Sweet Sixteen

My niece turned Sweet 16 this year, and for her card I finally tried my very first waterfall type card. I know these type of cards have been around for a long time, but the thought of all the pieces to cut and assemble always kept me away. As it turned out, it really wasn't too difficult to put together at all and actually, it was kinda fun, especially with all the cute critters to choose from in the Create A Critter cartridge! For my card, I used a tutorial by my super talented & creative friend, Jen Young which you can find posted on her blog, Pieces of Me.

I changed the size of the card and panels to be a little larger (3"x3") than the original just so I'd have an easier time cutting and assembling my critters. I also cut the first top panel longer than the rest so it would completely hide all the panels underneath and allow me space to add a sentiment to the front of the card.

Then by increasing the length of the sliding strip to 12"and adding an extra scoreline at 5", I was able to add an additional panel to my card.

With the additional and larger panels, the overall size of the card turned out to be 7" tall and 4-1/4" wide. To avoid having to increase the width of the card by too much, I decided to staple the holding strip onto my card instead of using brads. Then to conceal the staples, I glued on a piece of patterned paper the same size onto the holding strip.
All critter images (bear, owl, poodle, & cupcake) are from the Create A Critter cartridge. "16" was cut using the Sizzix Fun Serif number dies, and die cut alphas are Quickutz Mini Maggie. Square & scalloped square are Nestabilities, and the font for the sentiment is LD Miss Rose.
Had fun playing around with this and altering the original waterfall card. Recently, I saw another where the panels were ovals instead of squares! Gonna have to give that one a try too!

Create A Critter for Boys Day

Just recently got my Create A Critter cartridge and am lovin' it the the max! So many cutesy animals and bugs all in one cartridge. Hoping Provocraft continues to come out with more like this!
My first card with this cart was a Boys Day card created for my dd's bf. The inspiration for this card came from Jin Yong's "Sunny Days - Panda Family" card which she created and posted on her blog, Under A Cherry Tree. You'll find her cute card posted on her April 26th post. If you haven't discovered this blog yet, you must hop on over and see all her sweet and darling creations! I used the same Panda cut and changed him up just a little by bringing one of his arms up so he could hold on to his red carp kite.


The carp cut comes from another new favorite cartridge, Pagoda. I cut away part of the front of the card for the grassy background and mounted my panda (popped up with foam tape) onto it to create sort of a semi shaped card.

Super duper easy, but so cute!

For Our Special Moms

This was the card I made for our moms for Mothers Day this year. The original idea and inspiration for this came from a Hallmark Valentines Day card I purchased earlier this year. I really liked the pop up on it and decided to give it a try on Design Studio...

The original Hallmark card had a dog with outstretched arms in the center of the pop out "O", but I decided to try and keep it simple and used a heart shape instead. The base card and pop up insert were created using the George cartridge, and Opposites Attract for the alphas. What I really like about this card is that it could be quite versatile, and probably easily changed up to be a "thank YOU" or "happy birthday to YOU" card.

The roses, layered and popped with foam dots are from the Indie Arts cart. Patterned papers are from Lasting Impressions (front of card) and DCWV (inside of card).

Then for a sweet treat for the grandmas and aunties, I decided to do some chocolated dipped strawberries. Quick and easy, but so yummy!

And here's the bag the strawberries went in. Made these on a whim, very last minute so they had to be really simple. Mothers Day sentiment is from the Calligraphy Collection cartridge and strawberry from Hello Kitty Greetings.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable day celebrating and remembering how special our moms are!