Pompompurin and Friends Birthday

Do you know Pompompurin? He's a chubby yellow golden retriever pup from Sanrio who wears a trademark brown beret. He's supposed to look like Japanese pudding ("Purin") or Flan. See how his brown beret resembles the caramel topping on flan? So cute! I wasn't too familiar with him at first. but when my dear friend Pat mentioned that he was one of her Sanrio faves, I began searching for images of him to use on her birthday card.

Discovered that Pompompurin has many kawaii friends too! Here's Macaron the Poodle, Muffin the Hamster, Bagel the Squirrel, and Whip the Penguin joining the birthday celebration.

And here's Scone the Rat and Powder the rabbit... don't you love that all his friends are named after bakery items and ingredients? Had Make the Cut design program render Pompompurin and all his friends into cutting files from images found on the web and put them together on a Free Standing Pop Up style card. Tutorial for this type of card by Mary Jo Albright can be found at Splitcoast Stampers.
"Happy Birthday" was cut using an Elizabeth Craft die.

Neatest part about the Free Standing Pop Up card is how it  folds and slides into it's base to become flat enough tp fit into an envelope. It took me awhile to create the cutting files for Pompompurin and all his little friends, but in the end I was pretty happy with how this card turned out.
                                                                                                                                                               

I also wanted to include a gift card with Pat's card so I created this shaped card with a pocket using the Print and Cut feature in Make the Cut. The image I used is the logo from the Pompompurin Cafe in Japan. Can you imagine? Pompompurin has his own cafe where they serve the cutest pastries and desserts you've ever seen, all decorated to look like him and his friends! I definitely must make it a point to go there on my next trip to Japan!