Thanks Sew Much!

Ever had a card you spent hours creating for someone special get lost in the mail, never to be received or seen by the person you sent it to? Such is the sad tale of this card that I sent to my very crafty aunt (who loves to sew)  to thank her for some craft supplies she had shared with me. 
  

I used Whimsy Stamps "Thanks Word and Shadow" die set to cut the shadowed sentiment for the front of the card  and embellished with die cut buttons, thimble, scissors, needle and thread from Karen Burniston's "Sewing Charms" die set.

On the inside, I used the mechanism from Karen Burniston's "Twist Flower Pop Up" die to animate the teddy bear and sewing machine in the center of the card.  As the card is opened, the panel with the teddy bear and sewing machine twists to pop forward into position.

I used Marjorie Ann Designs "Franklin's Fall Quilt" svg cutting file for the paper pieced Franklin teddy bears and larger spool of thread that he's sitting on.

Shadowed sentiment was created in Make the Cut Design program and the smaller spool of thread, scissors, and sewing machine were die cut from the "Sewing Charms" die set. Large blank space on the left side of the card is where I wrote my thank you note. I had fun putting this card together, thinking my aunt would really enjoy it. Luckily I had taken photos of the card so I could show her. We're both disappointed she never received it.

Another Twist Panel Pop Up Card

This card was created for our daughter who recently celebrated her 40th birthday. Wow, now that really makes me feel old! Decorated the front of her card with a paper pieced "Patches teddy bear" from Marjorie Ann Designs. Happy Birthday sentiment was hot foiled and die cut using Simon Hurley's "Birthday Bash Sentiments" from Spellbinders.
 

The flowers and leaves used on the front and inside of this card were cut from three of my favorite Spellbinders floral dies: "Mini Blooms and Sprigs", "Club Blooms" , and "Be Bold Blooms". Marianne Designs Collectables "Birthday Cake" and "Twine Circle" dies were used for the cake and lacy doily frame. The four candles (one for each decade!) were cut from Karen Burniston "Big Birthday Charms" die.

On the inside, I added the pop up mechanism from Karen Burniston "Little Twist Panel Pop Up" and covered it completely with flowers and leaves die cut using the Spellbinders floral dies.

As this card is opened, the folded bouquet of flowers inside pops forward, twists, and fans open. Always so much fun watching all the movement! Cutting file for the shadowed "Celebrate" sentiment was created using Benson font and cut from gold glitter cardstock.  A very old Memory Box "Butterfly Delights" die was used to cut the very tiny butterflies scattered throughout.

This style of pop up card always takes a bit of extra time to assemble but it's always well worth the effort. 

Lego Building Fun

When I saw Lego themed pop up cards being created and shared by crafters on "Karen Burniston's Pop Up Peeps" Facebook page, I immediately knew I wanted to make one too. Our son-in-law really enjoys collecting and building with Lego so I figured he'd get a kick out of a Lego themed card for his birthday.
 

Found lots of crafty inspiration for the design for the front of my Lego card online. It all seemed easy enough,  just square and rectangle shapes filled with circles, right? I thought it would also be fun to add some realistic dimension by stacking and gluing two circle shapes for each of the Lego pegs. However, I admit it became less fun once I realized how many circles needed to be cut, and how long it would take me to glue all those circles together!

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's "House of Cards Pop Up" die to put together this huge pop up made to resemble a stack of Lego blocks.

Each of the blocks are made up of 4 panels notched together. The completed blocks are then attached as layers by inserting the tabs on the bottom of each block into the holes on top of the blocks below it. I admit I had to watch Karen Burniston's assembly video tutorial for this pop up set quite a few times before I finally got it right. In the end, I think all the added weight from the double layers of  circles which I had glued onto each side of the cubes may have been the reason I ran into assembly issues. 

At first my stack of blocks kept falling apart, so I heeded Karen's advice, reinforcing the connection points between the layers and that seems to have done the trick, making a much sturdier stack of bricks.  The finished card ended up being quite bulky and required 6 neodymium magnets to keep it closed.

The House of Cards Pop Up die definitely makes a fun,"wow-factor" card which can be assembled and stacked in many different configurations with as many layers as you like. Others have even built pop up castles inside their cards using this die set!

In keeping with the Lego theme, I made a Lego pop up drawer gift card holder to go with the card.

I decorated a slider drawer type box to match the front of my card, and the pop up cubes inside were also covered with rectangle and triangle shapes made to look like Lego blocks. These rubber band activated pop up cubes make giving gift cards so much fun.

"Gal-entines" Goodies

Apologies for being a little late with this post, but couldn't go on without sharing the goodies I received from two sweet crafty buddies.

This 3D ferris wheel treat box created by my dear friend Lorna once again attests to her amazing paper engineering prowess. The ferris wheel really rotates, and its seats (with Hello Kitty and friends sitting in them) really rock back and forth too!

Lorna also shared even more sweets in these adorable treat holders too. On the left is a paper pieced word "Love" with gummy bears and a Lindt truffle peeking thru the letter "o"; and on the right is a  kawaii paper pieced kimono girl holding a heart shaped origami pocket filled with treats...so clever!

My crafty friend Kris made this super fun personalized gatefold hinged valentine box.

As the front flaps of this box are opened, the heart shaped tray filled with treats rises up from inside! Lengths of ribbon attached to the flaps and strung inside the box act as a pulley like mechanism which lifts the tray up. The pop up movement of this is totally amazing! If you'd like to try making one similar to this, you can find the template designed by Nicoles Papercrafts here.

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope these creative projects shared by my friends inspire you as much as they do for me.

Valentine Pop Up Card Box

Happy Valentine's Day! I made Cupid Hello Kitty themed cookie boxes to share with my "gal-entines" this  year.
 

I found a few cute Cupid Hello Kitty images in my library of Hello Kitty coloring books and converted them into cutting files to piece together for my hinged lid boxes.  I used Hello Kitty peeking from behind a cloud for the box front and used a Happy Valentines Day sentiment die from Mama Elephant for the greeting.

Opening the box reveals a pop up scene on the lid inside. 

Amazed by the many beautiful and unique pop up packaging designs I've been seeing on Pinterest created to hold expensive Asian cookies and teas, I knew I wanted to give this style of box a try. Of course, my simple two tier pop up can't be compared to the intricate boxes that inspired me, but it was fun trying to figure out how to make one.

I started by using a svg cutting file template for a rectangular hinged lid box with reinforced sides from "Stick and Crop". 

After enlarging and altering the original template to create a box 5.25" x 4.5" x 1.5", I created and glued an insert with a depth of 1 inch to the inside of the box to be the platform for the pop up.  Hello Kitty and clouds were then popped up with strips of cardstock glued in as cubes.

Boxes were filled with  homemade shortbread cookies for special friends.  This was a fun box to learn to make. Thinking that next time I may want to try this style of box again, but maybe with a different type of pop up mechanism inside.

Ssss-sensational Year of the Ssss-snake Crafty Goodies

Today I want to share some of the fun and crafty goodies I received from my creative friends to celebrate the New Year.

Every year my mom makes plastic canvas refrigerator magnets to celebrate the lunar animal of the year and shares them with family at our New Year family reunion lunch. This year she had a difficult time finding a plastic canvas pattern for a snake that could be sized down for a refrigerator magnet, so  instead she converted a cross stitch pattern I found online into one she could use for plastic canvas. I especially liked how she added a fancy frame and gold cording to accent the snake.

My sweet friend Lorna put together a ssss-super kawaii daruma snake paper piecing to embellish a wrapper for a treat package of ramen. She also created cute gift tags using a print and cut image of a Japanese ceramic snake bell with a gold metallic shadow layer.

My dear friend Bev created this show stopping pop up Year of the Snake Chinese New Year card. As always, her interactive cards have the "wow factor" and are amazing.  If you'd like to try to recreate this fun card, the video tutorial by Peter Dahmen Papierdesign  can be found here on You Tube.

This adorable miniature hanging paper lantern and paper pieced Pochacco treat box were put together by my super talented friend Kris. The tiny paper lantern is very cute, embellished with shimmery gold blossoms and tassel. It's just large enough to hold a tea light and so pretty with the light shining through its vellum panels. The tutorial and free svg cutfile for the lantern can be found at Craft with Sarah website.  I think Pochacco looks just too irresistible dressed in his Mandarin jacket,  holding a string of firecrackers to celebrate the New Year!

I'm very fortunate to have a circle of creative friends who always generously share their handmade treasures with me. Looking forward to another fun year of crafty inspiration from them!

Year of the Snake Calendars

Here's our annual Lunar Calendar/Thank You Card/New Years Card for 2025 that we sent out to family and friends. This year I decided to try something a little different than the usual top or side fold card and instead, made a card with a pocket to slide the decorated calendar magnet into.

I used gold metallic foil board for the base of the card and red pearlescent text weight paper to create the pocket over it. To give the pocket a festive look, I hot foiled gold fireworks onto the red papers using the Spellbinders Glimmer System prior to trimming. An Elizabeth Craft Designs word die was used to cut the "Happy New Year" from gold foil board, and I used Make the Cut Design program to create a shadow layer for it.

My 2025 Year of the Snake calendar design was inspired by the work of several talented graphic artists like Atlantico54 and Baby Sofja.  Cutting file for the snake was created and numbers for the year were traced from Christie font using Make the Cut Design program. Pink blossoms and stamens were cut using Punch Bunch mini punches. Although the design for this year's calendar was simple to piece together, the multiple shadows and layers took a bit of time to cut and assemble. Thankfully, my dear friend Pat came to my rescue to help get nearly 60 of these calendar magnets completed.

One of the problems I ran into making these calendars this year was that my usual supplier for the mini tear off calendars, Impress Rubber Stamps closed their business in 2024. After spending much time searching for an alternate, I purchased mini calendars from Paper Accents because theirs were closest in size to what I had used in the past. They were reasonably priced and came in a package of ten. Unfortunately, all ten calendars came bound together as one pad, and I had a difficult time separating the calendars without pages falling off. I ended up having to glue individual pages back onto several of the calendars, and it's questionable whether those pages will tear off nicely. Definitely will need to start searching for another supplier for my 2026 calendars early this year.

Not a very good photo but  since it was the only one I had of all of us together, I used this selfie group photo taken while our daughter and her family  were visiting to create the back panel to the pocket card.