Hello Kitty Eye Chart Card

 I made this card for a special young lady in our family who will be leaving home in a few weeks to attend Optometry School in Arizona. To create the custom eye chart for my card, I used the free eye chart maker app available online at the Homemade Gifts Made Easy website. So easy... all you need to do is type in the text you want on your eye chart, select a font and it's ready to download and print in a matter of seconds.

The soon to be Optometry student is my cousin's daughter, who happens to be a big fan of Hello Kitty, so of course I had to add a "geeky" Hello Kitty to her card. I also found some Bo Bunny Ruled Journal Paper cardstock in my stash which I thought would be perfect backdrop for this "back to school" card.

Decided to make this into a fun Surprise Pop Up Slider style card... pulling up on the tulle bow on the top of the card makes the front panel pull up like an easel, revealing our sentiment underneath.

I also adhered a clear envelope with a monetary gift onto the pull tab as an added surprise. The video tutorial for putting together a Surprise Pop Up Slider style card by Splitcoast Stampers' Beate Johns can be viewed on You Tube, here. 

I always enjoy making the Surprise Pop Up Slider card, especially whenever I want to enclose a gift card or monetary gift with a fun interactive card. 

Kokeshi Double Slider Card

I recently discovered that Lili of the Valley, an online stamp shop from UK, also has an Etsy Shop by the same name where they sell their line of digital stamps. I've always known Lili of the Valley to have some of the cutest stamp images so I was excited to be able to purchase them in digital format. I noticed they had some adorable Asian inspired stamps, and  picked up their Kokeshi Doll Set  knowing it would be perfect to use on a double slider birthday card I had in mind for a sweet friend.

Still photos never seem to do slider style cards justice, so hubby agreed to help me capture some of the sllider fun of this card on video.

Pull out on the tab on the bottom right side of the card and the two kokeshi girl images slide from behind the sakura border and towards each other to meet in the center! To create this fun interactive slider, I followed MFT's very talented Karolyn Loncon's video tutorial for a double slider card found here. Karolyn uses MFT Die-namics dies to make it easier to create the mechanism to make this slider card work but you could also cut the slider pieces and create the slots with an x-acto blade.

Kokeshi girl digital images were printed onto white cardstock and colored with Copic markers. The sakura images that came with the set were rendered into a cutting file in Make the Cut, cut from pearlescent and glitter cardstock, then paper pieced to be a border. The blue wave background panel is from a digital paper set designed by Gradient Fox also on Etsy. I used Memo and Ballerina true type fonts for the sentiments and cut the front and back panels and the sentiment using the Print and Cut function.

I enjoyed putting this card together and was especially pleased that I was able to assemble and have the double slider mechanism working smoothly fairly easily. Looking forward to trying another double slider card like this one soon!

Christmas Shaker Tags in July

I admit I've never been much of a fan of  the concept of "Christmas in July". I suppose getting an early start on holiday projects is always a good idea, but I'm never ready for it and the thought of already being late for the holidays in July gives me anxiety! 

But last week while tidying my craftroom, I came across this very old Penny Black rubber stamp purchased many years ago but never used... and thought to myself, "Okay, why not? Let's give it a go!"

    

I started by coloring my stamped image with Copic markers, then scanning it and using the print and cut feature in Make the Cut design program to fussy cut a dozen images. Cutting file for the shaker tag front was created by adding a rectangular shape into a simple tag shape. Back panel was also done as a print and cut using Invitation true type font.

I used clear acetate for my shaker window and adhered the stamped image to the front.  I applied 1/4 inch wide foam tape on the inside around the window and lightly wiped the acetate with a Bounce dryer sheet before adding my chunky glitter and sequins. Sounds crazy but that really helped to control the issue of static cling...uncontrollable glitter and sequins everywhere that I dislike most about making shaker tags. I also found that I could keep the glitter and sequins from sticking to my fingers and tweezers by wiping them with the dryer sheet too.

Now that I've finished my first set of a dozen Christmas tags, it feels so good! I guess Christmas in July can be a good thing afterall.