Baby Booties Card

Peace be with you!

I must admit that I enjoy working on baby projects the most, and here is one of my recently completed projects. Its a 3.75" card done in pink and white and embellished with two mini booties :D
Most of the cards that I have done for babies either have prams on them or rattles; I wanted to do something different and challenging for this one though. And it looks so cute!

So before we get into the details here is what the completed card looks like :)

This is a fairly simple card to make, and the booties are the only challenging part :P... so the idea of adding cardstock booties was basically inspired by the booty favor boxes which were the 'IN' thing some time back. I found a template for these at "love bug scrapbooking", which I used as the source and worked on further to get the size that suited by project best. (Since the link to love bug scrapbooking is broken, you can download the template here. updated 31 Jan 2014. If you are still unable to access it, please let me know)

The booties I used on this baby girl card are no less than an inch. I had an option of whether to use paper or cardstock for doing these. Paper is definitely a lot easier to cut and mold BUT given that this is a card, which would surely be placed in an envelope and would go in many hands I wanted to ensure that the booties retain their original shape and therefore I used heavy cardstock (around 110). Since these were really small embellishing them was quite a task. To avoid making a mess, I added a bow to each and outlined it in silver. For the clasps I used puff paint. Once the booties were done the rest was fairly simple.

Layer the patterned paper as desired, and glue it on. If you do not have patterned paper of your own, you can always create some using stamps, paints, markers, crayons etc the options are endless. I made my own patterned paper for this project using acrylic stamps.

OK, so as you can see above the booties were placed on a dry embossed scalloped circle and embellished with organza and satin ribbon ... and Tada! you have a totally awesome card :)

For further queries and tips email sabascraftland@gmail.com
for purchase write to us at favorsmore@gmail.com or visit Favors & More.

Dough Adventure!

Peace be with you,

This is just a quick post to share the results of my dough adventure. I managed to bake around 2 dozen cookies, shaped as Bears, Rabbits, Birds, Hearts and Circles. I don't bake regularly, infact this was my first attempt at it and I think it turned out to be pretty decent.
This has nothing to do with paper crafts but its creativity in a different form :D enjoy! :P

I didn't have any icing colors on me, so its just white...I think the rabbits and the birds turned out the best.
I baked another batch day before yesterday; but those were just squares....and they tasted really good!

A Simple 3D Card

Peace be with you,
I'm blogging after a fairly long break; sincere apologies for that. Actually my love for working with different mediums led me to playing around with dough; (yes DOUGH) and guess what! my oven blew up :P

Coming back to today's post ...I wanted to create a card which was simple yet unique.

If you have had a chance to browse through the collection of cards posted on my facebook page, you would notice that the cards are not very heavily embellished. This time round too I have kept the theme very simple, added a 3D effect and used the white cardstock as the base for this card.

To avoid adding too much color, I stuck to shades of lilac on this. The darker shade has been added strategically to highlight and bring out the lighter color. If you look closely at the picture below you will notice that the outer petals are dark, while the center is lighter.

To add detail, the darker petals were outlined with faux silver stitching. The lighter petals are however done with embossed lilac cardstock; so the embossing seems like veins on the petals :)
This beautiful flower gives the card a 3D feel; (obviously, cause the flower is 3D :D ) made out of 13 petals. I will be doing a tutorial on how to make this flower in the coming week or two.

Next, some lilac rose buds and a bow were added to accentuate the flower and to give it a soft/warm feel. :)

I made the greeting look like it was written on a scroll...not exactly a scroll scroll... but just wanted to give it that look. This technique is very simple and easy to do. Just distress the edges of the cardstock, stamp the greeting in the desired color, and then carefully curl the edges using a quilling tool or your fingers. Once done just stick it where you want.

TIP: Plan the layout and embellishments before assembling such a card. We have worked directly on the cardstock base, so a slight error would ruin the entire card.

Happy Crafting :) 

Blog Design & Layout

Little did I realize that a week has gone by since my last post. I have been busy with the 'Keep Sake' box referred to in the earlier post and am over joyed to tell you that its 99% complete. Just need to get the fancy knobs in and then i'll be posting the pictures.

This post is dedicated to 'Saba's Craft Land' design. Since this blog is all about sharing creative work, I want to share the making of this blog with you.

I'm not too sure whether you can make it out, but the background is an image which I designed in Photoshop. The recommended image size is 1800 x 1600 pixels, but with a layout like this 1600 x 800 pixels serves the purpose well. I started off with a 1800 x 1600 pixel canvas, and used the following elements to embellish the it.

The theme is of a land inhabited by creative being :P (yes I am very imaginative :P ) 
The map signifies the Land,
The butterfly signifies Creativity & Freedom
The roses signify Beauty
(the posts signify the beings :P)

These three (/four) are, in my view, the essence of this blog. A place to share all creative work. The colors are soft so that they:
i. Don't distract the reader
ii. Don't overshadow the font 
iii. Give the reader a warm welcome :)
I have never really been fond of shades of pink but for some reason, since the past few months, whenever I design something its all either in the shades of pink, or PINK :P weird as that this, while designing the background and doing the roses I made a conscious effort to avoid using 'Pink'... BUT it still creeped in. Left it as is cause its looking nice... :D So the tip here is that neutral colors always give the best results.

Now for the layout. I used the templates provided by blogger.com and edited a few things here and there... just to get the posts in the center, the 'blikies' and other accessories on the left and the details on the right. In deciding what goes where on your blog, stick to the standard, and keep it simple. The last thing you want is a frustrated visitor... and once frustrated, they surely won't stay on your blog long, nor will they consider returning :P

Lastly, why am I using blogger instead of wordpress...simply because as compared to wordpress, blogger gives me many more customization options. I do blog on wordpress too, and google works really well with wordpress, but this time round I have preference to blogger.

Oh! I forgot to mention the most unique feature; sticking to the theme we have 'Neighbors' and 'Family' instead of 'Networked Blogs' and 'Followers' :P

For help on your blogs or queries send us your bottled message at sabascraftland@gmail.com.

Sharing My Favorite Cardstock from DCWV

Today I want to share with you my all time favorite DCWV cardstock, which I have been saving for my upcoming projects, and it is "The Black Currant". It's a 12" x 12" stack with absolutely beautiful acid - and lignin-free prints, accompanied by some brilliant foil paper too. (Acid and lignin free card stock last longer and by longer I mean really really long, that is because both these components damage the paper in the long term and thus their absence gives it longer life)

I am based in Pakistan, and though there is lots of amazing stuff available here; these gorgeous stacks still haven't arrived, so I had to have these shipped in with the help of my utterly sweet friend 'Janiece'. I will keep posting on other designs as I roll out projects using them, for now, its Black Currant.

Here are 3 of the sheets that I REALLY like, and most probably these are the ones I will be using; I'm a bit confused so, most probably these will be the ones. Sharing them here to give you an idea of what to expect :)

This one is foil... isn't is sooooo pretty!

These aren't just stripes, its like these are embossed

Oh! I'm so in love with this one *sigh*

So coming back to "Black Currant," the possibilities with this rich card stock are endless! and I am eagerly looking forward to complete my 'keep sake' box project so that I can share it with you. Most of the projects I've seen using "Black Currant" are either wedding cards, scrapbook pages or wall hangings; so mine will be the first of its kind.

I will be taking pictures as I progress through the project so that it can be converted into a tutorial for future reference.

PS: I love DCWV and I'm sure you guessed that seeing the *blinkie* on my blog.
Anyone in Pakistan/India/UAE interested in this card stock shoot me an email sabascraftland@gmail.com

So after I was done with this post, I realized the above pictures did not do this beautiful stack justice; so here are some more pics :)

These are just a few! don't forget to email sabascraftland@gmail.com if you need some :)

Hey There!

Hello Fellow Craft-geek!

A very warm welcome to Saba's Craft Land; I'm Saba the first inhabitant of this amazingly creative and inspirational land, and so the proud owner of it too :D

I have tons of stuff to share with you, from my collection of craft tools, paper punches, embossers, card stock, to crafting techniques to finished products to tutorials and lots more. Oh, and you know what, some of the finished products are sold through my business page Favors & More.

So now that you are here, how about you tell me what brings you here? Tutorial search? or looking for some ideas? Scrapbooking? or inking techniques? or the desire to just be part of the craft family!?
Post your thoughts, join the family and start sharing all the love!

**Phew, its not easy doing all the work alone...
Alas! its all done! Saba's Craft Land is on the map.. yay!! keep visiting ...gets lonely without you!