More Mini-envelopes!

This weekend I had my biggest order yet! 20 of my mini-envelopes! I don't think I quite understood how much time it took me to make them until I had a deadline (a self imposed one but one none-the less) and 10 more than I normally make at a time.

20 new Valentine's Day themed mini-envelopes
You can see the rest I made in my previous post called Valentines Day Crafts- Mini-envelopes

I am sure I could have saved time by sticking sequins instead of stitching each one by hand but I wanted to make sure that my creations were of a high quality and were very durable. Must keep the standards up!

It was a great experience working with a deadline. I'll be making about 15 more to fill up some other orders for some good friends and then I'll be closing up shop. No more new orders because I am going on vacation :D

But if you would still like to purchase some, they will be selling at Roses & More! A gift shop at Atlantic Plaza, Pt Lisas. They have all your Valentine's Day needs there and they do beautiful flower arrangements and deliver. Call them today at 679-4563! (and request one of my envelopes ;) )

I've never sold any of my work before and it certainly put a few things in perspective for me :) The biggest one is that I really enjoy making things for the people I love and you really can't put a price on those things. You don't really realize the amount of work that goes into making them because it really does not matter when its for someone you care about.

Thank you everyone for your support! For purchasing them, sharing them about, liking them and letting me know how you feel about them so I can improve. It really meant a lot to me. I took all your suggestions to heart. For those who purchased, I hope my envelopes help make your valentine's day an amazing one :) They really were stitched with love ;)

Valentine's Day Crafts: Mini-Envelopes (cont'd)

The original 9 Mini- Envelopes

After my post about my Valentine's Day Mini-Envelopes, I was considering the idea of selling some.

Right after, a good friend messaged me asking me if I was. She wanted to order some. I took it as a sign/ answer to my dilemma on whether or not I should.

I headed to Trincity the next day and bought some more buttons and got to crafting.


The following are 10 more new mini-envelopes. Again hand crafted and embroidered with buttons, beads and sequins.

Custom made 10 Valentine's Day Mini-envelopes

To these however, I added their own notebook paper in a matching theme to the checkered print. I left them simple so one can use them to pen little love notes or as gift tags for that special someone.

I also decided to try my hand at packaging the envelopes. I ended up decided on the following, because after its delivered, the owner can then use the packaging as a bookmark by simply cutting it in half. Not pictured here though, I added some hanging embellishments to the packaging for when it gets turned into a bookmark.

The mini-envelopes are approx 5.5 cm x 6.5 cm. If interested you can email me at shazanna@gmail.com. Place your orders early because I won't be selling anymore after the 8th! :D

Front: (also front of bookmark)

Back: Plain Red and Black versions of the Tag are featured inside each envelope

Hand Painted Wooden Earrings & Pillow Box Packaging

I painted some earrings for my friend Cherisse. Cherisse has a cool fun style and after her trip to Haiti, she came back with hand crafted wooden earrings by a local artist. I was not amused :P I told her that if she wanted a piece of wood painted, that she could have checked me. We joked about me desiging a jewellry line for her to wear. I would make it, and she would promote it.

About a year later, I happened upon some plain wooden knob earrings at a steal of a price and bought 3 pairs of earrings with the intent to customise them somehow.

I decided to do an Island themed design for Cherisse based on my Barbados painting. Of course they have different patterns on them because Cherisse is cool like that and loves mismatched earrings.

Barbados/Island inspired hand painted earrings by Shazanna Khan :)

Eventually I would like to do a pair inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.

I did these around Oct/ Nov 2012 so I am a bit late in posting, but only because I recently finished making the packaging for the earrings. (Yes! I am going all out. lol) I used natural materials like Hemp, recycled paper and wooden beads on some brownish scrapbook paper to give it an island feel. I also love the combo of navy blue and brown/cream. I highlighted some parts of the packaging with some gold acrylic paint to give a slight sheen and add some more interest to the brown packaging. Here's a look below:

Buttons are my new favourite decorating accessory! :D All in all I really enjoyed making these packaging that I have been doing lately. I'm thinking to mail out some to some friends abroad (and in T&T) if I have time to make some. lol So in the mean time, message me your mailing addresses (at shazanna@gmail.com)  if you would like to own your very own SK Creation. I'm not making promises, but you never know ;) You may get something in your mailbox one day.

EDIT: I finally remembered the name for these boxes. They are called Pillow Boxes.

Valentine's Day Crafts: Mini-envelopes/ Tea bags

I've been shopping around for creative ideas for Valentine's Day for a little while now. I'm going on a little family vacation and returning home on Valentine's Day itself, so I thought it would be nice to leave little presents for my Valentine to open while I'm away. One interesting find that inspired me was from Design.Wash.Rinse.Repeat.com with Valentine's Day Tea Tags (with printables). I thought I would design my own tea tags and individual tea bag wrappers.

The wrappers/ mini-envelopes were really simple to make and here is how you can too :)

Gather up your equipment and materials: Ruler, Scissors, Pencil, White Glue, a few Sheets of construction paper.

Step 1: The template!

I first made a template out of pink construction paper. I drew a rectangle the size of the tea bag that I wanted and added some flaps to it that were long enough to reach each other to glue together. Just glue along the edges and leave one flap "unglued".

As you can see above I made a tester to check the sizing. (I was still free styling the design)

After you finalise your template design, use your template and outline its shape unto some scrapbook paper (or any other paper of your choice). Cut out your pattern. Scour where your folds would be, by running a scissors along those lines. Fold your mini envelope and glue the flaps into place.

You should have a completed mini-envelope! The next step is to decorate.

Cutting out the squares

I designed some tags on my computer  saying "Be Mine" and cut them out. My original thought was to include some cute sayings, ("you suit me to the tea" or "orange you glad to be mine" for orange flavored tea) BUT THEN! I found some free vector graphics at Vector Graphics Blog. The 3 x 3 squares with little hearts on them were adorable and were just the right size for my envelopes. Also I thought the black and white theme seemed more masculine and perfect for a guy for valentine's.

After you cut them out, the next step is to simply stick them onto your envelope as seen below. I chose to take mine a step further.

Sequins, buttons and embroidery thread. Extra embellishing!

Because of the squares had a sort of stitched look to them, I decided to use red thread and some sequins to add a little dimension to my hearts. I also dug up some old white buttons and white embroidering thread.

Lots of careful hand stitching later, I came up with the following:

Ta-da!

Turns out that my Valentine is more of a coffee person than tea and I think the final products look too nice for a mere tea bag. I think I'll be using them with cute notes instead. I have just the container for them!

The great thing about this envelope-template design is that you can adapt it to make bigger envelopes. So custom greeting card envelopes, or gift envelopes for jewellery and other small gifts, or even at this size- gift tags!

I hope you all were extra inspired by these! I tried to keep it simple on the design to help out some friends of mine, but feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions or if you were extra inspired to make some of your own.

Happy crafting :)

Christmas Crafts (Tutorial?)

This year I was looking for a new way to wrap some presents, and when my mom bought some gorgeous metallic gift paper, I knew I had to attempt a gift box. The paper was so beautiful. I couldn't resist using it in some craft project. 

The following is a basic overview of how to go about making your own.

So firstly is gathering the materials. I used pretty complementary gift paper, some cloth ribbon from last year's gift wrapping that matched the gift paper, a red decorative napkin, some Elmer's white glue and an old perfume gift box.

Materials: Gift paper, Burgundy Cloth Ribbon, Red Decorative Napkin

Once I sorted out all my materials, I used the cover as a guide and cut the gift paper with enough excess to also cover the sides as well as to fold into the other side of the box. This ensures that the edges of the box had a nice classy finish.

Ideally, you should cut a large piece of your main background paper (in my case, Gift Paper #1) and cover your box first with it and then cut your decorative piece (GP #3) and stick over it. (See next photo below) I personally did not do that because I didn't want to waste the gift paper that would have been hidden by GP #3. 

I was however very careful as to where I added the glue on the box to stick the paper. I only put on the edges of the box, where there would be an overlap of gift paper and in a few choice spots. This is my personal preference when using liquid glue to get a smooth finish on the surface of the box. I find that sometimes the same pattern that you apply the glue in, ends up showing up through the paper when you stick it. 

Next I stuck a piece of the burgundy cloth ribbon to add some texture and contrast to the gold gift papers. Later on, after completing the entire box, I decided to use some gold studs that I had been dying to use for some extra embellishments and to hide some of the glue stains that seeped through the ribbon.

Wrapping the cover and where to place the materials.

For the bottom half of the box, I opted to use the gift paper with the most gold tones in it to cover the bottom part of the box. It was the least fussy of all the gift papers and would not detract from the cover.

I was averaging the size of the gift paper with the box as guide and because I was not measuring it to the exact proportions of the box with my handy ruler (laziness on my part), I ended up with the paper in the inside lip of the box being at different lengths. I was not too worried because I already planned to line the box. 

I used a thick decorative napkin that I cut with 1 cm in excess on all sizes. I ended up folding the excess behind to make the napkin to size and this I thought was a much nicer surface than a cut edge to line the box. (Kind of like why you hem clothes) I also put the glue on the excess that was folded back so that if any glue seeped through, it was not visible.

Underneath of Box and lined inside.

When the entire box was properly covered, I checked to see if I wanted any extra embellishments to enhance it, e.g. glitter, sequins, stamps, etc. In my case, I simply used some gold studs on the burgundy ribbon. My roommate once picked off all the gold studs from a shirt she bought for a presentation to make it more professional. We didn't know what to do with them at the time, but 2 years later, they finally had a use!

After I filled the box with my gifts, I used the remaining Burgundy cloth ribbon to tie a beautiful bow.

Finished box (without the embellishments)

And that's how you make a very pretty gift box!

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you all get extra creative this year :)

Of Birthday Parties, Matting and Leopard Print Boxes

Lighting Star-lights from the birthday candles. Photography by Hailz

Thursday was my roomie's birthday. However being a medical student, it was just her luck that she had call on her birthday and would not be finished til 10 in the night. To make up for that, we decided to throw her a surprise birthday party to start her day right. Operation: Surprise Midnight Birthday Party was a success! We had old friends who rarely see each other except for occasions (e.g. the return of the Canadian scholar to the island) and yummy egg-less mocha cake :D Also some balloon contraption made out of garbage bags to release balloons when she walked out of the door. I think we did good, and her call was not bad. She got to deliver two babies on her birthday. How awesome is that?

Pre- cut Matting from Fine Arts

I got her print of my painting (Eze, France) framed with some dark purple pre-cut matting from Fine Arts. Apparently, the entire process with glass, etc takes about a week (which I did not have time for). Another surprise- Fine Arts is cheaper than Horizons?

I was also an idiot who forgot to carry the print with me when I went to the art store. I ended up buying a few other options because I could not figure out what would go with the piece the most. Plus I loved the other colours and I know that I have some old pieces that could use some matting. (My name is Shazanna Khan and yes, I have a problem when it comes to art supplies.)

Leopard Print Box perched on my room mate's laptop

This week also, I cleaned my apartment. I wanted some prettier containers for some of my stationery than an old cardboard box. So I went the primary school art & craft route, and brought out the gift paper. To the left is one of my creations.

This Leopard Print Box was once half of a box that once packaged printer ink. My bro, who once lived at my apartment, used it for paper clips.

I thought it needed some sprucing up so I wrapped it in a Leopard-print paper bag from some jewellery purchase. The bag was too pretty to throw away and I knew one day I would find a use for it.

Ribbon bow came from a hairclip that I broke accidentally. Who ever knew that you can't sit on them ? The entire thing was held together by my new spray glue (I was itching to try it out) and some clear tape. It was a great way to reuse old materials.

New use for my Leopard Print Box? Well, you will have to ask my roomie that question. She was studying next to me while I was making it and fell in love with the print and box. It was instantly added as one of her birthday presents.