A Kokeshi Box Card for a Special Friend

Here's a birthday card I put together for my bestest blogging pal, Patti of Creations By Patti blog. It's another box style card, but with windows on all four panels; I believe it's called a "Go Round Card". This is only the second time I've attempted this type of card (first one was for my daughter's birthday last year). And since I have yet to find a tutorial for this card, making this continues to be a "big experiment" for me.
For Patti's card, I knew I had to go with her favorite Asian theme. I was inspired by shoji screen type table lamps like these...

...and decided I would use the delightful kokeshi dolls from the books by Annelore Parot to adorn her card.

Here's a view of the first two panels:

And the next two panels:

The box panels with windows were created in MTC by joining and welding rectangles, ovals and fancy label shapes together. MTC also rendered the kokeshi and panda images into cutting files which were cut using a Silhouette Cameo.

Here's Michiko and Emi....

...Yumi and Aoki....

...and of course little panda.

I used a Quickutz die to cut the branches and sakura blossoms are cut from Punch Bunch and Carl punches. A 1/16-inch EK circle punch was used for the flower centers. Kokeshi faces were cut from white cardstock and colored with Copics; and kimonos were cut from digitized washi paper.

Here's a peek at the bottom of the box which shows how the struts that hold each kokeshi doll in place are adhered to the inside of the box. As you can see, the construction is very similar to the struts inside the very popular "Card In A Box" type card except the struts on this card run parallel to the four sides and are adhered to each other as well as to the inside of the box.

And finally, here's the card flattened, which needed a box type envelope about a half inch in depth to fit in. I have to admit it took me quite awhile to finish this card. Though it was quite challenging and fun, I don't think I'll have the time or patience to do this card too often. I guess you could say this was a one of a kind card for my one of a kind very, very special friend!