Shredded paper strips

I've been getting a lot of inquiries from friends and fans of quilling regarding how I manage my shredded paper strips. Honestly when I first started quilling, I had ZERO idea on how to store the shredded paper strips. I used to dump it all in one big box.......all colors mixed into one big box. That was a really really bad idea.

Although it may seem easy to shred the papers and dump it all in one big container, however in the long run, the paper would get entangled with one another and it's difficult to pick them out from the box when they are mixed altogether like that. Especially when you wanna use a lot of one particular color at a time. It  becomes stressful for you to choose the paper strips when that happens.

One day, I saw a photo on my friend's blog that changed everything! In the photo, my friend Asma' showed how she arranged all her shredded paper strips and it looked so neat!! It was from that day onwards that I followed her idea. It made my quilling activities so much easier hehe! All you have to do is put all your quilling paper strips in one long plastic casing. One plastic casing for one type of color. This way, it's more organized. :). You can get the long plastic casing at any hypermarket like Tesco or Giant. It's pretty cheap too. :)

After putting them all in plastic casings, then you place them all in a mini dustbin like the one you see above. Ok, this is just a suggestion ya?  It's what I'm using for myself and I find it very convenient. But you can use any kind of tall container for the same purpose.

As you can see from the above photo, these are the paper strips that I get when I shred one piece of A4 paper. The big bunch of paper strips at the top of the photo are the paper strips that were shredded nicely from the mini paper shredder. The little bunch at the bottom of the photo are the rejected ones. Usually when I shred one piece of A4 paper using the mini paper shredder, I would only get about 50 - 53 pieces of paper strips each time I shred them. More or less. I usually don't throw away the rejected ones. I recycle them for other quilling projects. :)

I usually shred paper that are not too thick. They weigh about 80gsm - 120gsm per piece. If you shred paper that are thicker than that with your mini paper shredder, it might not be a good idea because it's not meant for heavy duty shredding...hehehe. The cutter from your mini paper shredder may not last long if you do so.

I hope what I share with you all here today can somehow give you an idea of how I manage my shredded paper strips and how you too can manage your own shredded paper strips and make quilling more enjoyable. Especially for those who are just beginning to try their hand at quilling. All the best to everyone! ;)

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Multi function tool

I was searching for this acne + blackhead extractor tool at a few places in Alor Setar but I finally got a good one when I was in KL recently. I bought this at the Mydin's Store in Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman. It only costs RM3.90 and not only did I get this tool, but I also got the eyebrows plucker together with it. A good bargain! You can use the eyebrows plucker to pick up small craft items. It's also great when you need to glue small pieces of paper and other small craft objects onto paper/card.

Yes! You can actually use these tools for crafting! Yup! Amazing isn't it? You can actually use the sharp end of the acne extractor tool that looks like a needle for the quilling technique and also for making holes on paper. The needle is very very sharp and it can poke through the paper really well and it makes a very neat and small puncture on the paper too. Once you have punctured the paper with the sharp needle tool, you can sew a thread through those holes. Cool ya? Do view the photos below for examples on how you can use the needle for making holes and sewing thread onto paper.

Note: These small holes made by the sharp needle from the acne extractor can only fit in fine thread like the  dark blue thread you see above. For thicker thread like the ones used for crochet or cross stitch, you would have to poke the paper using a bigger needle to make bigger holes on the paper. :)

You can also use the sharp needle from the acne extractor to QUILL! Yes! I've tried it and it works wonderfully! I love it! See how I do it from the photos below :).

I simply love how the petals of the flower has a small hole formed inside it. If you use a slotted tool, you won't  get that effect, and if you use a finer needle, the hole inside the petal will be much much smaller as well. So now, for those who cannot afford to buy original quilling tools, I hope you can use this tool as an alternative to quill :). Using a bamboo skewer may not be a favourite for some because it's easily breakable if you are not gentle with it. So using this acne extractor can be your solution. The choice is in your hands :). All the best!!

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Handmade bamboo stick quilling tool

I've been receiving a lot of inquiries regarding quilling tools ever since I started experimenting with the quilling technique. Many of my readers inquired from me about where they can buy them, how much they cost and etc etc etc.  For those living in Malaysia, it is pretty difficult for us to get these quilling tools as most  of these quilling tools are sold in Kuala Lumpur. A lot of people are not able to travel and go to craft stores  in Kuala Lumpur to purchase these tools themselves. Sometimes the quilling tools itself is out of stock. 

So, one day I decided to try and make my own handmade slotted quilling tool. For those who are not aware of the different types of quilling tools, there are two types that I know of. One is the slotted type and the other is the needle type quilling tool. So I'm gonna be teaching you how to make the slotted type because I think this one is a much easier quilling tool to use whenever I do my quilling.  

I made this simple tutorial for a paper article. I hope it gets accepted. :) The article is in Malay language.....so I won't be publishing it here, but I'm sharing with you some of the photos I submitted for the article. The article is about a simple tutorial on how to decorate your paper bookmark with quilling flowers and leaves. I also showed how to make the quilling tool using a bamboo skewer that we all use to make Satay with. :)

As you can see from the photo above, I start making the quilling tool by cutting off the sharp end of the bamboo skewer using a sharp razor blade. Then I  carefully made a straight cut at the center of it to make a space for the slot.

Do be careful when cutting it as you can break it if you are not careful and gentle with it. The cut made by the razor blade is quite narrow and perhaps too narrow to slide a paper strip between it. So take a metal ruler and try to widen the slot by forcing it between the center of the slot as per photo above. You will get the result as the photo you see above if you put the ruler in between it like so.

Now you can start quilling the paper strips using the bamboo quilling tool. I personally love using this bamboo quilling tool to make my quilled creations. This is because the length of the tool is very comfortable for me to handle compared to the small sized quilling tool I bought at the craft store. It is so small and short in length which makes it difficult for me to hold it when I start to quill the paper. So this bamboo quilling tool is my favourite quilling tool to use these days! :)

As you can see from the photo above, these are the quilled flowers and leaves I made using the bamboo quilling tool. The result you get from using a cheap bamboo skewer is the same as you'll get when you use an expensive quilling tool. I wish I had figured out how to make this earlier.....could have saved my money from buying the quilling tool! hehehe!

Here is the simple quilled bookmark I made for the paper article. It's meant to teach school kids how to make a simple decoration on a paper bookmark. School teachers can really benefit from this article......so I hope that it gets accepted! For those out there who are teachers....you can teach your students how to make their own quilling tool and start quilling! All the best!! :)

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Paper shredder

Ever since I found out about the mini paper shredder from Miyyah@Kertas's blog, I wanted to buy one for me to use in my quilling projects. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find the exact same type of mini paper shredder like Miyyah bought, anywhere here in Alor Setar. I was even thinking of going to Kuala Lumpur sometime next month to buy one at the place she mentioned, which is at the IT Hyperstore, Ground floor, in Cineleisure Damanasara. The USB mini paper shredder sold there costs only RM29.00. Cool huh??? I wanted to buy that so badly huhuhuhuu.........

Then one day as I was googling about mini paper shredders, I found one website called IZUKKA  that sells this hand powered mini paper shredder! Just like the one you see at the photo above. Isn't it cute??? You can view the catalog at this link  HERE. The mini paper shredder costs only RM26.90 and shipping costs only RM8.00 (poslaju). The paper shredder cuts the paper into 0.3cm strips size. It's just the perfect size for quilling! I want to order this!!!

I can imagine myself easily make my quilling projects without hurting my fingers just by using this machine hehehe! I really hate cutting the paper strips one by one using the razor and metal ruler. It takes forever to cut them by hand.  By using the paper shredder, it will just take seconds! Cool huh? :) 

Check out the video below on how to use the hand powered mini paper shredder.
 

Check out this USB mini paper shredder video below. It shows you how to use it! This paper shredder is also fun to use. :). You can buy this USB mini paper shredder at the IT Hyperstore in Cineleisure Damansara. It can shred A6 size paper into 0.3cm paper strips that's suitable for quilling.

 

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Fan fold flower

This is something that I believe anybody can do! If I can do it, so can you! hehehe! I love simple projects like this.You see, I was searching for more origami tutorials that I can do but was not able to find a simple one....most of the ones I found are quite complicated for me to try. Then I stumbled upon these fan fold flower tutorials that I find pretty interesting and can be used for my handmade cards. Love them!

I tried to make the fan fold flower using my buffalo fancy card paper.......I chose the one that is slightly thin.....there are buffalo fancy card paper that are thicker in the market. But I chose the thin one for this experiment. Then I realised that it's still a little too thick. I should have chosen something a lot thinner. I also think that if I could find a patterned paper it would also look prettier hehehehe. But for experiments, I just used anything I have available at home. In the videos, you can see that they used a craft punch to make the scallops at the edges of the fan fold flower. Since I don't have that type of craft punch, I just used a scallop patterned scissors to create that effect. But my scallops are quite small in size, so when folding it, it was pretty tricky since I had to fold them quite close to each other.

The only thing that I felt was so difficult in making this fan fold flower was the part when I had to glue the round red paper onto the purple fan fold flower.....I had to glue it on both sides of the purple fan fold flower and the purple fan fold flower kept jumping up on me hahahaha.....it won't stay put! Arrghhh! That really tested my patience! LOL! I'll try to make more of this fan fold flower using a more suitable type of paper soon......hope you guys will give it a try too! :)

 

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Stamping origami shirts!

I got carried away again playing with the origami shirts hehehhe! Since I don't have pretty patterned papers available to make origami shirts, what I did was I made them using plain thin papers and decorate them with a flower clear stamp! I know it doesn't look like Hawaiian shirts.....because the flowers are nothing at all like the "bunga raya" (Hibiscus) ekekkeke......it's just a simple flower pattern.

The flower clear stamp is one of the clear stamps that I received from my dear friend Sandi Staley. :) I"m having fun stamping using this clear stamp....it's so easy to see where you are stamping on the paper when the block is transparent. You'll know exactly where to stamp your patterns using this clear stamp. And another interesting thing about it is that you can remove the stamp from the block and place it on any position you like on the block again. Cool huh?? 

After stamping them on the origami shirt.....I continued by coloring inside the flowers with  yellow color pencil....and added the green leaves to the flowers using a green color pen. The orange dots were made using an orange color pen. This is just an idea of how you can decorate a simple plain origami shirt. You can decorate it any way you like it with other materials too. Let your creativity out and just have fun with it!! 

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Origami dress!

After making letting my fears out and adventuring into the world of origami this week, I've so far only manage to make origami shirts...lots and lots of it hehehe......and so today, I'm doing another origami pattern which is the origami dress! It's the simplest origami dress pattern I've found! I've seen other designers who have done a much more complicated origami dress....with lots of pleats on the skirt but for me as a beginner, I'll try and do the simplest one first and see how it goes from here. :)

Again.....as always, I would google about it and search on Youtube or any other tutorial websites that can give me a demonstration on how to make the origami dress from scratch. For me, it's easier to follow the steps if I look at the live video instead of looking at step by step photos of instructions. Especially if the live video is a good one....with clear visual and instructions.

I don't have a lot of beautiful patterned papers or origami papers or wrapping papers.......I have just a few that would be suitable for me to use for this particular experiment. This particular one that is actually  a leftover from a previous project I did way back when....... for one of my card designs hehehehe. So what I did was, instead of cutting it into a square shape, I cut it into a rectangular shape....specifically A6 size. As you can see from the above photos, I followed the steps according to the video tutorial below......and even though I used a rectangular shape paper, it was still possible to make the origami dress....so it does not have to be specifically a square shape.

Since I used an A6 size paper to make the origami dress, the dress end up looking quite big in size....in fact it almost fill up the pink half A4 size card you see above. So if I wanted it to be smaller, I would have to cut the paper in smaller sizes in order to make the origami dress look smaller and cuter. I didn't decorate it or put any embellishments on it yet. This is just one of my experiments hehehehe. So perhaps later I'll make more origami dresses for me to use for my card designs. I'm really happy I tried this....hopefully I get to try more origami patterns soon! Check out the video tutorial below if you wish to try making one yourself! Have fun! :)

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Origami shirt !

I've been wanting to try making an origami shirt for a long long time already.....in fact, it all started when my friend CC Peyton who was living in Hawaii sent me a handmade card she and her hubby made using handmade paper and a Hawaiian origami shirt she made using wrapping paper. I loved it! I always kept thinking that it was so difficult to make the origami shirt.....never believing that I could make one myself. But ever since I started to experiment on new crafts recently, I thought to myself......why not??? Why not just give it a try. At least try to do something that I actually love having and can use for my handmade cards. :)

So what I did was......I googled about the origami shirt and searched for it on Youtube for video tutorials that would show a clear detail on how to make this origami shirt. After watching dozens of tutorials on Youtube....I realised that there are not only one type of instructions on how to make the origami shirt.....there are quite a few of them!!! Gosh!! That's when I got confused on which one I would like to try out. At first I tried the simplest one......then I tried the ones that are a little bit complicated. Then in the end....I chose the ones that would suit my taste and would actually look nice on a handmade card. I wanted to share the video tutorials I love best here that shows two types of origami shirts.

The first video shows how to make an origami shirt with the sleeves folded at the end of it. It looked pretty cool that way :). The second video shows how to make the sleeves look like the real sleeves on a real shirt. It has a passage where the arms can go through. So I fancy both of these origami shirts, because of the sleeves. The other videos I checked had sleeves that were pretty common and nothing special to it. You can check it yourself on Youtube. I also have this PDF link that shows step by step instructions on how to make the origami shirt. Check it out HERE.
  
I've made a card and embellished it with origami shirts yesterday. I will be posting an entry about it soon!! :). In the mean time...do enjoy the video tutorials! Have fun making origami shirts ya! ;)

 

 

 

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