May Your Birthday BB-"(gr)8" !

Here's the Star Wars themed birthday card featuring the droid BB-8 that I created for two of my favorite Star Wars "fan-atics", my hubby and son in law. 

I came across an image of  a very cool card created by illustrator Josh Lewis showing Star Wars Droid BB-8 lighting a candle on a birthday cake and knew right away I wanted to create something similar using paper piecing. 

To create the cutfile, I started with a simple coloring book image of BB-8 and drew in the arm extension and flame. Make the Cut design program was then used to render this doctored image into a  cutting file. At first I thought this would be a simple cutfile to create but later realized making multiple layers for the 5 colors of BB-8 was a little mind boggling. But I stuck with it and got it done! I used a cut file from Marjorie Ann Designs' "Betsy Loves Baking" set for the birthday cake.

I thought it would be fun to showcase BB-8 using a Hexagon Pop Up style card. Here are a couple views from the top and side. As you can see, the paper pieced BB-8 droid and birthday cake were attached to struts on the front half of the hexagonal "stage".

I used a round panel which I ran through Sizzix Stars and Swirls embossing folder for texture as the center backdrop."Happy Birthday" was cut from glitter and metallic cardstocks using dies from Hello Bluebird and Whimsy Stamps.

The template for the stand alone Hexagon Pop Up card is one I created a few years ago inspired by Hallmark Cards'  amazing Paper Wonder collection.

I was hoping to find ideas for a really good "punny" sentiment to add to the back of this card, but sadly, this one was the best I could find... "May Your Birthday BB (gr)8". I simply added it to a backdrop image I found online of droids BB-8 and R2D2 together and printed it out. Shadowed and glittered stars were cut on the Silhouette and added to the struts on the back side  of the hexagon platform.

Without a doubt, the best part about these Hexagonal Pop Up cards are how they fold flat to fit very nicely into an envelope. I like how there's even room on the very bottom of the card to add a personal message when the card is in its folded position.

After spending way "too much time" creating the cutfiles and assembling the first card for hubby, I decided to make it into "time well spent" by making another identical card for my son in law who celebrated his birthday 3 days later. It's always good whenever I can get multiple uses from cutfiles that took way too long to create!