Can you believe it's 5 more days till Christmas ? I've had a wonderful time this year making christmas decorations and cards. Here are some of them to fill you with the festive mood.


My advent calendar this year takes the form of 24 reindeers of varying sizes.


For the front door, what is more perfect than an origami paper wreath. I used scrapbooking papers but you can totally recycle old christmas cards. If you are interested to try making one for yourself, I have a tutorial here http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/12/origami-wreath-tutorial.html



Of course I made lots of Christmas cards. I even made up a story for the last card which I named 'Partying Snowmen'. While making it, I imagined my snowmen had partied too much and missed the last bus home. Hence the standing under a lamp post.


Here are the fronts and backs of an altered CD cover.


Also some altered candles to dress up the mantle.

Thanks for looking at my holiday crafts. Wishing everyone who celebrates a very Merry Christmas !

Time to share my July One Paper Projects (OPP). This idea is to chose one really 'hardworking' paper from my stash and completely use it up on various projects. In this series, I wanted to explore the possibilities of asymmetrical patterns for making pockets.



By selecting different parts of the paper to cut my pocket template, I managed to get three unqiue designs. My favourite part was embellishing each with little labels, frames and buttons. I love working on this minature scale and each little cluster serves to anchor the paper pattern of the pockets. I've numbered the pockets #4,#5,#6 as I intend to send them out to the winners of the next three Sandy's challenge.



Here's the Making Memories' Passport paper I used to create all three pockets and the template I used. If you are interested more close-up photos, here is the link - http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/07/popular-opp-1.html

Wedding is a circular card I created for Jenny's friend who got married last month. Jenny asked for a card to reflect the green garden theme of the wedding. I used a circular journalling transparency to define the shape of the card. Then lightened the taupe, beige and brown tones by replacing the center of the journal card with a pale green paper with radiating lines. The two little butterflies are actually antique earrings. I thought they gave the a romantic finishing touch to the wedding cake.



To create a sense of anticipation, I made a petal-fold envelop for the card.


The next project is a double-sided photo display frame.  I took my inspiration from the elegant and formal designs of the transparent elements. Inside are photos of my cousin and his radiant bride. Wanting to the photos to take center stage, the only embellishments I used were the metal brads that also act to fasten the acetate onto the frame. The thing to note when photographing acetate is their reflective quality. I think I rejected 10 shots before I settled on this one - not perfect but acceptable given it was double layers of acetate reflecting each other.



Here's the front of the frame. If you are interested to the see the back and to read about how I created the frame from two chipboard album covers, you can head over here http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/08/wedding-photo-display-frame.html  

In July I played with my Echo Park papers and came up with these four cards.

His Master's Voice :
Nipper was a fox terrier belonging to English artist Francis Barraud's brother. After his brother death, Barraud inherited the dog and a cylinder photograph together with a number of recording of his brother's voice. Nipper would show interest whenever the recorded voice of his late master emanated from the trumpet. This inspired Barraud' well known picture - His Master's Voice. The story in turn inspired this card.



Articles of Tapestry :
This card is a lift of Pink Heather's amazing fine art collages. I love studying her compositions built up through blocks of squares and circles. While her work has lovely painted textures, mine is mainly pattern paper based. As a tribute, I did break out some acrylic to create the bisected background on the hot-air balloon tag.



Airmail :
This Parisian style card to my mind speaks of promenading around in a little black dress with a dainty pink doodle underfoot. The dimensional embellishments were limited to little push pins and pink sticker hearts. I fiddled with the grey embroidery floss for quite a while before figuring out that a slanted lined looped around the half pearl worked best.



Carte Postal :
I think this has to be my favourite of the four cards. I was inspired to create a vignette of an auction catalogue. I put many of the things I love on it : the ornately framed black script, a pointing finger anchored by a postage stamp, and the  random sewing across the top edge of the card.



Do you have a favourite among the four ?

I have more details on the cards, supplies list and close-up photos here http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/07/articles-of-tapestry.html

I love paper. Especially what I call really 'hardworking' papers. Papers whose patterns provide opportunities to make a variety of distinctive projects. For a frugal crafter like me, they really stretch my dollars. So I started a One Paper Projects (OPP) series on my blog. The idea is to chose one paper from my stash and create at least three projects from it to completely use up the paper.



On my first card, I put the three chic ladies center stage. I separated the lady with the handbag from her friends and placed her on the left. She anchors the card and the repositioning created a visual triangle. To pull them together, I used a white flower in the middle. Their length fits in perfectly with the long phrase sticker that reads : People seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things, they weren't so crazy about the first time round.



My second card is sized long and tall, like the fold-out maps which inspired it. I used small sewing patterns and phrases to lay out a skewed grid pattern. My streets interconnect, intersect and often end in cul de sacs. Squares and traffic circles were represented by little patterns cut from the my OPP paper.



What's left over from my OPP paper was used to matt these two M monogram cards.


October Afternoon : Thrift Shop Last One

If you have a hardworking paper to recommend, leave me a comment. Better still, if you've used one paper for two or more projects let me know. To see more pics of the June OPP cards, you can go to my blog http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-paper-projects-opp.html

I love making off-the-page projects to celebrate special occasions. In particular, it’s so satisfying to design decorative items for parties. They create a festive atmosphere and is often an interesting topic of conversation for the guests.
Since it's 4th of July, I’m sharing my Bi-plane inspired by the early aviation designs of the Wright Brothers.

Tutorial :



1.To create your own Bi-plane, start with an empty 24oz beer can. Cover the sides with pattern paper and make a ¼” hole in the bottom.


2.Cut out the three propeller pieces from the template. Insert them in this sequence through a straw. Insert the straw through the hole in the can


3.Cut out the four tail pieces from the template. Glue the two halves of the tail wing onto a 2” circle. And cut a ¾” slit in the circle.


4.Glue the tail wings on the top of the can, making sure the pull-tab pops out of the slit in the circle. Glue the tail piece onto the pull-tab.


5.Here’s how the assembled tail looks.


6.Glue on the two wings. Assemble the two wing struts and insert them between the wings as support.


7.There you've completed your bi-plane. All ready for celebrating 4th of July !


If you like to try making one for yourself, I have the parts template here on my blog http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/06/4th-of-july-bi-plane-tutorial.html

I had friends over for May Day lunch and made something to decorate the table. Started by making some artist trading cards. Enjoying the freedom to chose unrelated ephemera to give the ATCs an enigmatic feel.



Then modge podged the ATCs onto plain old drinking glasses. And dressed up the glasses with a ribbon bow with pre-printed pennants from Elle's Studio. They were quick and easy to make and the smell from the lemon balm was lovely. After lunch, each guest took one of these mini-bouquets home.



If you are interested in how I photographed these mini-bouquets, I talked about it on my blog. http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/05/bcc-8-photography.html

Lately I've been trying to 'modern' up my cardmaking style. And these three cards made in May are in my current favourite colour palette : red,orange, yellow.



A Beautiful Day is a tribute to Christine Middlecamp's incredible layered style. But everything is much more random as I wanted the tiny elements to tumble over each other in a sort of falling dance.



This second card is a private commission where  I played with the intersection of shapes and lines. Most of the design elements are focused on the edges of the card rather than the center.   



Am really satistified with the bottom which looks looser, messier and more organic. This way of creating with little bits and pieces is really interesting for me.



The last card is a top heavy design. Although it looks dimensional, everything is paper - the button, doily circle. The only 'real elements' are the yellow stitching and the staples.



Thanks for looking. If you like the full supplies list or want to see more photos of these cards, they are in my May blog posts
http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

I love learning new techniques and the latest thing I've learnt is coptic binding to create handmade books with pages that open flat.



I picked it up following this video from Jim Escalante and I found it is easier than I thought it would be. The only tip I have is to add is to use a curved needle if you have one as it makes the sewing really easy.



It measures 5.5" x3.5". The cover is decorated with a wooden number, stickers and a black feather.



If you are interested in coptic binding, the link to Jim's video is on my blog http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/05/bcc-10-techniques.html

May is the month we celebrated Summer


My project is inspired by my niece who got a pair of mismatched sneakers for her tenth birthday. She loves them and wears them whenever she can. She also has to explain to grandpa that she hadn't made a mistake - that they are meant not to match.



They are made from the humblest material - corrugated cardboard recycled from a carton. Mine are US size 5 and they can be made to fit any size feet really. If you are interested in the tutorial, it's here : http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2011/05/best-creation-may-blog-hop.html