New Home Pop Up Card

 Our daughter and son in law moved into a new "forever home" in December, and although I was little late, I finally put a card together and sent it off to their new address.

As you may have already guessed, the mailbox on the front of the card was inspired by the Disney movie, "Up". I actually created a similar "Up" inspired mailbox for their housewarming card several years ago when they bought their first home. This time around, I enlarged the mailbox to be the focal point of the card front and added the dog paw and toddler handprint (additional family members!).

On the inside, I added this fun pop up house, which was inspired by a fabulous light up, snowy house Christmas card created by my dear friend Bev a few years ago. The tutorial and template to recreate Bev's amazing light up pop up card can be found here. I also discovered and learned a lot from a video tutorial by Duncan Birmingham, Tutorial 31 Pop Up House. If you are interested in pop ups as much as I am, he is on You Tube as "The Pop Up Channel" with video tutorials for many, many different kinds of pop ups. I really like that he takes the time to fully explain the mechanisms, how to construct them and how they work.

Through Duncan Birmingham's tutorial, I learned I could add things on to the pop up rectangle house structure as long as I stayed in the same line or parallel to that line. So on that premise I added the white picket fence and a pop up box on the backside of the house to attach the rainbow; and happily it worked! The one thing I just couldn't get quite right was the placement of the roof, which is not quite on correctly, but I after several tries at adjusting it, I gave up.

For the fence, windows and door, I used the same cutting files I originally created in Cricut Design Studio for the first housewarming card for my daughter back in 2012. I just downsized everything to fit this house. Cutting file for the tree is from Doodlebug's "Trees-Kitten Smitten" and rainbow is "Cute Rainbow" from Miss Kates Cuttables.  Flowers and leaves for the flowerboxes were punched using mini punches from Punch Bunch.

It took a lot of practice tries and experimenting, but I guess was pretty happy with how this pop up house card finally turned out, despite the issues with the placement of the roof.  However, I know I probably won't be attempting another pop up house like this anytime soon. The funniest thing is that just as I was getting ready to publish this post, I found out yesterday that Karen Burniston released 12 new die sets this month which includes dies to make a pop up house similar to this one. Darned.... if only I had waited a little longer before attempting to make this card! Now I might have to buy that die and eat my words about what I just wrote about not making anymore cards like this soon...!

So Lucky To Be Your Friend

When Mama Elephant released their "Lucky Cat" stamp set last year, I tried very hard to resist buying it. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) it didn't take long before my will power caved in because you know; I REALLY NEEDED to have it to make this card... lol!

 

I think what I like most about Mama Elephant stamp images is how I can get away with creating a pretty cute card with a minimal amount of coloring. For this card, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the rounded square windows for the front, adding the sentiment using the Print and Cut function. The colored background behind the windows was created by brushing and blending Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks with foundation brushes.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's Cake Pop Up die set once again to add a little pop up "stage" where my lucky cats could hang out and celebrate. Did I mention that I'm having too much fun with this die? "Happy Birthday" sentiment was cut from glitter cardstock using "Happy Birthday Words" die from Hello Bluebird.

I added three clear acetate struts; front, center and back so I could stagger the cats and sentiment placement on the hexagon base.

Wanted to include a gift card with this birthday card so I added a pocket cut using a "Pocket Border" die from Pretty Pink Posh to the backside of the card.   

For An Egg-stra Special Granddaughter

 This is the Easter card I made to send to our granddaughter this year. She's old enough now where she enjoys pop ups and interactive cards so it's fun trying to come up with new ideas to surprise her.
 

For the paper pieced bunnies on my card, I used an older svg cutting file, "EGGstra Special" (now retired) purchased from Kadoodle Bug Designs a few years ago. I kept the front of the card simple, layering cardstock for the background and running the blue cardstock thru Stampin' Up's "Cloudy Day" embossing folder for the sky.

On the inside, I added one of my favorite, the Pop Up Accordion Panel, or aka Twist Panel Pop Up.

Just for fun I used egg and flower shaped panels in place of the rectangular panels typically seen with this style of pop up. Sentiments for the inside and front of the card were computer generated, using Bryce ttf.

Side view here shows the pivot mechanism which holds the accordion folded panels and creates the fun twist and pop up action of this style of card. 

There are many video tutorials for this type of card on YouTube if you do a search for "Twist Panel Pop Up Card". I usually like to watch several different ones since everyone has different helpful tips and tricks to make the assembly of this card go smoothly. 

Easter Egg Houses and Other Springtime Treats

While looking for ideas for making a cute box to share my pizzelles in this Easter, I came across an adorable "3D House Easter Egg" which was part of a collection of little paper houses for home decor at the Lori Whitlock Shop.

I purchased the Lori Whitlock cutting file for this, but since the original file was not designed to be used as a gift box, it wasn't quite deep enough to hold cookies. On checking some older files I picked up in the past, I found an egg shaped box in the perfect size designed by SVG Cuts as part of the "Bunny Hop Kit".

I altered the original file from SVG Cuts just a bit by creating a flat bottom for my box so it could stand upright on its own. 

I used the window, door and tree and grass embellishments from Lori Whitlock's "3D House Easter Egg", enlarging them to fit onto my box. Paper pieced bunny was created from an image found on Pinterest.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was pretty simple to assemble these boxes. Cutting all the small embellishment pieces for the front of the box that took some time, but I was able to complete and fill 15 of these in time for sharing with friends and family.

As a final touch, each egg box was put into a cello bag and tied with a tulle bow.

I was the lucky recipient of these two super cute Easter treat boxes created by two of my very special and creative friends, Kris and Lorna that I'm excited to share...

This "fence box" with an adorable bunny and her eggs was put together by Kris. I love the pretty pastel colors she used, and especially like that this treat box is large enough to hold Kris' yummy home baked cookies as well as two Easter eggs filled with treats. Designed by Daniela Moscone, the svg cutting file for this can be found over at the Silhouette Design Store.

Isn't this the cutest little lamb basket ever? Lorna created the cutting file for her sweet paper pieced lamb from clipart ,adding a fun fluffy wooly texture by running pieces through Cuttlebug's D'vine Swirl embossing folder. I love that lambie's paper punched pretty crown of blossoms is just the perfect touch of spring! Best wishes to all for a joyful Easter Sunday!