College Graduation

This is the card and gift card holder I sent to my cousin's son who graduated with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy this past weekend.
 

Since he was graduating in a field of medicine, I decided I would use the same card style I created two years ago when my niece received her Nurse Practitioner degree. I used the same Caduceus cutfile I had created as well as the same illustration from my medical dictionary for the inside panel of my card. I did change the title of the degree to DPT (for Doctor of Physical Therapy) and of course, the graduate's name. Graduate's last name has been edited out in photos for privacy.  All cuts were done on the illustration and backed with a metallic gold foil board.

Using the print and cut feature of Make the Cut design program, I created a round medallion of the school seal to put on the narrow front panel. Although it's not easy to see from the photos, I attached a panel of clear acetate behind that narrow front panel so the Caduceus inside the card can be seen with the card closed.

As the card is opened, the panel with the Caduceus pops forward and moves to the the right to reveal the panel with the sentiment underneath. This very cool pop up and movement was created by installing Karen Burniston's "Rockin' Rectangle" mechanism in the fold of the card. This has become one of my most favorite mechanisms to use to add some fun to graduation cards.

I also created this gift card holder in the school's colors to send with the card. I happened to notice that in photos I saw of past graduations from this school, the DPT graduates donned tams instead of a mortarboard cap so I tried to recreate that. I also used Karen Burniston's Word Set die - Congrats and an old Quickutz die for the diploma. 

Double Hinged Shutter Pop Up

This adorable window shaker card which is also an amazing interactive pop up card was shared by my dear friend Kris at a recent crafty friends get together.
 

As the card is opened, the panels with the cute teddies that you see through the shaker window move forward and away to the sides to reveal the sentiment hidden underneath. So fun! There are two hinged mechanisms attached to either side of the card that create all this cool shutter movement.

Kris showed us how she put her card together and needless to say, I couldn't wait to give this card a try as well! I decided to keep my card a little simpler by doing a plain window instead of a shaker window so I could concentrate on getting the pop up mechanism to work correctly. I added a paper pieced Bentley Bear from the "Bentley At the Beach" cutfile set that I got from Marjorie Ann Designs to the left panel and added my sentiment to the right side panel.

I had Bentley hold a bouquet of die cut flowers cut from Spellbinders' Sealed Blooms die set. Sizzix Argyle #2 embossing folder was used to add texture to all the white panels.

As the card is opened, the hinged mechanism on the sides allows the two front panels to pop up and move to the sides to show the sentiment underneath.

The side panels were embellished with a paper pieced slice of birthday cake and a pair of wrapped presents cut using Karen Burniston's  Big Birthday Charms die set.

This was a fun pop up card to put together, and I especially love all the fun movement of the panels. If you'd like to give this pop up card a try, the video tutorial by Tatyana Zhukova of Crazy Paper can be viewed on You Tube here. Tatyana simply names her card "Valentines Pop Up" but I think I will call it  a "Double Hinged Pop Up" for now just so I can  file it under a name which I can easily refer back to in the future. 

Panda Thank You

My card today is a panda themed thank you card made to send to a friend. The adorable panda svg cutfile I used for my card comes from designer Cat and Me Digital.
 
As you can see, I'm still having fun playing with the sliceform base template from the Lori Whitlock Shop. I love that this sliceform base can be customized and decorated however you wish, and always results in a super fun pop up card.

 

I used the paper pieced panda in the center of the sliceform base and surrounded her with many different flowers and leaves all diecut from Spellbinders Big Blooms die.

This view from the top shows the five "layers" of the sliceform base onto which decorative elements may be added. Still got a few more ideas spinning in my head that I'm anxious to try with this sliceform base...stay tuned!

You Finished Kindergarten!

And just like that, it's Summer already! School's out, it's graduation season and Fathers Day is just around the corner. Last week our granddaughter finished her first year of elementary school so I made and sent this card to congratulate her.
 

I used a combination of Kristi W. Designs from  both Marjorie Ann Designs and Scrapping Cuts N' Snips for all the paper piecing used on this card. "Back to School Owls" and "Bentley at the Beach" sets from Marjorie Ann Designs for Bentley Bear, the pencil and the book. Crayons, paintbrush and rainbow are from Scrapping Cuts N' Snips' "You Color My World" set.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's Bam Box Pop Up die to create four separate rubber band activated pop up boxes which were attached behind the bears and the rainbow. When the recipient opens this card, all three bears and the rainbow pop up simultaneously to an upright position. So fun!

This side view shows the Bam Boxes behind each bear and adhered inside the card. 

I really like that these little pop up boxes can be placed at any angle, almost anywhere in the card to make almost anything you can think of pop up.

Since I used four rubberband activated Bam Boxes inside my card, I ran into a slight problem trying to figure out a way to keep my card in the closed position without too much bulging.Usually one neodynium magnet in each of the four corners is enough for rubberband activated pop up cards I've made in the past. But this time, the elastic force of the four rubberbands required six magnets to keep my card closed. Other than that, these Bam Boxes are simple to assemble and can be used in countless ways to add a fun pop up feature to cards. I'm sure I'll be using them often to animate my cards.