PaperCraft - Chief's Birthday Cards

Now we'd spent the week in Sporeland making the Chief's birthday cards (which was why we could leave our NDS in the Chief's care), and while we had the idea in mind to make such cards weeks before, it took some time for us to prepare the materials.

First, a trip to Papier to pick up some basic things. Picked up some cardstock, a bit of decorative cards, alphabet stickers, album pockets to keep the cards in. Then back home to scavange for our craft scissors, ribbons and a mini photo for size reference. After seeing what we lack, it was to that paper shop at The Gardens to pick up glue, a wooden letter (darn them to have no stock of letters for a full first name), and felt paper.

Then we'd picked up some craft magazines from them cheap magazine shops in Amcorp (RM9.90 per mag, old editions of course) to get some ideas for layout and designs. The Chief probably thought that we were going through some creative phase akin to our ambigram phase.

Then it was choosing photos to print out. We'd basically chose nine assorted photos, group pics of Team Layton, of our Camland Trip, of our Bangkok trip, and a few of the Chief. Arranged it so that it's all wallet-size to fit onto an A4-size paper (oh you know, just select 9 photos, right-click and select 'Print', you'll get what we mean). Had it printed at a photo shop then cut out.

Then we'd run about to lad, Esteban, Puddy, otousan and Germ getting them to write their wellwishes on small pieces of cards.

With the bare basics, we packed it all in our luggage so that we could work on it in Sporeland. Only, once we'd unpacked at the hotel and looked through our inventory, we realized we forgot to bring a few essentials. Blade. Ruler. Normal scissors. Glue stick (we'd only brought glue paste). Scotch tape.

So we asked at the hotel front desk for scissors, ruler and scotch tape. Somehow we'd thought room service would send some up later, but instead we had the fellow attending to us rummage about the drawers of the front desk looking for the requested stationery, also with a reminder that we had to return it back to the front desk and not leave it for room service to take it back. Very pa pai folks. Good thing when we checked out we did bring down their things too, because they had a note stuck to our account requesting them back. Yeesh.

Oh, we also bought photo corners from Borders at Wheelock. Very useful things. We'll need to check Borders The Curve one day to see if it's available here.

Given that we've set up a worktable in our hotel room, it was time to start working on the cards. Truth be told, we'd no idea about the layout. So we took them cards that already have wellwishes on them, and worked our layout based on the cards' shapes. Struggled slightly with space, but somehow we managed.

Pasting card to the cardstock wasn't easy with glue paste. We had to spread glue along the edge using our finger.

With one card down, we then started on the second card. We wanted to make use of the piece of felt that we bought, and somehow decided to make a sort of plant motif. A slight mistake on this was making the photo frames leaf-shaped, as we then had very little space for wellwishing. Still, the basic layout was done.

Only, it felt as if it lacked something - namely decorative text, those letters that you stick on to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY and the likes. That's where we were lucky to stumble onto this shop in Wheelock Place.

What caught our interest was that they had a rummage basket where alphabet stickers that were damaged were sold cheap. We picked up two large alphabet stickers of different fonts for SGD8, with only a few letters probably not as sticky as they used to be. Still perfect for our needs.

And the results...aren't gonna be posted up here, unfortunately. Anonymity required.

With the cards done, it was time to bring them back and have them sent out to be signed by everyone before the party.

And so that's the first two cards. We plan to make more of whatever occasions for the Chief in the future. Hmmm. This also mean that we know what to get next as a present - a craft album!