K&E Victorian Display Placard Décor

Talking about wedding gifts, most often they're generally gifted in either white or colours that depict happiness and purity. For this instance, I chose a something different. As I didn't get to attend one of my friends' wedding last year due to the pandemic where large scale event was prohibited, I didn't manage to gift her something. Took me this long, and I decided to repurpose and customize one of my past artworks to do up this simply placard décor for her and her newly-wed husband.

I die-cut several of the first letter of their names, "K" and "E" using Tim Holtz alphanumeric dies and glue them together to make it thicker; as if they're chipboard thick. Bend them a little to fit into the slightly curve surface of the heart. Added more glitter, some mica from Prima and top it up a little golden crown. Finally, add a strip of Bible verse (Ephesians 4:2-3) for them at the bottom of the placard. 

The corners of the glass are pretty sharp and I don't think it's wise to gift something that will likely prick your finger. In order to protect them, I covered them up using Graphic 45 ornate metal corners and glide them with some gold gilding paste. 

I added the lovely couple names and their wedding date behind within this little ornate plastic frame I've in my stash. Took me some time to figure out how to mount onto glass without a need to break the glass to fit. Glossy accent is the key and they do hold well without changing the colours and design elements I've done on the placard. This is part where I adhere the placard onto the glass using plenty of glossy accent. They dry clear without leaving much residue unlike some solvent based glue. Plus point is they're actually quite strong!  Added some golden flat pearls and ornate corners that I die-cut from Graphic 45 policy & decorative die.

Oh well, I might be sieving through my past artwork and will try to repurpose them as gifts or other projects. For now, this artwork of mine has finally found a home for a newly married couple. I wish them all the best in their marriage!

 

Magical Fairy Tooth Gift Box for The Koays

One of the brethren in my church actually fell in love with my work after I showed him my blog on what I'm doing over here as a crafter/artist. Despite not an avid crafter himself, he was rather amazed by the work I do. So much so that he even watched most of my YouTube videos and read my blog, just to found my tutorial on the making of the fairy tooth door shrine an impressive one. 

And so... from there on after much communication about my works, he thought it'd be good to get something for the kids he adores from the church in Perth. Without much hesitation, this fairy tooth door is the ultimate choice for them.

It came so handy right after I've created one as my pioneer blog post for Graphic 45 as their ambassador last year. As it's going to be a gift, I decided to do up a shadow box specifically to fit the door in so that it will be easier for them to bring it over to Australia as well as for easy storage when it reaches the hands of the children. Took a great amount of Fairie Dust papers to doll up the shadow box. Not to mention, abundance of flowers on top of the box. These are Graphic 45 ivory flowers which I've colour sprayed them with some Prima purple mist to match the papers. 

I've also added a few Petaloo blooms and some other floral elements.

Bottles of pixie and fairy dust that sit well on top of a nest.

Presenting far more than just a fairy tooth door, I decided to get the tooth fairy Pdf printout from the whimsical mess maker lady Nicola Battilana. This will be so much fun in using this kit! And I heard the kids really love it very much.

For your interest, below is the list of supplies I used for this project together with links to where to get them. Unfortunately, most of the Fairie Dust collection ran out of stocks.

• Graphic 45 Fairie Dust Collection (12"x 12" Kit, 8"x 8" Pad, 12" x 12" Patterns & Solids, Tags & Pockets)
• Graphic 45 dies (Large, ATC & Flower, Regular & Gear)
• Graphic 45 Ivory Tags (Large, Regular, ATC)
• Graphic 45 Shabby Chic Drawer Pull, Ivory Flowers
• Tim Holtz 8" x 8" Metallic Kraft (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Spellbinder Donna Salazar Doll Accessories Etched Dies (fairy wings)
• Scrap FX chipboard
• Own stash (1/8" satin ribbon, golden dresdens, buttons, fairy resin, artificial mini flowers, bottles vials, glitters)

A Rustic Garden Wedding Guest Book

Oh well, before I get into this... Happy 2019! Though a little late for the New Year greetings (it's March now!), I still feel there's a need to greet everyone who reads my blog. 💝

For the very first project of 2019, it's probably one major project to begin with that took me about a month plus to get this done up. Planning started as early as late December. Sharing here is one special wedding guest book I've done for one of my girlfriends, who got married recently. It's also one project that I decided to use it for Graphic 45 February challenge.  

Wedding guestbook is perhaps one of the basic essentials most couples would want to have during their big day, a book that allows all their friends and families to jot down their heartfelt blessings and messages. While it's easy to get the wedding planner to get one for you, my friend Sarah actually approached me to help her with this. What really touches me is that she entrust this entirely to me, believing I'd be able to deliver the very best for her. That's the best part, but it could also mean stress to me.

Knowing her wedding was going to be of a garden theme and would be held in a colonial house restaurant with a rich history, I thought a dainty wood-grain textured cover with a touch of gold and distressing brown would be more suited. Bearing in mind of the colour scheme Sarah was using for her wedding, Graphic 45 Princess collection is the way to go...

"Once Upon A Time" is title of the guest book within where I modified and re-engineering the pocket albums into a functional book by means of bookbinding. It took me a while to figure out how to integrate the book onto it's cover. After much thinking, I decided to keep the book separate from it's cover.

To make the entire guest book an interesting one, some of the couple's pictures were made detachable using magnets where they can place their photos anywhere they want. This will add some fun to it and not making the guest book a boring one. Rather it'd be very close to heart and personal.

Nearer towards the end, I decided to do up a mini album for the couple. To house them, I made a box from scratch as well. Everything made was made with thoughts of functionality and usability. Inasmuch as I could, I try to make this guest book as durable as it can last.

I used quite a lot of gold to brighten up the entire look mainly on the diecuts, a club kit I bought from Spellbinders that I also use it for Sarah's bridal shower card!

Well, this is the whole package I made for Sarah and Jason for their wedding day, which spans more than just any other guest book. To keep it short and sweet here, I've written a brief description over at Graphic 45 blog in how I made this entire package. Over here I just wanted to share the extend of my work and some thoughts on how I created this project, in hope to provide some inspiration.

Nonetheless, should any of your is interested to know the supplies I'm using for this project, the list is below with links to where to get them for your convenience:

• Graphic 45 Princess Collection
• 12" x 12" collection pad (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• 12" x 12" patterns and solids (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• 8" x 8" paper pad (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Ephemera cards (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Tags and pockets (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Chipboards (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Stickers (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Graphic 45 Staples
• Antique brass stamped metal brads
• Square tag and album in Kraft
• Square tags in Kraft
• Clearsnap Decades Dye Pad (Venetian Lace)
• Mixed Media
• Heavy white gesso
• Soft matte gel
• Light paste
• Golden rod stickles
• Spellbinders 
• Club kit (Fancy Floral Frame set)
• Shapeabilities (Lace Heart etched dies)
• Em-bossing fold'ers Bricks and Bark (discontinued)
• Sizzix Tim Holtz Ornamental Bigz Die
• Tim Holtz Kraft Stock Metallic 8" x 8" Gold & Silver Cardstock (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Finnabair Art Alchemy Metallique Wax in white gold (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Glossy Accent (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Aleene's Always Ready Tacky Glue (Blitsy)
• Dusty Attic chipboards (upper alphas, lower alphas)
• Other supplies (pearlescent craft paint, assorted fabric and satin ribbons, golden fleur dressden, jute string, mulberry leaves, elastic band, cream paper and cardstocks)

A Special Box of Memorabilia

First of all, for people who has been faithfully following my various entries in my blog even till this point of time... Thank You, sincerely from the bottom of my heart. I know it has been a long long time ago I last posted on my blog. I'm terrible sorry and equally guilty for unable to update as soon as I could. Nonetheless, I've finally made a serious effort to come back despite all my procrastination and those busy hours.

Before I start introducing my latest project (not exactly new because this was completed on late July. Oops!!!), I'd like to share a small fraction of my current life story that forms part of this project. There has been turmoils in my life that I'd have to put my various crafting projects and teaching plan on hold. Such a halt actually ended up close to a 2 years hiatus. Seems long, yet I felt as if I had been living for almost a century. Indeed, a lot of things happened, with some still feel like a never-ending event. Not to dwell into the details of the issues I'm facing, perhaps going straight to what led me to do up this project will be more meaningful.

A couple of you have probably read some of my life events that I had recorded down in my past entries. To begin as an introduction (to most whom don't really know), I was a "Christian" for the past 13 years and seriously, I thought I was really one though not a very pious one. As life wasn't very promising for me during those period of difficulties, I decided to renew my faith with Christ. The journey begun somewhere between last Winter and beginning of this Summer, I found myself starting to develop an immersing interest towards the Bible, on how historical facts and evidences coincides so well with the Bible. And since then I embarked into a remarkable journey in Searching for the Truth that led me to know the One True God and become a Christian legitimately. 

Currently, I'm serving and worshiping the LORD at my local Church of Christ and got to know this amazing sister-in-Christ Baby Tan who is one of the earlier Christians who planted the seeds in Singapore. Without her, my local congregation would not have started. It was my greatest honour and pleasure to be invited to do up a memorabilia for her as a special gift on her 90th Birthday this July. Without much of me saying further, here is the finished project... 

It's a big 12" x 12" box, which I altered it using the shadow box from Graphic 45. Because I want to make it last, I tore down the outer structure of the box and rebuilt it using some muslin fabric to reinforce the edges before layering some Melange tissue paper from Tim Holtz. The entire deconstruction and reconstruction took me a day to process before any mixed media and decorative work could be done.

I learned from various members within the Church that sis Baby Tan loves purple, flowers and butterflies. And this really narrows down to the colour choice and theme for this project. Without much thinking, immediately I know which paper collection to reach out to - Sweet Sentiments and Botanical Tea from Graphic 45. 

I deliberately chose one of her younger days photos and created a vintage layout for her at the front of the box. As I had done up a notable amount of stenciling, stamping and painting work on the entire box, I tried not to over-embellished the layout and kept it really simple with her picture as the main focal point. 

At the back of the box, I further embellished it using this "inspiration" wordlet from ScrapFX over an ornate flourish frame I found in my stash which I had bought it many years back. This is probably one of my favourite portions of this project.

This is where all the treasures are, all kept safely inside the box. As you pull the drawer, you will be greeted with 2 albums and a scroll.

At the base of the drawer inside, I covered the entire surface with this very sweet floral paper from Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiment paper collection. And I fussy cut the main thematic "Sweet Sentiments" scroll image out and placed it at the center which blend in quite well with the entire theme and purpose for this project.

These are the two albums I did; one hand-stitched photo album and one tag album with all the hand-written messages. 

I had handwritten some Bible verses and had use a couple of them throughout the albums' covers. Some were nicely contributed by our preachers in our Church. 

The scroll is actually a written biography of sis Baby by our late brother-in-Christ Ira Rice. I was reading it for several times on the night I was formatting the font and text after extracting this article out from a book. Her story really inspires me greatly and certainly put me to awe. She's one seriously petite godly woman who truly belongs to the LORD.

And so that's me presenting this special box of memorabilia to sis Baby during her 90th Birthday celebration on 30th July this year in the Church building.

We managed to take a short video of this project, filmed by Rachel Poo (our fellow sister-in-Christ) and here is the orientation video.

List of Supplies used for this project:

• Graphic 45 Botanical Tea and Sweet Sentiments Paper Collections
• Graphic 45 Staples (12" x 12" Shadow Box, Ivory Regular Tag Album)
• Tim Holtz Melange Tissue Wrap
• Decorative Chipboards (Scrapiniec Park Avenue Layers Sign Frames 1 & 2, ScrapFX Mini Alphabets, Inspiration midi, Dusty Attic Mini ABC Upper, Blue Fern Studios Layered Frame, Twiddleybitz Ornate Flourish Frame)
• Finnabair Art Basics (clear gesso, heavy gesso in white, modeling paste)
• Clearsnap Smooch Pearlized Ink Accents (cherry chocolate)
• Daler Rowney System 3 Acrylic Paint (pale gold no. 708)
• Martha Stewart Craft Paint (hailstorm)
• StazOn Midi (spiced chai)
• Prima Marketing Flourish Stencil
• Assorted May Arts Ribbon
• Petaloo Flowers
• Own Stash (golden fleur dresden, crochet lace, scripts & wood bark clear stamps, chipboards, purple glitter, purple & cream cardstock, pearl accents, faux pearl strings, eyelets, yarns) 

Holly Jolly Twenty-16

It's 2016!!! Seriously, why does time flies so fast? Does he really slow down? Alright, I believe everyone feels that way except for children. They are dying to grow up fast and wish time will fly fast, but definitely not for grown ups. I regretted making that wish when I was a child. Damn!

These pair of fairies are available for sale Here

So the little child in me and very much wanted to still stay in the Christmas mode, I made these 2 little fairies, namely Holly and Jolly. They had been receiving presents, and very much of them that they need a sleigh to ferry them. But the naughty Jolly ditched the presents aside and wanted to parade with the sleigh instead!!!

Winged up with ornate wings and dressed in little puffy skirts and white bloom millinery, they seriously look very angelic here. Oh well, it's still winter. Certainly the fur over their skirts do keep them warm. 

Oh look at how beautiful the ornate wings are!!! And how can I ever miss out glitters? They sparkle the wings so well!!! 

See how petite the are in my hand. Love 'em!!!! Off they go with their sleigh. They will be busy opening the presents when they reach home. 

Holly and Jolly hereby wish everyone a very Happy New Year and have a Holly Jolly Twenty-16!!!