A Doggone Special Birthday

Here's the birthday card I came up with for my favorite crafting buddy, Kris. Wanted to start putting to use some of those cute Cottage Cutz dies I've been collecting for awhile now... Decided I would use this cute Party Pupppy and try her on another sliding pop up card.

Cottage Cutz has some of the most adorable die cuts, but sometimes seeing all the tiny pieces that have to be pieced together is a bit intimidating, at least for me. All that chalking, piecing and layering does take some time, but I must admit the results are quite rewarding!

Pulling on the tab on the bottom of the card pulls the background up to be perpendicular to the front of the card and reveals the message.
Tiered birthday cake and stand are from the Celebrations cartridge. Happy Birthday label is from the Home Aceents cartridge.Nestabilities Labels One and Labels One Small were used for the backdrop. Smaller top label was embossed with a Cuttlebug Floral Fantasy folder. Added rhinestones and a heart shaped dewdrop to puppy's collar, and stickles and flat back pearls to the cake for some bling. Balloons were tied down with a few strands of embroidery floss. 

Here's a sideview to get a better perspective of the pop-up.
Now for those who didn't know, I always show my cards to dh for final approval before they get sent out. Since a lot of the cards I make are interactive type cards, this is my way of making sure any pop-ups or moving parts are in working order and that any non-crafting recipient would be able to easily figure out how to open the cards (ie, pull on this tab, open this flap first, etc)

For this sliding pop up card, dh immediately knew to pull on the tab at the bottom, but he kept pulling until the card was completely flat, then giving me a puzzled look,"Uh, something's wrong with this!" When I showed him that he needed to stop pulling once the card was in it's standing position, his advice was "That's no good. Ya gotta put something there so people know when to stop pulling!"
Ok, so here's what we did to remedy to problem....

After sliding the card open to its ideal standing position, I adhered a small square of foam tape to the back to act as a stop, and that seemed to fix the problem to dh's satisfaction.
If the front of your card is heavy with layering and embellishments, the easel back may not be strong enough to keep it in it's standing position and this might be a solution you might want to try too.