Pet Sitter Thank You

 Here's a super quick and easy window card I recently put together to thank our dog sitter for caring for our furbaby while hubby and I were away on vacation.

All layers for this oval window card were cut on the Silhouette Cameo. I used Lala Land's Filigree Corner die for the fancy corners, and cutting file for the little paper pieced puppy, crown and pillow were created in Make the Cut Design Program. Sentiments were added to panels using Scrap Casual font and print and cut function.

On the inside I added a castle in the background... so fitting for a spoiled doggie, wouldn't you say? And so true that, because her sitters always give her so much lovin' and care that we sometimes worry that she might not want to come home!

Long Life Lever Birthday Card

I finally pulled out my stash of Graphic 45's retired Bird Song Collection papers that I had been hoarding and decided to use it to make my mother in law's birthday card this year.  I chose to use the auspicious dragon laden "Joy Luck" cardstock for the front of the card.

Inspired by the many beautiful Lever style cards created and shared by Karen Aicken of Painted Mountain Cards blog, I decided to try making my very first Lever Card. This style of card has been around for quite awhile, and honestly, I don't know why I never attempted to make one before. I decided to make one with a circular window so I could use the Spellbinders Chinese Coin Window die cut in metallic gold cardstock. In the window I added the Chinese character "shou"  for "long life". Make the Cut Design program was used to render an image of the Chinese character into a cutting file, which was also cut in metallic gold cardstock.

The Lever Card opens up to be a four panel card. I used "Longevity" and "Endless Spring" cardstocks for the inner panels and embellished with paper pieced images of a pair of  peaches and a crane, both of which are also associated with longevity and good fortune in Chinese culture.

Here's a view from the top to show how the Lever Card is constructed. It reminds me a lot of the Swing Cards I've made in the past, but maybe a little fancier?  Divinity Designs has a die which cuts all the pieces needed make a square window Lever Card, complete with all the panel insert layers. Norma from From My Craft Room blog shares a template for one with a square window posted here.  For my card, I used Norma's template and swapped out the square window with a circular shape in Make the Cut.

Baker's Birthday

I wanted to create a baking themed birthday card for my very dear friend who works at a bakery and often shares her delicious specialty breads and cookies with us at our monthly crafting club meetings.

Found several very cute baking/cooking themed digital cutting files over at Marjorie Ann Designs, and couldn't resist picking up a few! For this card I took elements from three different Marjorie Ann Designs cutting files: "Betsy Loves Baking", "Payton Pumpkin Spice", and "Baking Boys".

I used Karen Burniston's Katherine Label Pop Up Die for the fun but simple pop up mechanism on this card. Hard to tell from this photo, but as the card is opened, the panel with the baker bear on it pops forward and rises.

I especially enjoyed putting together this fun border of paper pieced breads cut using the Marjorie Ann Designs"Baking Boys" file. All the pieces were cut from white cardstock and colored with Copics. Doesn't it look yummy?