Cute and Foxy

I am slowly learning how to use my Cricut Explore Air 2...very slowly.

Luckily for me, there are a lot of crafters posting tutorials, tips and tricks and (best of all!) free SVG files for Cricut. I was immediately enchanted by this adorable fox design and was inspired to put it to use on at least two cards. The one above is the card I made for my eighth aunt's baby shower. I just modified the size make the fox cub. I also put together an engagement card for a distant cousin.

I love using paint chips for the variety of colours that they offer and the fact they come in small swatches so I am not wasting a large sheet each time.

Hopefully, when I am more comfortable using the design program, I can start designing my own images to share!

Is it not a beautiful piece of technology? ;) 

Sakura-inspired Cards

There's something beautifully serene about cherry blossoms. I do not even remember when and where I got this particular paper punch but this design idea has been percolating in my brain for the longest time. It was great for using up some of my paint chip scraps but it is a very labour intensive card. Every tiny flower has to be individually punched out and then glued to the card base. My intention is for these to be 'Thinking of You" cards and I am quite pleased with how they turned out. However, I am undecided as to whether this design looks better with or without the gold accents.

This is the process it takes to make this card: (I really enjoyed taking these in-progress shots!)

I decided to try adding gold accents to one of the cards and it is fascinating to see just how different the whole style of the card seems.

I am starting to get back into the crafting frame of mind. [Thanks to lots of encouragement from my husband! I think he's decided that this is the most likely way that my mountains of craft supplies will start decreasing....by being used. ;) ] Stay tuned for a few more of my projects in the coming weeks! 

Wedding Card Round Up of 2018

Weddings seem to come in waves. Some years, I do not get invited to a single one while in others, they seem to occur every month! 

One thing my craft-loving self enjoys about weddings is the opportunity to play with different card designs. Yes, the occasion is the same but every couple is unique and I try to make the cards that I give reflect that. Unfortunately, I did not have the forethought to take pictures of every card I made last year but here is at least a selection:

I was going for a pearl and gold theme. The stamps did not turn out as clean as I had hoped so I tried to go over the lines with coloured pencil. 

I really liked the idea of his and her bows but I made a bit of a miscalculation on the sizes. I made the black groom's bow too small relative to the silver bride's bow. I guess it could reflect the fact her dress is likely going to take up more space than his suit? 

Okay, confession to make: this was a blatant copy of an adorable design that I saw in an Asian novelty store in New York. The accompanying caption was "Siu happy that you found your dumpling"! Just loved the cheesy pun!

This was an eleventh hour inspiration when I discovered that I did not have my scissors available. It is more bright and colourful compared to my other cards but I thought the personality fit the bride. :) 

This year, I seem to be back in the wedding lull but I guess that will just give me a little more time to find new ideas!

Happy 2019!

A new year comes with new crafting aspirations!

I have big plans for this blog this year including a resolution to post at least once a week. (Given my poor posting record these last few years, it is an ambitious but, I still believe, achievable goal.)

I have new interests to explore and new tools to play with. To start, I have been flirting with brush calligraphy for the last month with the aim of having a classy "Happy New Year" handlettered for this post. That was clearly abandoned for a more attainable "2019".

Much paper was used in striving for this goal. Not Instagram pretty yet but working on it!

Looking forward to a creative and productive year! Happy 2019!

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's the year of the Dog! What better way to celebrate than with a few paper crafts? (China, after all, was where paper was first created.) 

These pictures are from a few years back when I visited Hong Kong, but I never ended up posting them. This very simple red envelope lantern was quick to make and looked very festive when strung up next to the window. 

One of my aunts works for a bank and each year, they give out packets of red envelopes for free. She gave me stacks of the extras for my crafting.

I kept things basic. I folded in the four corners of each envelope and then I stapled five envelopes together at their corners. 

You end up with a flower module. I made two of these to form the ends. 

Connecting the two ends was a bit tricky. Some of the vertices ended up have only 3 envelopes meeting. 

Here's half of the lantern. 

When completely assembled, it looks like this. A bit more tubular than I had envisioned but the gold and red are very eye catching. 

Happy Chinese New Year!

A Black and White Happy Birthday

I copied this card design from a pin I saw on Pinterest - I loved the clean simplicity of the original.

I am slowly working my way through my Card Smith pre-cut card set. The gifts were made from scraps of craft tape. Although it's just black and white, it still manages to be lively and fun!

Bear-y Cute Cards

I was cleaning up my basement the other day when I stumbled upon an old sheet of adorable bear stickers. The glue had lost most of its stickiness but the colours were not faded and the images were still incredibly cute. I decided to whip together this quick set of baby cards.

I used the pre-cut cards from Card Smith as a base. Each one had their own envelope which made for a nice set. 

I love the ombre you get from paint chips! I picked colours which match my patterned card.

I cut out squares/rectangles with a utility knife.

I played around with a few different arrangements but I liked this one best.

I mounted each square on a small piece of craft foam to achieve a 3D effect.

The final product was simple, clean and adorable!

I'm all ready for my next 3 baby showers!

My New Bullet Journal

Yes, I joined the fad. 

After seeing post after post on Pinterest of beautifully crafted bullet journal layouts, I was finally seduced. If you don't know what a bullet journal is, then just type the term into Google and within seconds you will see thousands of meticulously arranged Instagram shots of perfectly organized notebooks. At its most basic, a bullet journal is simply a contain-everything notebook where you draw out your own agenda pages and scribble down notes. However, the DIY community has turned it into a fancy work of art. I'm not convinced that I will be all that more productive with this system. Sketching out layouts is time-consuming. I know that I could just ignore making it look pretty but considering that is the main reason why I wanted to start one...I can't really do that, can I? We shall see how long this lasts. 😉

I chose to use a Blueline NotePro A44C.81 notebook because it has a hard black cover, lies flat, has both grid and regular lines, nifty plastic pockets and colourful indexing stickers. 

I started with basic pencil sketches which I inked in.

I decided to colour with coloured pencils for now. This is just the initial colour blocking. Maybe I'll experiment with markers later on. 

The finished October month-at-a-glance page! 

I made a few other pages too including a year-long overview and a week-at-glance page.

There are so many doodling and lettering possibilities on Pinterest. Over the next few months, I'll be trying some of them out and sharing with you my progress. Until next time! 

Mmm...Nutella

It was a warm Sunday afternoon when my friends and I decided to do some impromptu baking. Our goal: to use up Amy's expired jar of half-empty Nutella. After vetoing various recipes from google for requiring ingredients we didn't have/being too complicated/being questionable (I'm looking at you, Allison. 😉), we finally decided to just make some basic chocolate cake and swirl in some Nutella.

Okay, the swirling in part was less than successful (it tends to glob more than swirl). However, we did get the chance to use the mini-bunt cake pan that my sister and I had given Amy a few years ago for Christmas.

We just filled in the middle with Nutella and I was quite proud of somewhat managing a swirl! (Check out the beauty of that picture up top!)

We also tried stuffed cupcakes and those didn't quite turn out...

The cake is still tasty but the you can't tell where the Nutella is, can you?

We keep saying it but we really should do more baking together in the future. It was a lot of fun!

When You Are in the Mood for Cute

Folding Origami stars is very relaxing. All those available cute designs make it incredibly tempting to just keep making more.