Happy Fathers Day, with a Wow!

Fathers Day cards...more guy cards and yet another challenge. Fathers Day cards, and for that matter all cards for my dad and dh are especially challenging because I know they have big expectations. For my cards to dh, who sponsors most of my high ticket crafting "toys", and my dad, who is extremely artistic and crafty himself, I always try to push for the "wow factor". Ya know, if they don't say "wow!" when they open my card, it just ain't worth it!

After much deliberating, I decided to go with this pop-up ball card. First saw this ball a while back while browsing through miscellaneous paper engineering books at Borders. My first thought was, "okay, cool...but what the heck would I use it for?" Sizzix came out with their version of this hexagonal ball earlier this year, and I found a pattern created and posted by Jenny Red, which she calls "the jumping box". But it wasn't until I stumbled across Karen Burnisten's blog that I thought "okay, maybe I might want to try this... Karen is the designer of the Sizzix version of this ball and has posted some wonderful projects created with this. Be sure you take a look-see at the transparency version...totally, totally awesome! Later, Cricut Messageboard member Laurinda created a cutfile for the two piece version similar to Jenny's in two sizes on Design Studio. Incredible! Cuts with a whole lot of specific angles make me crazy, it would have taken me forever to create this. Thank you for sharing this Laurinda, you are amazing! The beauty of this two piece version is that it's pretty easy to assemble. Laurinda used George, Accent Essentials and Pooh Font files to design her cutfile. Since of the three, I only own George, I had to change the file a little so I could get a cut.

I used a brad in the bottom panel of the ball to attach it to the card This way the ball is very securely attached with no worries that it might pop off the card due to faulty gluing, and it allows the ball to rotate...very cool!

The card above with the Asian undertones was created for my dad, and for dh, I did a version with his favorite golf theme.

For the card base, I used Karen Burnisten's idea of using a petal fold type card. It's a good way of keeping the ball flat inside until it's opened, plus it's super neat how all four sides of the card pop open to reveal the ball. Karen created and shares the template for this petal card on her blog. For my card, I added a 1/4" spine to all four sides so that the ball would not be completely flat inside the closed cards. I decided to do this because I wanted to be completely sure the ball would pop up the instant the card was opened. I then added a belly band to keep the card in this closed position.

The golf bag on the belly band of dh's card is a digital image from a Darcie Hunter clipart CD colored with copics. On the inside, to make it look more like a golf ball, I embossed glossy photo paper with the Cuttlebug bubbles embossing folder to embellish the top and bottom panels of the ball. The golf club is a cutfile I created using George.

Quickutz Skinni Mini Rollerskate die was used to cut the "love you" sentiment on the top of the balls. "Dad" on the bellyband of my dad's card is Cricut Stone Script welded in DS. Printed cardstock for both cards are DCWV, which I found to be nicely thick and sturdy enough for this project.

Dh got his card before he went out to the golf course this morning . "WOW! That's the neatest card you've made so far!" (smile) Grandpa will get his card tonite at dinner...hope he likes it too! These "wow factor" type of cards do take a quite a bit more time and effort but it's all worth it, right? Afterall, these two are the most important guys in my life, and I want to let them know how special they are.