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.