Daisy Fan Pop Up Bouquet

I have a fun birthday pop up card made for a special friend to share today.  I used dies from Karen Burniston's "Flower Pot Pop Up" die set to cut and assemble the daisies and leaves, adding flower centers cut using Spellbinders "Be Bold Blooms" die set. 

 For some sparkle, I added Stickles glitter to the flower centers and a few randomly placed AB sequins. Pink Fresh Studio's "Perfect Sentiments" was used for the hot foiled happy birthday sentiment and I created a shadow layer in Make the Cut Design studio to place behind it.

        

Inside, I used Karen Burniston's "Photo Fan Pop Up" die again to create this bouquet of daisies in a vase. The idea and inspiration for this comes from member R Daina Andretto who posted a beautiful card she made for Mothers Day using this technique on the Karen Burniston Pop Up Peeps Facebook Group.

In her card, R. Daina Andretto had her bouquet of daisies tied with a gold bow. I decided to put mine in a vase by creating a cut file for a tall vase with a crease in the center and tabs on its sides to glue it in place. I adhered strips of green cardstock to look like stems onto my white vase, then glued another vase cut from vellum over it to give it the appearance of a frosted glass vase. I also created a cut file for a simple bow to add to the front of the vase.

I really had fun putting this together. The mechanism for this pop up is made up of a half circle with 6 spokes to which the two sizes of daisies and leaf branches were attached. Checking for catch points by opening and closing the card each time a daisy or leaf was glued on assured that the finished card would pop open smoothly without snagging on anything. Although it's called the "Photo Fan Pop Up" die, I am loving all the different kinds of cards I've been able to create by gluing different embellishments other than photos to this pop up mechanism.

Personalized Graduation Card

I put together another recessed window style graduation card for the last of the 2025 high school graduates in our family. If you've been following my blog for awhile you probably know that I often fall back to making this style of card for graduation cards. Checking back, I see that I first designed the cut file for this card 13 years ago! Gee, I hope this card doesn't seem too outdated!

Whenever I use this template, I simply edit the cutting file by updating year of the class and the name of the graduate on the front of the card. I search online for a photo of the graduate's school campus to use as a backdrop inside the recessed window. I also like to use the school colors, logo, or mascot to create a very personalized card.

Inside, I added a pocket for a place to slip in a gift card holder. Graduate's school mascot is a fox so I added a paper pieced fox from Eline's Collectables. Mortarboard cap and diploma were cut from  very old Quickutz dies and "congrats" from Karen Burniston's "Word Set 8".

Seashell Shaped Card

It's halfway through July already and I'm realizing that I'm quickly falling behind on my card crafting schedule! This is the card I had to rush to make and send  with a box of collected goodies for our granddaughter to enjoy during her summer break from school. Might not look like it at first, but it's supposed to be a seashell shaped card. I added Stickles Glitter accents and a few flatback dew drop baubles because I thought it looked so plain, but maybe that made it look even less like a seashell?
 

That's okay, the fun happens when you open the seashell to find an ocean floor scene with a pop up mermaid princess inside.

I printed a digital undersea background image found online for the inset and added lots of Stickles glittery accents to add sparkle to everything. I used Copic markers to add shadows, a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen for highlights, and a bit of chalk for added color to the cut pieces on the fish, seaweed and mermaid. 

The svg template for this "Pop Up Card Shell Mermaid" was purchased from the Lori Whitlock Shop.  I loved how quick and easy it was to put together once everything was cut. 

Lastly, I cut a double layer of shadowed insets from text weight papers and adhered them to the back of the card so I'd have room to add a personal note to our granddaughter.

Butterfly Double Fan Pop Up Card

Pulled out my favorite Spellbinders "Delicate Butterflies" dies to make this fun birthday card twice for two very special friends. I used pearlescent cardstock for the butterfly wings, gold foil board for the bodies, and glitter cardstock for the shadows. Gold glittered flourish swirls were cut using a very old Quickutz "Flourish" die and hot foiled sentiment was created using Spellbinders "Be Bold Glimmer Sentiments" hot foil plates and dies. I also randomly glued on a few iridescent sequins for a teensy bit more sparkle.
 
Inside the card, I installed two of the mechanisms from Karen Burniston's Photo Fan Pop Up die for double the fun. I saw others doing this on Karen Burniston's Pop Up Peeps Facebook page and wanted to give it a try too. 
Since the mechanism for this pop up consists of six spokes, adding a second one right below the first allowed me to add more than twelve butterflies to this pop up!

Of course the potential for catch points increased with this many butterflies but it wasn't too bad as long as I checked the positioning by opening and closing the card each time I added another butterfly. Both of the cards I made were for friends celebrating milestone birthdays so I diecut the numbers using Quickutz Studio Alphabet Set and adhered them to the base of the Fan Pop Up mechanism.

I also made a simple matching gift card holder by decorating  with the same diecuts I had used for the front of the birthday card and the word "celebrate" using Lawn Fawn "Celebrate Border" die.

I'm really enjoying the versatility of the Photo Fan Pop Up die I used for this card and am looking forward to playing with it again. 

Showers Of Love

This is the wedding shower card I made for our niece and her fiance. As you can see, I kept with the same color scheme and theme of the couples shower I posted about last week.                                         The inspiration for this double heart fold card comes from a "Dutchdoobadoo Art Heart Card" die I saw  posted on Pinterest. Although I wasn't able to find a source for this die in the U.S., I went ahead and created my own version of a template for it using Make the Cut Design Program.

I cut the heart shaped insets for the front of the card from Photoplay glimmer cardstock matted with with gold foil board. the blue insets were dry embossed using a very old "Elegant Lines" Stampin' Up embossing folder. Cherry blossoms were cut using WikiCaps "Cherry Blossoms Outline" die for the petals and i-Crafter "Cherry Blossom Box" die for the stamens. AB sequins were randomly glued to the hearts and I used a gold glittered organza ribbon tied into a bow to keep the card closed.

 Kept the inside of the card simple with the sentiment printed on beige parchment and matted on dark blue and gold foil.

Couples Wedding Shower

This is the invitation and favor I put together for a couple's wedding shower hubby and I hosted last weekend for our niece and her fiance. The couple told me their wedding color scheme was navy blue, sage green and blush pink so I went with those colors for the shower as well.

I have to admit that at first I felt a little uneasy working with the color scheme the couple had chosen but after searching online for inspiration, I was happy to see how well pink cherry blossoms on a dark blue background looked so good together. It brought back memories of viewing "Yozakura" or cherry blossoms at night in Japan.

I printed the invitation on a beige parchment using "Hello Valentica" and "Chocolada" fonts and matted it with gold foilboard and dark blue cardstock.  Frantic Stampers "Petite Sakuras", Marianne Designs Creatable "Branch" dies and Punch Bunch mini punches were used to cut and piece together the branch of cherry blossoms.

I used the "Cherry Blossom Box" die from i-crafter to create the template I needed to make 45 of these favor boxes. I used Photoplay Glimmer and Bazzill Bling cardstocks to cut the boxes and gold foil board to cut the Chinese double happiness medallion glued to the front.

Petals on the cherry blossom were edged with Stickles glitter glue and I glued tiny topaz AB gems onto the stamens. 

Boxes were filled with yummy Big Island Candies Chocolate dipped Macadamia nut Shortbread and Mika Mints and tied closed with a shimmery green organza bow.

Staggered Charm Accordion Card

My card today is a birthday card made for a very special friend. This was my first time trying a "Staggered Charm Accordion" style card; it's not a new technique but it's one I've been wanting to try for a long time!

 

I followed Karen Burniston's video tutorial on how to use her "Charm Accordion" die set to assemble this card. A little different than than the original way this die was meant to be used, Karen's tutorial explains how to  make a card with staggered windows rather than having them all in a straight line.

I added paper pieced images of Sanrio characters holding signs to read "Happy Birthday To You!" onto the inner panels in each of the  windows. Hard to tell from the photos but I also dry embossed the cardstock directly behind each character with a different design. Then I used jump rings to hang tiny cupcakes and a flower into the little open frames which connect the inner panels. I thought I was done but still felt something was lacking so I  added one last design element: a double heart die cut from Karen Burniston's "Label Charm Pop Up" die set together with a thin strip of cardstock as a border on each page.

All the panels swing and swivel into position as the card is spread open.

 

On the back side of the last panel, I added a place to add a sentiment and sign my card.

Last thing was to quickly put together a simple pocket style gift card holder decorated with my friend's favorite Pochacco and the same double heart border I used on her card.