Welcome Ramadan

Super excited and happy to share these cards, that I made, to mark the beginning of Ramadan. What adds to my joy is that I finally managed to complete them before the month started.

I created the background by combining three different stamp sets (mainly from BoBunny and Kaisercraft), and then inked it heavily with distress inks. The sentiment is from Altenew.

I went over all the details with ZIG Wink of Stella, so these sparkle when the light hits them. I couldn't capture the sparkle in this picture, but I did instagram it when I was working on the background.

The awesome #winkofstella by #zigmemorysystem. Was working on a #card, and finally managed to capture the #shimmer on camera. #workinprogress #thedetails #abeautifulday #makingprettythings #windowview

A post shared by Saba Musharrif (@favorsmore) on Mar 28, 2017 at 6:45am PDT

 Kept the inside simple, with a "Seize the opportunity" sentiment.

Wishing all of you a blessed Ramadan (in advance).

Linking it to:
Crafty Cardmakers : Challenge #188 Add a Sentiment

Happy Crafting!

"Jazakallah Khair" (May Allah reward you with good) Card

At Favors & More there are, alhumdolillah, a whole lot of projects that I get to work on, and each is special in its own special way. Today I am sharing another recently completed special project.

Though this seems like a very simple card, there was a lot of thought and brain storming involved in making it.

When you are crafting something for someone, it always helps to know details about the purpose of the gift and a bit about the recipient. The fun part of this project was that I was given sufficient information about who this card was for, why it was being given to them and a general idea of the recipients likes.

What made this project challenging was:
i. The fact that it was for someone who did a deed purely for Allah's sake,
ii.The task of coming up with something, atleast, a fraction as beautiful as the sentiment specified,
iii. The task of graciously expressing gratitude, felt by the client, for the recipients very noble deed.

Just like every project, this one too required translating the clients love and gratitude through the final piece, but I wanted to go the extra mile on this project, simply because of the reason behind it. I wanted it to be unique and treasured.

The sentiment "Jazakallah Khair" had been specified by the client, so after much thought and contemplation I decided on the base color as off-white, to represent purity merged with warmth, and a hint of rose pink -pink for the lady. A butterfly to signify joy, flowers to show gratitude, and pearls for purity.

 

This has been one of the most satisfying projects that I have had a chance to work on. Extremely thankful to the All Mighty Allah, and my treasured clients for giving me an opportunity to be part of such extraordinary moments.

PS: I am posting this card as an entry to the "Challenge #217 'In The Sky' " too, as it meets the challenge requirements =)

Happy Crafting,

Craft March: Project 4 - Just Because

Inspired by Pockets
Challenge - I wanted to do a card without using any printed cardstock and this is what I did.
You can create some beautiful cards using simple plain cardstock too

White base, layered with off white (.25" shorter) and 3 bright pink cardstock pieces (divide the size of the 2nd layer by 3 and reduce each piece further by .25" approx). Die cuts layer the pockets on each side.
Faux stitching on each pocket to add detail.

Happy Crafting

Doing the Craft March: Project 2 - Thinking Of Your

   

Technically I am one day behind on projects and two days behind on posts, so this here is the second project that was done in March.

The theme is "Blue without you" in terms of color and sentiment. The sentiment I had closest to the theme was "thinking of you". (Wondering where I got the theme? It was my inspiration for the day as I was missing family) :)

Basically, this is my first blue (color) themed card. I have, surprising, never done a blue card; I did do envelopes cum cards for my nephews on eid, but never a blue card.

Coming to the project, this is a simple card, and layering is the basic technique used.

Happy Crafting! :)

Doing the Craft March: All Things Grow With Love

There has been a buzz, on my facebook timeline, about March being the month of Craft in PK too, this year round. Seems like the national event has now become international :).  For me its just another opportunity to craft away, :D. With that said, I am trying to roll out atleast one project a day all through March. Its a bit of a challenge in my case, juggling both client projects, and others, but its a start!

So far I have been very happy with myself, 2 craft projects in 3 days- "I is happy with myself."

Sharing the first here:
"All things grow with love"
This is a tag, 3.5 x 6.5 approx
stamped, and embossed

adding 1 more picture; a close up of the hearts and wooden butterfly

 Happy Crafting!!

Furthering the Good Will

Early December a Give-Away was announced by Many Happy Returns at the launch of their blog, Artful crafting. I was amongst the, approximately, 40 craft enthusiasts who participated, but sadly did not win. As I stopped by to congratulate the winners, I saw the following post by Shereen:

I CAN'T bear to see you SAD. What can I do, I'm a softie. So All of you SAD people cheer up i'm going to send each of you 1, Many Happy Returns 6x6 paper pack...

Needless to say it made my day, and I am sure it brought a smile to the others too. So the stack I got was named "Little Sunshine"; basically themed for a baby boy in shades of blue, yellow and green. I loved the stack, and decided to incorporate it in my newest project "Hand Crafted Flowers" for Favors & More. (You can read up on this project here)

There was no way that was I going to incorporate these in my project and not further the good will. So upon completion of the first set, I announced a quick quiz; whoever guessed the stack using which these blossoms were made, gets a set as a gift from us. With the first correct answer posted, by Sundus Mariya within 15 mins of the announcement, the quiz was over soon. Short and sweet!

Here is how I used the stack:

 

If you are interesting in purchasing these; email favorsmore@gmail.com;

These are designed especially for paper crafting projects such as scrapbooks, cards etc:

Size: 1" and 1.75"

Price: PKR 250 for a set of 6.

To view other products visit Favors & More

Thanks!

Happy Crafting!

 

Cupcake Invites

Peace be with you!

I am so happy to be blogging..yay! and I know its not a Wednesday, but I'm posting to make up for the 3 Wonderful Wednesdays that were missed.

I have a great fun project to share with you all today...and its inspired by all the lovely cupcakes being baked; Cupcake Invites!

I've had this idea since forever but finally got some time to myself to execute it. Basically these are cute little cupcake style boxes, with 2.5" diameter and 4" to 6.5" in height.

The one above has a chocolate wafer base, with blueberry topping and vanilla icing embellished further with a tiny teddy, beetle, butterfly and flower. You see that wafer on the topping...

the wafer is the removable invite! Its big enough to hold all the essential information, cutely disguised as the wafer :D

The second cupcake is taller, and embellished with a bead centered flower.

Here too the invitation is disguised as the wafer, and the tall base is spacious enough to hold some candy, chocolates or anything similar.

The decoration options for these are endless, you can make them as simple or as elaborate as you want...its all up to you. They can be used as invitations for parties, or even as memorable announcements. When you are giving these to someone, you are ensuring that they remember the event for a life time because these cupcakes can be stored for as long as you want... they will never go bad ;)


Hope you liked this project, and hope it was worth the wait!

Happy crafting!

For further details email sabascraftland@gmail.com or visit Favors & More. You can also visit my card gallery.

Butterflies in the Garden

Peace be with you!


It's time for our Wonderful Wednesday post once again. So without further delay, here it is!

This one is all about flowers, butterflies and birds :) and really there isn't much to explain about this one either.
Its a 4" dry embossed base, embellished with fresh green hand stamped paper, hot pink hand stamped doily, flowers and a bow. I used acrylic paint for the center stamp.

I've kept the bow very simple, because I wanted to keep the focus on the butterflies and the flowers.

Happy crafting!
For further details email sabascraftland@gmail.com or visit Favors & More. You can also visit my card gallery.

A Card for Every Season

Peace be with you!

It is Wonderful Wednesday and I have another of my creations to share with you. I call it the "Every Season" card, simply because of the sentiment used :D. So here is what it looks like:

Isn't it a beauty! and no, you cannot say it aint ;)

So this card is very very different from any of the cards that I have done so far, with respect to the colors and sentiments used. What I like best about this piece is that it can be used for any occassion and it can be given to anyone, young or old :)

I started off with a 4 x 5.75 inch folded white card stock and distressed the edges. The distressing was kept very light because I wanted the center piece to stand out. So, once distressed the based was layered with yellow cardstock to give it dimension.

Then I set this piece aside and began working on the center piece. Started with dry embossing the center piece, and then filling in the color with a light and dark tone of the same shade. For this card I have used "Vintage photo" and "Antique Linen" distress inks. You will start with the lighter shade.

When you get the desired effect, stamp the sentiment. Usually, one stamps before dry embossing, but in this case we do it the other way round. Its totally up to you how you want to do it, I just liked it better this way.

Once the base is ready, you can paste it on to the partially completed card or, you can add some fancy sentiments to it like I have done here.

I made this myself using ribbon, flowers, beads and a brad :) Love how it turned out. All you need to do is to make a 6 loop bow, secure it. Then take flowers of your choice and secure them on the bow as desired; and cover the center with a brand or button. The one I used here is embossed metal. I love it :). Beads at the base of the flowers are optional...i just added them in to give it a finishing touch.

So adhere the sentiment on the embossed card stock first and then adhere that to the base. And your beautiful card will be ready  :)

Happy crafting!
For further details email sabascraftland@gmail.com or visit Favors & More. You can also visit my card gallery.

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.

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 :)