Handmade Cards

I love making cards, and I also love sending and receiving cards, especially handmade cards - they give you that extra warmth and love, compared to a commercially printed card, don't you think so? :)

These 4 cards were made recently, using papers from the SEI Lexington Cardmaker Paperpack, which I found at my local scrapbook store. I was thrilled to find this paperpack as the papers inside were all so beautiful and versatile! Besides using these papers, I also used a variety of embellishments which were already on my table, such as flowers, gems, lace, doilies and gems to decorate the cards.

I also like to fussy-cut patterned papers with big pretty flower/leaf prints, and that was what I did for 2 of the cards, where I cut out a rose from a patterned paper from another manufacturer, and stalks of leaves from a Dill Blossoms patterned paper, an older SEI collection of papers. Fussy-cutting from patterned papers saves me the cost of buying die-cuts or chipboard embellishments, so I am always on the lookout for papers which I can fussy-cut to decorate the cards.

I hope I have given you some inspiration to make a couple of cards on your own to send to a special someone - you won't regret it. :)

Elaine

DIY Frame Gift: Godma Jackie

Hello everyone! So great to be back at SEI lifestyle blog again! It was 3 years ago when I was a guest blogger here, and since then, I’ve been busy with my kids (9 and 12 years old) who are growing up way too fast, scrapping and making cards whenever I can, and lately I’ve been sewing a lot too, as I’ve just opened my store on etsy, selling my sewing projects.

Although I sew more these days, my first love is still papercrafting – don’t think I’ll ever give that up, so it looks like I have not 1 but 3 hobbies now – scrapbooking, papercrafting (including making cards and frames) and sewing! You can just about guess how broke I am now. LOL.

I would like to share with you this frame which I made sometime back for a friend who is also my niece’s godma. I used a wooden frame from Ikea to alter. I usually use frames that fit 4” by 6” photos as I feel these frames are neither too big nor too small to alter. The other supplies I used to beautify this frame include some older collection of papers from SEI for the borders and background of the frame, a patterned paper from the Windsor collection for the brown velvet leaves (fussy cut the leaves out), and some stickers to embellish the frame (eg the corners and the small circles surrounding the flowers and the wooden tag). The umbrella, the small cage and birds were stamped onto brown cardstock. These stamps are clear stamps from the Lovebirds collection. Love that collection of stamps A LOT.

I enjoy making frames like this one and giving them as gifts, and SEI papers are super versatile – I don’t just rely on one collection of papers as with SEI, mixing the various collections can sometimes come up with even more beautiful creations. Thank you SEI for inviting me to back on the blog, and for letting me share my project here!

Elaine

Elaine Teo + grab bag giveaway!

Wow! We love Elaine and are so glad you guys do too. She has such a unique and beautiful point of view on our products. We hope you guys got tons of inspiration like we did. Keep dropping by her blog and saying hello, she's a sweetheart!

Our two lucky winners, as chosen by random.org are:

congrats to Monika and Greta!


send us your mailing addresses at seiblog(at)shopsei(dot)com for some goodies. Thanks again to the wonderful Elaine for another fantastic week of guest blogging!

Giveaway Grab-bag!

This card is one of my all time favourites. I love everything about this card, and again I did not plan for the card to turn out this way - it just did! LOL

I used 2 cardstocks for this - an orange one for the base, and a brown one for matting the front.

I adore the Dill Blossoms collection - couldn't make myself to use the papers until much later. For this card, I cut out the beautiful images and bunched them together and adhered them onto the bottom left side of the card. I enjoy cutting out images from patterned papers these days - that saves the cost of buying embellishments, and somehow for me, cutting up paper is both therapeutic and calming! Do you feel the same way, or is it just me? :)

I also use stamps in almost all my cards. I love stamping - I love the crisp images that stamps give. I wish I could draw, but I can't draw to save my life, so stamping is the next best thing. The first stamp I bought was from Hero Arts, back in 2005, and I haven't looked back since.
Once I've gotten all my materials needed for the card, I'll move them around the card till I'm happy with the placements, and that's when I'll glue them down, and the card is finished! :)


I often get stuck with ideas when I create a layout - but somehow with this layout above, I didn't have any problems at all, eventhough I used different collections from SEI - that's just how versatile the collections are even when you mix them together.

For this layout, I used papers from En Route, Poppy, Park Buddies and Kitty's Place and I had loads of fun mixing them up.

I used the En Route patterned paper as this background for the layout - the images on the paper are subtle and it's about travel, which fits perfectly for the photo I used. Then I added a couple of strips of patterned papers at the back of my photo. After that, it was a matter of embellising around the photo before the layout is done.

The long stems of flowers on the left of the photo were cut out from the Sarong (pearl) patterned paper from the Poppy collection. The cluster of flowers on the bottom right side, and the butterflies on the top right side of the layout were all cut from Kitty's Background patterned paper, from the Kitty's Place collection. I'm totally in love with that patterned paper. :)

The dogs and fire hydrant were cut from Hot Dogs patterned paper, from the Park Buddies collection.

Then I added the journaling, brad and title and my layout was done! Super easy even with mixing different collections.

Thanks for a wonderful week Elaine! It's so nice to see a different sense of style inspired from another part of the world. We are having a grab bag give away with the products Elaine used to make the above projects, and then some extras! Just leave a comment by Sunday September 20th at midnight telling us which post was your favorite. We will be choosing 2 winners and announcing them Monday morning. Good luck!

My Cards

When I make cards, I try to use most of my supplies from one manufacturer, and from the same collection if possible - afterall, everything in that collection is well matched, so that takes the load off trying to match the elements used on the card.


I usually don't have a clue what my card will turn out like in the end - I'll just pick out the colors of my cardstock and patterned papers, and go from there.

For this card (above), I wanted to use the Chickadee line, so I pulled out those papers, some matching-colored cardstock, and worked from there.

I always mat the base of my card with a patterned paper that has subtle images or patterns on it. Then I'll search for another patterned paper that I could cut out the images from. In this case, it's those cute birds and flowers. I'll just cut a few first and play around with the placement of them.

I also love adding a journaling tag or a scalloped border to my card to give it added interest. After deciding the placements of the birds and flowers, I added the sentiment, paper flowers and ribbon to give some texture to the card. Once I'm happy with everything, I'll add a bit of Stickles glitter to make it a little prettier - if needed. I'm a glitter gal. :)


It took me less than 30 min. to finish altering this Ikea frame, mainly because almost everything I used to alter this frame are from the Dill Blossom range of papers.

First I measured and cut out the Carraway patterned paper to adhere to the outer part of the frame, then for the background, I used the Coriander paper, while the flowers were all cut out from the Coriander and Hyssop papers. Then I added a few punched out butterflies and gems, added the stamped sentiment and the frame was complete! It makes for a nice decor piece or something you can put on your office table perhaps. Love it!


I used the same method when I made this christmas card. I used all my supplies from the Christmas Mint collection, and everything fell into place really quickly, which is good for mothers like me who may not have so much free time on our hands, yet we yearn to make a card or two in that short span of time.

I used 3 patterned papers from this collection, namely Peppermint Bark for the background, Ribbon Candy for the strips and Butter Creams for the ornaments that I cut out. Also used some epoxy stickers. After finishing this card, I still had loads of left overs to make a few more cards - how cool is that right?

Making things using SEI papers is a synch as the papers come double sided, and that in itself is value for money, and the designs are always so beautiful and versatile. I love love love making cards, making anything for that matter, with SEI papers - if you haven't tried making one yet, go give it a try - I promise you'll love it!

Magazines, if you please...

There are days when I have this burst of energy and enthusiam to make a card or create a layout, so I head to my craft room, get ready with my scissors, cutter and papers, ready to do something, when my mind suddenly draws a complete blank! In the end, I'll just be staring at my supplies, not knowing what to do or where to start - it can be so frustrating sometimes.

And that is where I turn to my magazines, my main source of inspiration.


This one above - Country Living UK Edition - is my favourite, amongst all the favourites. :) I've been faithfully buying this magazine since 2005, and each month's issue has never disappointed me. It's a home decor magazine and it's always loaded with the most beautiful photos I have ever seen.




I recently made a Christmas card using the Winter Song collection,


and my inspiration for that card came from this (2-page) image above. I love the christmas colors of red, white and blue, splattered all over these 2 pages, giving them a wintry and homely feel - and the Winter Song collection was perfect as it had all these colors in it!

The colors, photos of the beautiful british scenery and other features of the magazine always leave me with some inspiration to scrap a layout, make a card or even sew a quilt. Totally love this magazine!!

And there you have it! Thank goodness for great magazines like these, isn't it? :)

Tutorial Anyone?

I always have loads of fun altering photo frames, especially the inexpensive wooden ones from Ikea. This frame that I had in mind is for a good friend - Karen, so I thought I'd make a simple frame with just the letter "K" and no photos on it.

The supplies I used for this frame aren't many:

a) The Ikea frame,
b) 3 sheets of SEI papers from the Oasis collection,
c) epoxy stickers from SEI,
d) glimmer mist from Tattered Angels,
e) chipboard "K" from Maya Road,
f) stickles from Ranger and
g) foam dots.

1) First, I covered the outer frame and the background with patterned papers. Then I sprayed glimmer mist onto the K chipboard and let it dry. I chose the color green to match the patterned papers.


2) Once the K was dry, I added faux stitching (using a black pen) to give the letter more emphasis as I thought it looked a bit bland. Then I set aside the letter as I wanted to embellish the background first before adhering the letter.


3) I cut out the circle motifs and used them to embellish the background. Once I was satisfied with the placement of the circles, I adhered the "K" in the centre of the background.



4) I decided to embellish the upper left corner, and the lower right corner of the frame, to give the frame added interest, so I cut out some more circles, and leaves from another Oasis patterned paper. I layered the placement of these circles and leaves - gave them a bit of dimension with foam dots and epoxy stickers and adhered all onto the frame.

5) After everything was done, I added a small butterfly, which I cut out from the paper, and adhered it onto the letter K, and also added glitter glue (stickles) onto all the circles and butterfly for some bling, and my frame was done!


I hope you will give this project a try as it's really easy to do and you don't have to use too many supplies to make on. Just use papers from one collection as you will be rest assured that everything will match, add a few other things like maybe a chipboard image or some flowers onto the sides of the frame, and you're done!

Thanks so much! :)

Hello from Singapore!

I thought I'd share with you some photos which I took recently when I went to a nearby wet market to buy breakfast. It was a Saturday morning at around 8am, and the market and food stalls were already bustling with people, buying their groceries and having their morning cuppa.



These are photos of a typical flat you'll see in Singapore. There are more flats than houses here as the land is scarce. I've been living in a flat all my life and I love it, eventhough the space in my flat is small.


This is a photo of a food court where you can find several stalls of local and sometimes western food. The food that you find in most food courts are affordable and they are mainly situated near housing estates. This one was packed that morning with people having their breakfast. Singaporeans love eating out - one of the local favourite pasttimes.





I'm so sorry but these photos had to be taken from a distance to the wet market, as generally stall owners don't like their photos taken. Camera-shy perhaps. A local wet market is where you will find fresh product like seafood, meat and vegetables, and this market starts its operations as early as 6am till about noon. I prefer to go in the mid-morning when the crowd has eased a little. My boys love to visit the market as they get to see a lot of more things at the wet market than at a supermarket, which is where I normally do my marketing.




These last 2 photos I have with me are food that I enjoy eating for breakfast. The first photo is roti prata - an Indian dish made out of dough and eaten with curry, while the second photo is an array of chinese "kueh" - small finger foods that are not too filling for a morning meal.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my morning trip to the market - thanks so much!

-Elaine

Guest Blogger, Elaine Teo

Next week we are thrilled to have our first international guest blogger, Elaine Teo. She lives in Singapore and is going to share her amazing talent for card making with us. Check out her blog for a hint of what's to come. This is one week you won't want to miss!

Here are some facts about me:

• Other than scrapping and cardmaking, I also enjoy sewing and watching tv whenever I can. 

• I totally enjoy crime shows such as the CSI series and the Law and Order series amongst others.

• I also read a lot of magazines - in particular scrapbooking and cardmaking magazines.

• I love tucking myself in with a good read before drifting off to sleep - that is what I look forward to each night after a long day.