Teddy Bear Hugs for Our Valentines

Happy Valentines Day! This is the cuddly teddy bear and card that we packed into a box and mailed to our favorite Valentine this year. Like many kids her age, I'm sure our granddaughter has more plushies than she needs, but this Hallmark teddy was just too hard to resist... when you press on his foot paw, he sings "Skinnamarinki Dinky Dink" as he rocks his head side to side to the music... so ADORABLE! We decided he was the perfect bear to go with this Valentine card I made...

The inspiration for the card front layout as well as the cutting files for the paper pieced teddies come from Cuddly Cute Designs.

I used silver foil board for the wrapped candy kisses and colored one of them pink using Copic markers. Comic Sans font was used to create the title and the rounded square white panel behind the bears was run through a Cuttlebug Heart Dots embossing folder.

Hubby helped me with this short video to show the fun pop up surprise inside the card.

Voila! A pop up ball teddy bear! He's my second attempt at creating a creature using Karen Burniston's Surprise Ball Pop Up die... it's so much fun! This time I used two balls glued, one on top of the other to "build" my bear. I was totally inspired by Frances Byrne's super adorable panda pop up seen here on her blog, Stamp Owl's Studio; as well as all the incredibly talented KB fans who share their wonderful creations on Karen Burniston Pop Up Peeps Facebook page. 

I actually had to spend quite a bit of time carefully studying how everyone had put their creatures together... where on the ball should I glue the nose and eyes and ears? the arms and legs? I used enlarged paper piecings from Cuddly Cute Designs' teddy bear svg cut files for the arms, legs ears and eyes. Teddy's muzzle was a little tricky; I initially did a rough hand cut of the shapes, then scanned the pieces into my computer where I could edit them into symmetrical shapes and cut them using the Silhouette.

Teddy's string of hearts was made by doing a print and cut for the pink hearts with the words, and layering them onto the larger red hearts, then stringing onto bakers twine. Scripty "happy valentines day" greeting was die cut from a Mama Elephant die. 

Lastly, I added our Valentine message to the opposite side of the card using the print and cut function on a scalloped heart shape. This double pop up ball card was a lot of trial and error but a fun learning experience. Hmmm... so now the burning question is... will there be a pop up ball leprechuan or Easter bunny coming soon?

I gave teddy bear hugs to my "Galentines" in the form of these treat boxes for Valentines Day this year.

The svg cutting file for the teddy bears on these treat boxes comes from Cuddly Cute Designs. I created a box with a fun closure which was inspired by a Sizzix  Thinlits Folding Heart Closure Card Die Set.  The folded heart teddy is holding is what keeps this treat box closed.

As with the Sizzix card, to open the box, the right and left sides of the heart fold together to slide through a slit on teddy bear's tummy to allow the top flap of the box to open.

The heart closure is simply a heart shape folded in half and attached on the fold to the inner box flap with strong adhesive. Happy Valentines Day sentiment was done as a print and cut with LD Charming Bold font.

On the inside: pretty foil wrapped Dove chocolate hearts; the perfect little hug for any Valentine.