On Track for a Fabulous Birthday

Last year when my daughter and son in law took hubby and I to Disney's California Adventure Park to celebrate our birthdays, I found out that my son in law is a huge fan of the movie Cars. So when it was time to make his birthday card this year, I knew it had to be with a Cars theme. Had so much fun learning to make the Z-fold Pop Up card for hubby's birthday last month that I wanted to give it another try.

Here's what the  z-fold card looks like when it's opened.

A view from the top shows where struts were added inside the z-fold similar to the struts in a pop up box style card.

Here's paper pieced Lightning Mcqueen...

...and my son in law's favorite Mater.

Unfortunately I don't own the Cricut Cars cartridge, but happily, I found svg cutting files for the Disney Cars characters for sale on Etsy. The cutting files I purchased came from seller Clipartoon. The Disney Cars bundle included 30 cutting files for about $7, which I thought was a bargain considering the many many hours it would have taken me to make my own cutting files. From now on, I'll definitely have to remember to include Etsy in my searches for cutting files! 

To complete the scene of Radiator Springs' Ornament Valley, cutting files for the Cadillac Mountain range and the hood ornament rock formation were created in Make the Cut using some of my free hand drawings. The cactus is a cutting file from Miss Kate's Cuttables. Had tons of fun putting this card together, tho once again it took me quite a while to figure out how to put together the whole "scene". Looking forward to trying this card style again, and hopefully it will start to get easier each time.