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. :-)

Featured in Remaja

Featured!

It might not be much, but it's a start. :)

For Malaysians, look out for the owls tutorial on Remaja, 1st of June 2012 issue, page 148.

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

It's been a while since my first Giveaway, and sorry for the delay in announcing the winner. Thank you so much for participating in my first Giveaway, and this quilling-adorned album is luckily won by...

IBU LUNA ZAHRA:

Congratulations dear! Hope you can use it for your little family okay! :)

GIVEAWAY - For Someone Lucky (CLOSED)

THE GIVEAWAY IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED. RESULT WILL BE ANNOUNCED LATER. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING! :)

2010 has been a great year for me - both in my personal life, and my blogging experience. I've enjoyed a fair amount of joy this year - great graduation, new job, new niece, amazing holiday, great get-togethers, interviews, write ups, reviews, fairs and bazaars etc. I've met so many great people, learned so many great things, and have enjoyed every single day of 2010. This blog for one, has been a life-changing experience for me, for through it I met some great friends. It feels amazing to find friends who'd rather buy paper and craft tools than some branded clothing or designers' bags, who'd go straight to stationery section every time we went into a store, who'd flip through every single craft books in a bookshop, and who'd spend hours brooding over some scissors, ribbons and coloured paper.

Additionally, I will forever be indebted to my readers (each one of you), for trusting me, and for encouraging me all this while. It feels good to have people appreciate your work. There're highs and lows even in my blogging/ crafting experience, but you were there for me, supporting me all the way, whether vocally, or in silence.

Thus, to commemorate the end of one beautiful year, Miyyah@Kertas has decided to hold its FIRST Giveaway! I've decided to give this away to ONE lucky reader.

*Picture Updated*

It's a qulling-adorned photo book/album (26 cm x  19.5 cm). The quilling design is done using 1mm quilling strips instead of the usual 3mm.

You can be totally selfish and keep the album to yourself, or use it as your photography/craft portfolio,or utilize it to display your wedding / family/ friends etc photos, or turning it to make a great scrapbook, or give it away as a wedding present or use it as a surprise to your other half etc.


Rules of the game (Please read this carefully before submitting your entries)

1. Anyone on earth can participate.
2. Be a fan on my facebook page and/or a follower of my blog.
3. Please leave a comment in this giveaway entry to participate. Get extra entries by having this giveaway posted on your blog (if you have any)/ share this giveaway on your facebook/ twitter status (for fb, please tag miyyah@kertas).
4. Don't forget to provide your email address together with the shared (blog/fb/twitter) links. Please ensure that you leave only ONE comment.
5. The closing date of the giveaway is on 16th February 2011, 11.59 MYT (GMT +8). 
6. The winner will be chosen via random.org, and announcement of the winner will be made shortly after.

GOOD LUCK!

The Lucky Album

A quick one.

As promised, here's the final look of the giveaway album/ photobook:

It's silver in colour, donning greyish black & light grey 1mm quilling strips. Here's the look with a sample photo in front:

The details:

Aaaand the picture that shows the thinness of the 1mm quilling strips hehehe:

 

It's my first full project using 1mm quilling strips. They're way more delicate than the usual 3m strips that I used, and took more time, but I simply love the thinness of the paper,  and the outcome. Planning to do more 2011 projects using 1mm quilling paper! Watch the space okay! :)

p/s: If you haven't joined the giveaway fun, leave a comment HERE and get a chance of winning this!

The creative cats

I hardly join giveaways, but I think these three deserved special mentions, and lots of LOVE from everyone!

(Everyone seems to be on giveaway mood lately in Malaysian craft scene haha)

There's always a little something that I learned from my encounters with online craft communities. Each blog that I silently read always encourages me to learn something new, something fresh, and mostly, something to ponder. One of the very first thing I learned on being a good crafter was the need to have distinctive style of your own. A style that carries you name with it, so people would be able to associate the uniqueness of your craft, even at first glance. A friend once said to me: there are many copycats around, but the creative cats are the ones that shine the most. And these three crafters are examples of those shiny creative cats (with bling2 accessories hahaha)

Picture Perfect Giveaway

Azilah of Cupcake Crafts & Handmade Cards has decided to share this Gorgeous tri-shutter card!

When I first found Azilah's blog, I knew that I've fallen in love at first sight. I adore her vintage cards to the nth degree, and envy her photography skills too. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE her colour choices and her perfect ways of combining textures and patterns on her cards. She has that distinctive vintage + retro + a bit of English style that I love to my heart's content! You have no idea how many times I'd secretly went through her blog entries and drooled over her designs hehe. And her photos... are superb! We should meet one day dear, so I could learn a trick or two from you on how to improve my camera skills hehe.

Sending Love Your Way Giveaway

Lin of Lin Handmade Greeting Cards is giving this fluffy bear card away for her November giveaway!

Lin is one of the pioneer Malaysian paper-craft blogs that I found online - and she even have some loyal customers dated even years back (which shows how trustworthy she is). When I just started craft-blogging, she had already established herself as a true card maker. When I had the opportunity to meet her personally, my respect grew, and so did my admiration over her crafts. I could never have the patience like she has, and the neatness of her cards humbled me to improve how I made mine. And the best part, she's like The giveaway queen right now, having organise giveaways every month hehe! :D

Design with Nature Giveaway

Last but not least, Asma' of Simple Rhyme decides to share this hand-bound books with 2 lucky winners!



Asma' of Simple Rhyme holds a special mention. She is one of the earliest Malaysian quillers I've met and I've been following her quilling blog ever since she started one. She has her own distinctive quilling style that I admire (more like envy haha), and has been quilling for years (even longer than I do!). She's neat, and clearly has more patience than I do too heh! Recently she made my jaw dropped with her awesome hand-bound books. I took one look at mine, and then hers, and immediately knew that I had to hide mine away - my poor books would feel VERY insecure standing next to hers hahaha.

I sincerely thought that these three lovely blogs need all the love they can get. So why wait? Go pay these creative cats a visit, and fall in love okay! (and while you're there, don't forget to join their giveaways as well. :P)

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. :)

All things paper

One of my favourite online blogs that I have to check everyday is Ann's blog. Even when there's no new entries posted, her previous entries would be enough to make your jaw drop, and your hands itchy to start crafting using papers. At least that's what always happen to me hehe.

I've been lurking in her blog since last year, while googling and quilling blog hopping. I always thought of Ann as one of the best quilling teachers online, and have always admired all her works. I've learned a great deal from her tutorials and her videos. She always featured inspiring paper crafters from all around the world too, so of course I'm totally hooked!

When she first left her comment on one of my entries - I got so excited, and had to reread few times, just to make sure. And boy it felt great. And inspiring. And making me want to improve even more. :)

The reason I'm writing about her today is to share a great news - Ann's blog is having it's first anniversary, and is having a giveaway - and there's no better giveaway than a QUILLING BOOK! Isn't it a delicious giveaway?


She's giving away this book to one lucky reader, from any part of the world. It would be nice it I win, but it would definitely be nicer if I could bring even more quilling beginners to participate. Or even win. Especially from Malaysia, since it's so hard to find quilling books/ quillers in Malaysia. So here's your chance to win the book. Just click on THIS LINK for further details ok!

Hey, even if you don't win, as least I'm glad that I have the chance to introduce Ann's blog to you. :)

Mango's Game

This is a delicious news.

Mangosteenskins is having a giveaway!


Mango has always been one of my favourite Malaysian crafters, and I've been a loyal reader since last year. She's one great lady with LOTS of artistic talents, and fabulously famous for her handcarved eraser stamps (which are really REALLY beautiful!). I think she has 2 amazing eyes - for such detailed jobs haha. I've always wanted one of her stamps, but I think she has enough on her hands to handle right now. She's been featured few times in local magazines and newspaper(s) - which is like a dream for crafters alike :P

The great news is that she's having eraser stamps giveaway at her blog! And of course I'm joining the bandwagon! And you should too!

Mango,

If I were given a choice, it would be an honour to have this to be handcarved by you:

رِحْلِة الأَلْف مِيل تَبْدَأ بِخَطْوَة

It's Arabic Calligraphy! The saying is an Arabic proverb. I'll tell you the meaning if I win ok! Hahahahaha.

It's more about the fun of participating than winning, I guess. So dear readers, JOIN IN THE FUN NOW and read the details of her giveaway in her blog HERE.

Thank You Liza!

Received a wonderful news today. Thank you Liza, for your birthday giveaway! Can't wait to get crafty with the yummy scrapping stuff!

Visit Liza's blog here and you'll be amazed of what this scrapping mummy can do. I love all her works of art, and I think she can do wonders when it comes to altered art (seriously!)

On another update, can you believe that I actually discussed my crafting addict in my Academic Discourse class yesterday? Well, the class was supposed to discuss on the differences between discourse community and speech community and I ended up giving details on Lovescrap, craft blogs, our craft community and the registers used for this particular discourse community. Register in a linguistics term would mean the words that are being associated to a particular community - there are words that only lawyers can understand, linguistics terms that only English majors can understand etc. For example: when I mention academic discourse, you may not understand what it meant coz you're not part of the linguistics learners. And when we, the scrappers mentioned a 'crop session', others outside the craft community would hardly understand what it meant.

Well, hope you get the point hahahah. Well, then my lecturer suggested that I should do a term paper on the differences between a real discourse community vs a virtual discourse community. To say it in a layman's term - I am going to do a small research on our craft community, and it's not even about craft. Hahhahaha. (And my thesis is about blogging and academic writing and last semester I did a term paper on Facebook)

That's why I love being a language person. You can relate language to everything you love.

Blog Candies by Ying

The good thing about blogging and crafting is that you've got to meet so many other brilliant crafters. In my short stint of blogging about crafts and stuff, I'm proud to say that I've met more friends that share similar hobby here than I've met in real life! (No offense Tita, but you have to admit that its hard to find one with similar interests in our circle of friends haha). And to find so many Malaysians sharing similar obsessions is even more exciting.

While going on blog hopping today, I bumped into Ying's blog through Nana (have to give you credit Nana!) Ying is giving away some blog candies. Love her cards and her rubber stamping craze! Been dreaming of having my own rubber stamps for ages now (later I'll try making some on my own ok hehe). I really admire the way she uses colours for her cards. How I wish I have similar artistic hands hahaha.

So, go and say hi to her. Hurry up ok, coz she'll draw by the 12th.