :). I especially love v2's hair. It's soooo 70s! LOL! She must've put lots and lots of gel to make it stay put. :P

And last but not least, Fiqa made use of my quilling box and designed my favourite mutated mermaid ever! :

Yep, it must be another mutated being - of mermaids and medusa. Should we call it Med then? She's the lake's guardian, watching from inside the lake. No, she can't sing, and she didn't turn anyone into a stone even if you gazed at her for hours. She's a fierce being, but not a real evil. Cheeky at times, and very accident-prone. And she's very proud of her flaming red hair! :P

This Narcissus lake has a very greek-ish theme to it, with Narcissus flowers by the side, and Med gawking from the inside. Should we create more happy gorgonians to complete the set? :P

p/s MT and v2 are made into bookmarks. I'm yet to glue Med down. Oooohh.. she's slippery eyh!

The Crafter's Block.

I've recently practised on how to schedule my blog entries, which I'm planning on using if things are getting even more haywire on my side. Most of the time I've posted 2 -3 entries per week (sometimes up to 4 - 5 as well). By actually scheduling my blog update, I could easily arrange my update, and could tell you beforehand too :P

Today's entry is actually a continuation of previous entry. These bookmarks were also requested by Shera, and she specifically wanted bookmarks with owls and flowers on them. Here's a pic of the ones with the flowers:

Haven't I told you how much I love green. And nature always inspire me. :P

The truth is, I've been making cards non-stop lately, and by the time I've completed Shera's requests of mini album and the bookmarks, I was totally exhausted. And drained. And thought I couldn't squeeze any of the creative juices anymore. And it took me almost 3 days to finally being able to start on a fresh card. Has it ever happened to you? Crafter's block?

When things are getting exhausted, and I can't think properly, the best thing to do is to just let go of everything, and take a break. Which I did. I stopped myself from getting close to my quilling box for a while.

And here's the bookmark with quilled owls on it.


When people asked me on how long do I take to design a card, I would say at least 2 weeks' notice would be  needed. I would definitely prefer a longer notice, so it won't be done in a rush. The truth is, it's not easy to squeeze your creative juices out of your head, and I usually start sketching from the moment the order was received. That itself would take ages (because I'm indecisive and kept on changing my mind up to the very last minute), and even if the sketching design is final, it didn't even guarantee that the final outcome will be the same. Again, me and my indecisiveness. And surprisingly for me, to quill strips of papers isn't the most difficult part - it was arranging the little quills and transform them into an actual something is. This has always been the part where I almost nearly wreck my brain.

My schedule will be tighter in upcoming weeks (unrelated to craft-making), so I need to organise everything nicely. So pre-schedule blog entries would give me a much-needed boost.

The joy in a heart

Mind me, if this entry is going to be bombarded with lots of photos. I simply couldn't get enough of these, and keep on snapping the pics for the nth time, up until the day of delivery hehe.

Are-ween emailed me way back in January, and told me she wanted to give something practical and special for her friends during her wedding, which is going to be in May. After few discussions, we settled on bookmarks, and knowing that I have totally ample time on my hand (5 months, for 100 bookmarks! Yeay!), I took my own sweet time to design them. And I was totally satisfied with the result. And I wanted to share them here :)

The first 80 pieces was meant for the girlfriends of the bride, so the theme was pink and white. As I couldn't resist on the colour combination (hehe), I made half with white as the background, and another half with pink as the background.

Here's the close up:

And I quilled each heart excitedly, and got really addicted to making all 80 of them haha!

The other 20 pieces were meant for the bride guyfriends, so it took a while to decide on the design, and the colour.

Are-ween then wanted black and green, and since I don't want black to dominate the bookmark and become a stark contrast to the white and pink versions, I added on the creamish white to soften the effect. And with the brightness of the greens, I think they blend in well. :)

The quotation is simple, but goes straight to the heart.

I love the fact that each of the bookmark is actually different from one another, as I purposely arranged the quilled coils (the heart) and quilled marquise (the leaves) randomly. So each would be slightly different from the rest, and has that individualistic feel to it.

Now, don't you wish you're invited to Are-ween's wedding? :P


And before I end today's entry, I would like to thank Lin, for featuring Miyyah@Kertas at her blog. I've been a lurker at her blog for quite a while, as I love her cards, and her cute figure drawings (since I'm really bad at that hahaha), so it's a huge honour to be the featured blog of the month there. Lin, thanks so much for featuring me, and keep on paper crafting ya! It's great to be part of the small community of Malaysian paper crafters!

And special thanks also goes to Norlie and Miezam, for the wonderful awards they've given me. Miezam is the jack of all trades (he basically tries his hands on everything), and one of the few thorns among the roses. And Norlie is simply the felt mistress, and has never ceased to amaze me with her stitching and sewing skills,which I envy. :)

And to Are-ween, congratulations dear, on your upcoming wedding. Hope it's going to be a blast, and wish that your friends would love the bookmarks. It's been a pleasure to make these for you!

p/s:  These were the items meant for the black box. :)

Extraterrestrial Reading

These little aliens remind me a lot of teletubbies LOL. After Irie was born, I though of making more robots, but I keep on quilling aliens instead hehe. These four little aliens had very, very huge tummies, and as you can see, they have taken serious liking on desserts.

Let's do some proper introduction, shall we?


Well, this is Gaz. He's so much into glitzy chocolate puddings and seems to be a bit obsessed with anything chocolaty. He shouts MINE all the time - especially when he's hungry.


He's a bit selfish, and snotty. But could be a little cute especially when he stuffs himself with chocolate LOL. As selfish as he is, the other three seem to listen to him very well, and respect him a lot. So I guess he's the leader of the pack.

And this green little monster is called Chu.


He's the nerdy one in the group, and a natural-born peacemaker. He recycles everything around him and plans to open his own recycling centre. He loves vege and anything green. He might not say it out loud, but I think he has a wee bit crush on Gem.


Who's Gem? Well, this is Gem:


The troublemaker, and the youngest of them all. Gem is Gaz's younger sister, but they have absolutely nothing in common (okay, perhaps the thickheads!). Gem didn't listen to anyone, and only does what she likes.


She loves her brother because he's her brother, but hates everything else about him hahaha. She loves to bicker, and yells a lot. But she has a very good heart, and soften a bit whenever her brother's not around :P

The last one in the group is The Prince.


I have no idea why he's called that way. He's not a real prince, nor anyone ever treated him like one. All I know is that he never talks. Gem loves talking to him, as he never replied. He has a heart made of gold, and is loved by everyone. He eats the most out of the four, and he just adores Forgotten Pudding.


Which one is your favourite? :P

*this entry is featuring Nigella Express, one of my favourite cookbooks ever.

On another topic, it saddens me to say that my loyal camera has officially went haywire - for the second time! It keeps on snapping blank pictures as if it had been knocked out and couldn't see anymore. There's no point of repairing anymore (I spend almost RM300 to repair the last time), and I might as well buy a new SLR (dream on - get a job first Miyyah! :P). I'm not sure how to take the next piccas, but will probably rely on my sister's for a while.

2010 Calendar v. 3.0

A promised, this is the belated birthday present that accompanied the previously mentioned Flaming Lily card. Yes, it's already February, so January calendar card is no longer valid, but there are still 8 months + to go, so hopefully she would be able to make full use of the calendar.

This calendar was actually made together with the brown calendar, and actually one of those few encounters that I had with pattern papers.

Since the other one was made in brown, complimenting the new owner of the calendar, this one was made in red, and made thinking of the new owner as well.

I think red suited her cheerful and bubbly personality best, and she adores anything in vibrant colours. And the white butterfly was from one of those earrings that I wrote the last time.

And I threw in a red bookmark as well (it wasn't actually part of the gift, but I just threw it in because it matches the card, and the calendar and she just love this matchy2 stuff haha.

Now the whole set totally reminds me of Chinese New Year Celebration!