"Love-You-A-Latte" Fathers Day Cards

These are the cards my dad and hubby got this year for Fathers Day. What is it about making Fathers Day cards...or any guy type cards for that matter...that gives me such a rash? I started out with all sorts of ideas in my head of what I wanted my card to look like, but when it came time to put them all together, I had the darndest time getting everything to work together. Finally settled on what you see here...

For the base of my card, I decided I wanted to try the Free Standing Pop Up Card with two sliding elements like the one posted recently by my talented and creative blogging pal, Patti of Creations by Patti. The tutorial for this card with one slider can be found at Splitcoast Stampers, and Patti shares the template and instructions for the two slider on her blog. Because of the weight of the background piece on my card, I had to move slits for both sliders slightly off center to assure that the base would remain balanced without tipping. The photo above shows the base of the card with the center supporting piece of the original design, with two additional supporting pieces about an inch away on both sides of it for the sliding background and dog.

The little doggie is a new cutfile I created of our (much loved by dad and hubby) Maltese, Latte. Inspired by the wonderful and whimsical illustrations and art of (c) Kim Niles of KiniArt.com. I tried to draw our little Latte and used MTC to render her into a cutfile.

Flags for the banner were also created in MTC, strung onto embroidery floss and tied to the background card. Subway art was done using the headline function and various fonts in Printshop. Trophy is from a Thin Cuts die and a Martha Stewart edge punch was used for the grass borders.

Here's how the background card folds up and slides into the base together with the doggie to allow the card to fold flat. Interesting to note that neither dad or hubby could figure out how to "open" their cards. Not such a good design choice for a guy card, I guess!

Before I go, I want to share another surprise we received at work from our sweet friend Lorna...a Fathers Day treat! Lorna used the candy bar pull idea and decorated it with a stamped and paper pieced guy in an origami fold aloha shirt...adorable!

 Hope everyone is having an enjoyable time today spending time with dad and letting him know how special he is!