What Does the Fox Say?

"Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!"

(That's what the fox says...) 

LOL...I've had this silly song by Ylvis stuck in my mind for awhile now, and thought it would make a fun birthday card for my niece.
Seems like card crafters everywhere have been having fun putting together their own versions of this "Card in a Box"... and of course I was anxious to give it a try as well! There are a lot of tutorials out on the web for this style of card, and they're all basically the same. For my card, I followed the one by Carol at Extreme Cards and Papercrafting mostly because I thought her method of adding the struts to the inside of the box was the easiest to do.

As always, the funnest part about this card is embellishing and making it your own. The cutting file I used for these cute foxes comes from Designs On Cloud 9's "Foxy" file.

This adorable elephant is from the "Safari Animals" cutting file from Kadoodle Bug Designs and tiny butterfly was cut using the "Bunny and Butterflies" die from Cottage Cutz.

Pink birdie and trees are from Cricut Create A Critter cartridge. Word balloons and labels were created in MTC.

Here's a view from the top...

...and a view of the back of the card where I added the sentiment. Underneath the sentiment I added a little pocket where I could slip in some birthday $$$ or a gift card.

And finally, the flattened view. Just for fun, I also added word balloons of "what the fox says" to the front and side flaps to give a "hint" to what was on the inside. Had so much fun putting this "card in a box" together; and the best part is that the base card is so easy to do that you can spend a lot of time on being creative about what to put inside your box. Can't wait to try another one of these soon!

Last Minute Easter Baskets

Happy Easter! I was a little pre-occupied with other things and didn't get to do as much as I would have liked for Easter this year, but I did find just enough time to put together a few of these little baskets for friends and family. Good thing these were pretty quick to do!

I first saw these cute baskets with an easy to follow tutorial over at Whimsie Doodles. I needed my baskets to be just a bit larger so I could fit some cookies in them so I used a 7-1/2 inch square piece of cardstock instead.  I used a Martha Stewart double loops edge punch to add a little lace to the handles.

This cute little paper pieced chick comes from the Trio of  Chicks cutfile from My Scrap Chick, and the bunny with eggs was created using MTC to render an image I found on the internet. Because I was pressed for time, I ended up having my Silhouette machine cut all the pieces for the bunny, chick and eggs from plain white cardstock and used Copic pens to quickly color the pieces after cutting while still on the mat. This saved me time from having to select all the different colored cardstock and loading and reloading to cut the different pieces.

And for our sweet furbaby friends, I decorated a few gift bags to fill with Easter treats using a cute puppy and bunny ears cutfile from Treasure Box Designs...
Happily, I was able to finish eight of these baskets and doggie bags just in time for giving. Hope everyone is having an enjoyable time today spent with family and friends!

Sweet Ayako Birthday Card

Yup, it's yet another one of those sliding pop-up box cards I enjoy doing so much. This was made for my mom's birthday and  is the same basic box design from Colette's Sliding Pop Up Box card, except that I brought the sides of the box up taller and had my Silhouette Cameo cut an octagonal window on the front panels. I also added "tabs" to the side corners of the box to make it easier to "push" the card open and "pull" it flat to close.

This time I used adorable little Ayako from Sister Stamps to peek out the octagonal window. Colored her up with copics and placed her on a die cut bridge from Lala Land Crafts which I attached to the sliding element inside the box. Printed double sided cardstock for this card comes from Best Creation's Kimono line...really love that lavender wisteria background behind Ayako! Branch accent on the front was cut from a Quickutz die and tiny blossoms were cut with a die from Cheery Lynn Designs.

Here's a view of the box from the top, which gives a better perspective of the shape of the card and shows where the bridge was attached to the sliding element inside the box.

Pulling on the "tabs" on the sides flattens the card so it can be slipped into an envelope.I love the versatility of the sliding box card and as you can tell, I'm still having way too much fun playing with this style of card!