Plum and Cherry Blossoms for Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day!  These are the cards I put together for the two very special ladies in our lives we call "mom" whom we love dearly.

This was my second take at the fun Hexagonal Pop Up Card devised by the creative mind of Jay Soriano from Mitosu Crafts. The first time I tried this, I added a handle to it to make an Easter Basket card for my granddaughter. This time I decided to stay with the original idea of using this as a kind of vase to hold the branches of plum and cherry blossoms. Jay's You Tube video tutorial for this  amazing pop up card created with Stampin' Up's Sizzix Window Box Thinlits die can be found here. For my version, I cut away about 3/4 inch off the top of the front panel of the hexagon box so I could add the "Happy Mothers Day" oval label without obstructing the view of the blossoms.

For the fan, I used the cut file from Cricut's Pagoda cartridge and ran the top gold layer through the Cuttlebug Plum Blossom embossing folder. I also added a flower shaped medallion with the kanji character for "love" to the front of the fan. Branches are from Cricut's Home Decor and Gypsy Wanderings cartridges, and both the plum and layered cherry blossoms were cut using Carl punches. The gold flower centers were cut with Punch Bunch mini punches.

I used washi paper backed with black cardstock to decorate the six panels on the box and added our Mothers Day sentiment to the backside of the fan.

Here's a view from the top which shows how the fan and flower branches are adhered inside the box. If you look inside, you'll see I also added an extra pop up box and attached it to the center panel to create a second layer of dimension. The plum blossom branches were glued on to this so they would sit in front of the fan.

And finally, here's the same card folded flat, ready to be slid into an envelope. The base for this pop up card is really easy to assemble. It can be decorated to be clean and simple or as elaborate as you choose...either way it's a "wowza" card...guaranteed to get lots of "wows" from the recipient!   We're planning to take our special moms to lunch this week and give them their cards and gifts at that time, so hopefully there won't be any issues with "how do I open this card"?