Each Passing Year is Another Journey Travelled

Hi everyone, hope all of you is enjoying the week so far.

I'll be flying back to Indonesia on Thursday evening as it's Eid ul-Fitr (which translates to lots and lots of yummy food for the whole weekend, wooohooo!!!), so I thought I'd publish another post tonight.

Today's card is a card for my brother in law's birthday, which falls sometime this week--I've already mailed out this card a couple of days ago but I'm quite certain that's it's gonna reach him late! Oooopsss, my bad!

Anyway, here's the card using Card Pattern's Sketch 80. Not sure that the pattern is 100% as sketched, as it turned out that the bicycle image was too wide for a rectangular card T_T.



My brother in law loves cycling, so choosing the bicycle image as the topper was not a hard choice :). I created this bike silhouette digistamp from an image from Modish at SXC.



The cardstock and patterned paper I used were SEI's Oasis range; it's definitely one of my favorites although I think they might have discontinued this range :(.



As an embellishment, I printed a verse on kraft paper and adhered it to a punched scalloped circle cardstock (cut by my new Marvy Uchida Scalloped Circle Punch). Font credit goes to Kevin and Amanda's Free Scrapbook Fonts.

I'm submitting this cards to these following challenges too: CCCB Week 21 (One for the Boys, using the color blue), Paper Cutz Challenge #57 (1 ribbon, 2 button, and 3 colors--blue, brown and cream), and also enrolling them for the second time at Bee Crafty's Anything Goes (with digi-image), Daisy Doodles Creative Challenge's Anything Goes, and Digi Doodle Shop's Best Challenge (Write Me a Message).

Okay people... Gotta go now, got some packing to do :). Hope you enjoy the rest of the week and keep an eye out for my next post 'cos I may be posting loads of photos of oh-so-yummy food!

Cheerios!

Much love,
F

Happy Birthday Dad! (And A Discount Coupon for All of You!!)

Hi there!

Well, two birthday cards down last week, three more to go :). Next week will be the last week before we have to move house though, so with all the bits and bobs we have yet to pack, I don't know whether I'd be able to finish and mail all the cards in time :(.

Anyway, in the midst of folding and packing a sea of clothes while listening to Jason Mraz's I'm Yours - Remix (trust me, this song really makes any kind of house chores more enjoyable--albeit slower as I'd dance like fifty per cent of the time!), I managed to squeeze in making one more birthday card for my beloved dad.

I haven't submitted any cards to the CPS blog for the past two weeks, so this week I played along with their sketch #178 Challenge :). I loved their sketch this week; very clean and simple, so I'm also submitting it to the Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturday Blog challenge--their theme for this week happens to be clean and simple as well.

I managed to create AND finish a digital paper kit on Saturday, which is very, very fast by my standards :), so I got to use it for today's card. I have yet to find a suitable name for the kit, though, LOL. I also used a digital stamp of a tree for the topper.


The interesting part of this card is the embellishment; I used three wooden-carved letters to form the word "DAD". I bought these wooden letters from a local craft shop a few months back, and I've actually forgotten that I'd bought them. Luckily I found them amongst my pile of paper scraps when I was making this card, LOL.


Now on to the discount coupon!!

Since my dad's birthday's coming up, I want to celebrate it by sharing a little joy with everybody :). If you have a special man in your life that you'd like to give a present to, now is the perfect time!

Hop on to Brookstone Online Store today for a wide selection of unique, thoughtful gifts for dad or that special someone that you love.

~ February Lane ~ readers will get to enjoy $10 off any online purchase of $70 or more!!

Enter this coupon code when you purchase from their online shop: 22SAVE

That's all for now, hope you'll enjoy the discount coupon! Thanks for visiting!

Much love,
F

Birthday on Wheels

Hello there!

If you have been reading my previous posts, you'd probably know that August will be a super busy month for me. Not only will I be moving to a new house (yaaayy!!), but I also have to make five birthday cards to send out throughout the month (pheeww).

So I may as well get a head start, I thought, by making one of the birthday cards this weekend.The first person who's having his birthday in August is my brother in law, who's a huge fan of cars. Yep, you guessed correctly, that's why finding a theme for this birthday card was a piece of cake, LOL. Today's card will be the card that I'd send to him next week, so I'm basically keeping my fingers crossed that he won't be reading this blog post before the card's off in post, LOL :).

As I was blog hopping, I also happened to come across the Paper Cutz Blog's Challenge #51, which is to make a creation that features something with wheels, which is a perfect match with this project's idea. I combined the theme with Sweet Stampin' Challenge Blog's Challenge 36, create something vintage, and came up with the design for this card.


I used Martine's Sketch from Simon Says Challenge Blog, although I think I might have made quite an alteration on the sketch as I thought following it as is might disrupt the topper's balance on my design--sorry, Martine :).


I also used Donna's recipe from the Cards for Men blog, which is Challenge #15. They'd asked readers to combine one image, two papers and three embellishments, which is exactly what I've done (well, although I used more than three embellishments. Couldn't resist the temptation! But I did use three buttons, though).

The Fussy and Fancy Girls over at the Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge have also posted an exciting challenge a week ago, which is creating a design with scallop, stitches and sparkles. I used faux stitches for this card, adhered scalloped edges to one of the papers, and used four sparkly (well, metallic, to be exact) eyelets to embellish the card. And last but not least, I'm also posting this card to Digi Doodle Shop's Best Anything Goes Challenge.


Again, I used two of my "For His Eyes Only" digital papers for this card. I have not grown out of it for now :), plus I haven't gotten around to designing another kit for men :) :).

Well, that's all for tonight. It's gonna be the start of a busy week tomorrow, so I'd better kick it off with a good night sleep!! Thanks for visiting and have a great week ahead!

Love,
F

Happy Birthday Super Star!

Do you like sports? I don't. Wait--let me just rephrase that--I detest sports. My husband (or my poor, poor PE teacher back in the days) would have to either drag me by the feet or bribe me with a ridiculous amount of money just to get me into my trainers and burn some kilos. The closest thing to sports that you'd see me do is listening to the occasional snippets of World Cup 2010 coverage from the BBC's World Service (yep, I don't even like watching live sports on TV, LOL).

What I do like, though, are challenges. Just like when one of my cousins turned seven a few weeks ago, as it was the first time I created a birthday card for a boy.

I was browsing through my favorite craft shop--UrbanWrite--for ideas, when I came across this lively American Crafts' Junior patterned paper collection. Perfect for an active young fellow.

But what do you know, since I don't exactly adore sports, nor have I done any design with this theme, I didn't have any stamps or embellishments that would go with it. So as I got home, I only managed to sit still in front of my desk, doing nothing except for staring blankly at the cute patterned paper.

An idea popped into my head a couple of days later, irrelevant as it may be, when I was washing my hubby's Judogi (which is, by the way, an incredibly bulky uniform for judo, made from tremendously heavy fabric. Can you imagine how physically draining it is to hand-wash this thing?? Thank god he only practices once in a blue moon nowadays). I decided to make my own hand cut topper from a plain cardstock and embellish the card my self.

I cut a jersey-shaped topper from a red cardstock, adorned it with white stripes and a number "1" from plain printer paper, and stamped the name of the birthday boy on the jersey.


The topper turned out to complement the paper perfectly, but as I thought the card still looked pretty plain, I decided to make a mini "medal" that says 'Super Star'. Perfect for a star of any field!

I adhered the topper onto the patterned paper, and attached it on a red pre-folded cardstock with golden brads.

Although I must say I am quite proud of myself for creating this sporty card :), I do hope that one fine day something can change my mind about sports, that I'll be more active, that I'll be healthier and that at least I'll lose some weight :P. But for today, I guess this card will just have to do!

Much love,
F

CPS 173 - Woven Ribbon Birthday Card

Hello there!

I couldn't believe last week went by so fast, but what's worse is, now the weekend is almost over! Pheew! My husband and I went house hunting almost all of yesterday, so between doing the laundry, making Macaroni Casserole and cleaning up our second bedroom-cum-my craft studio, I have not been able to get my usual dose of crafting :(. It has also been raining cats and dogs here in Singapore for the past few days. This morning I woke up to the sound of a blazing thunderstorm, which, to my regret, has soaked all the clothes that I washed last night!!! Aaarghhh!!

As some of you probably know, the creative folks at Card Positioning Systems always release a new challenge every Saturday. Their sketch this week, CPS Sketch 173, is clean and simple--which is a style I quite like. Here's my take on the sketch:

It's my husband's birthday next week and since we're going away for the weekend, I thought of making a birthday card for him :). But since he poked around the studio when I was making this card, I think I may have to dismiss that idea and create a new card for his birthday now, LOL!

The original sketch included six ornamental squares at the side of the card, which I was going to create using patterned paper. But at the end, I decided to weave a piece of cream satin ribbon into the cardstock topper. I cut twelve slits on the bottom of the topper and wove two pieces of ribbon into the cuts; one piece from the right end and another from the left.

As a finishing touch, I tied the ends of the ribbon to a wooden ring that I bought at my local haberdashery store (which is a treasury for amazing cardmaking finds!!), and embellished the knot with a brown plastic button, tied with a piece of jute string.

Here's the list of materials I used for this card:

Cardstock: ArtFriend pre-cut cards
Topper: American Crafts AC Cardstock Caramel
Patterned Paper: SEI Poppy Espadrille
Stamp (for sentiment): Anna Griffin by All Night Media

Well, that's all the crafts for today and I'd better get back to doing the ironing now :(... Hope all of you had a great Saturday and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Much love,
F

Another Father's Day Card :)

I'm back with another Father's Day card!

As today is Father's Day, for this week's cardmaking challenge I made another special card for all dads in the world :).

Today's card is inspired by a sketch designed by the folks at the CPS blog, and I must admit, when I saw the sketch, I thought it was a bit challenging as I don't usually do asymmetrical layouts. Nevertheless, the sketch turned out to be really fun to work with, and although I intentionally left out the arrow element, I am quite satisfied with the design :).

Having the same theme in spirit, I also submitted this design for CardsforMen blog for their Father's Day challenge.

So what do you think of it?


I found a pre-folded cardstock at the bottom of my craft-supplies drawer, which was handy because its baby-blue color matched the feel of the patterned papers that I used. The patterned papers were from my digital paper pack collection, For His Eyes Only, which will be listed on Etsy soon. Follow FebruaryLane on Twitter if you want an update of when it's listed :)

I was also excited about the sketch because it had a circle element, which meant I could use my new Woodware scalloped circle punch :) :). I bought the punch when I went to the UK three weeks ago, but I have yet to find the chance to create anything with it.

I used the scalloped circle punch to make the recycled-paper base for the topper, which I printed on an ivory 80 gsm parchment paper. The image is of an antique beetle car that I had edited using CorelDraw with oil pastel effect. I used jute strings (I know, I know, I use too much jute in my designs) to tie the topper to the patterned paper and adhered them on the baby blue blank card.

Okay, that's all for today, I really have to go to the library and return a book before I get fined :). Wishing all of you a great Father's Day and hope that you can celebrate this special day with a man who is very dear to you!!

ICSketches #70 - Happy Father's Day!

Hi again!!

Well, as if this week has not been busy enough, I managed to squeeze in another cardmaking challenge on my agenda--although it meant neglecting my poor husband who has just sprained his ankle two days ago. Apologies, love.

Anyway, this week's card sketch was provided by Inspirational Card Sketches, and I thought their Design Team has put together an array of wonderful examples using the sketch. Here's a glimpse of the sketch:


As this coming Sunday is Father's Day, I decided to make a Happy Father's Day card using one of my digital paper packs.

Here's my take on the sketch:


I printed the digital paper pack using an inkjet printer on a heavy 200 gsm cardstock. I designed the topper using a cool photo of a classic car taken by Michal over at Sxc. I gave it an 'ink-pen sketch' effect in PhotoShop and recolor it in Corel Photo Paint to bring out a vintage feel.

I printed this topper on a 110 gsm ivory parchment paper, which emphasized the 'rugged' feel of the design. Then, I adhered the print out on a rectangular craft foam for a lifted effect that accentuates the topper.


As always, I think jute never fails to give an amazing touch to any card. So when I ran out of paper after cutting a few miscalculated pieces (although the good thing about digital papers is that you can always print a few more!!), I reached out to my left over jute bundle and found a scrap perfect for the job :).


After putting the pieces together, though, I still felt that the card was still too plain for my liking. Thus, I decided to give the honorable task of embellishing to a pair of brown plastic buttons, which have done the job quite well, I think!

If you are wondering, the digital paper pack that I used was a kit that I created for my Etsy shop, although I have not listed it yet. This kit is called "For His Eyes Only", and as the name describes, this is a very masculine, rugged yet classy kit of 8 digital papers, which you can use to create digital scrapbook, cards or other crafty stuff for a beloved guy ;).

Here's a peek of the pack:


So that's all for tonight's challenge, pheww, I can't believe tomorrow is already Friday!! Wooohooo!!

Much love,
F

My Super Hot Crush

Have I mentioned lately that I am head over heels for SEI's paper collections? If I haven't, well, here goes, I am officially mad for SEI papers. I think their designs are just so sophisticated, while whimsy and pretty at the same time.

My personal favorite is definitely the Moravia range, although the color scheme is not my usual cup of tea (being the self-proclaimed girlish design addict). Regardless, the designs and color moods just go well with mature and sophisticated looking cards, especially if you're making one for a grown-up.

I made the card below for my father-in-law's birthday. The background paper is SEI Moravia Vevcie, which comes with a beautiful die-cut edge.

The Mimosa range is another one of my personal favorites, and this range really portrays the inner me! The patterned paper are both pretty and fresh at the same time, with a playful combination of guava, mango and key lime colors. Love, love, love!


I made the card above with Mimosa stamps, and the paper is Sangria glitter paper.

I still have a few more cards made with SEI's collection, but I'm gonna keep it for later as I really have to get out of bed soon and get some shopping done :). I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with a new card for the CPS challenge!

'Til then,
F