Promoted to Gramma

                                  

I'm currently at that stage of my life where many of my close friends are becoming first time grandparents, and I enjoy making and sending cards to congratulate them. 

A dear friend recently became a proud gramma to a sweet baby boy so I decided to put together this rectangle pop up card for her. I used a Lori Whitlock cutfile template called "Rectangle Pop Up Card Arbor" as the base for this card, but substituted the front layer of flowers in the original template with a paper pieced teddy bear and stroller. A Sizzlit die from a very old Sizzix "Card Making Set" was used to cut the word "Congratulations" and its shadow layer for the front.

I used a Marjorie Ann Designs cutfiles called "Stardust and Moonbeams" and "Sisters Your First Best Friend" for the teddy bear and stroller. I created a cutfile for eyeglasses by welding shapes in Make the Cut Design program so my teddy bear could look more "gramma-ish", lol!

A computer generated sentiment was printed, trimmed, matted and adhered to the back and bottom panels of the rectangle.

Here's a view of the card flattened and ready to be put into an envelope. These type of pop up cards take a little extra effort to put together but I'm always happy how they turn out.

Pop Up Bouquet Card

I made this matching birthday card and gift card holder set for a very dear friend who used to have bunnies as pets when her daughters lived at home. Although I love teddy bears and nearly always use them to decorate my cards, I figured I should change it up once in awhile to keep things interesting.
 

One other thing that is different about this card and gift card holder set is that I put everything together without the use of my Silhouette cutter at all... now, that's definitely a game changer for me! All the embellishments, and even the pop up mechanism inside were cut using thin metal dies.

All bunnies were cut using "Eline's Collectables Baby Bunny" set, and I used Spellbinders "Be Bold Blooms"  and Karen Burniston's "Fence Add On" sets for the flowers. Spellbinders Nestablilities "Open Scallop Edge Circle" together with Circle dies were used to create the lacy circle frame, and Lawn Fawn "Stitched Scalloped Borders" to cut the beaded decorative border. I used Spellbinders "Hexi-Gems Sentiments Set" to hot foil and die cut the fishtail Happy Birthday sentiment.

On the inside, I added a fun pop up bouquet using Karen Burniston's "Little Twist Panel Pop Up" die. This mechanism was originally designed to create cards with a fun accordian folded, four panel pop up inside, but recently talented Karen Burniston design team members Sandy Diller and Nicky Foden have shared how they've used this same mechanism to create amazing pop up flower bouquets. After seeing their cards, I knew I wanted to give it try as well.

Essentially, the only change made to the original mechanism was cutting away all the corners of the panels and loading what was left of the mechanism with blossoms and foilage. Easy peasy, but I loved the result!

Just added a couple more bunnies and a sentiment box and it was done. Can't wait to try more of these type of cards!

I used Karen Burniston's "Slider Box", "Surprise Cube Pop Up", and "Bam Box" dies again to create this fun pop up gift card holder. Also used Karen Burniston "Big Birthday Charms" and Lawn Fawn "Happy Birthday Border" dies to decorate the boxes to match the birthday card.

SPECTACULAR Achievement

This was the only graduation card I needed to make this summer, for my cousin's daughter. If you guessed it was for an Optometry School graduate, you're right!  I saw a similarly styled card on Etsy, thought it was so cute, and had to CASE it. 

I used an old svg cutfile for the glasses that I had created years ago, enlarged it, cut it three times from glossy card stock and layered it for dimension. The cutfile for the tam was created last year for another doctorate graduate, and the diploma was cut from an very old Quickutz die. The punny sentiment is computer generated, using Paper Flowers and Hello Valentica fonts.

On the inside, I was very happpy and excited to have the chance to use my favorite Karen Burniston's Collage Pop Up die.

I chose to use many of the photos the graduate herself had posted and shared on social media during her years in Optometry School to decorate the inside of the card. Photos were sized and printed by Walgreens Photo as  collage prints and cut to fit the frames for this pop up.

I used metallic, pearlescent and glitter cardstocks in in the university colors for the card. I added a print and cut image of the school seal on the right and the sentiment box on the left side of the card.

I used the same paper pieced tam and diploma to make a matching gift card holder. Glasses were die cut from MFT "Creature Comfort DieNamics" set and "congrats" from Karen Burniston "Congrats Word Set".

Had much fun putting this card set together for the graduate and hoping it brings back lots of good memories of her journey through college.

Birthday Blooms

This is the card and giftcard holder combo I recently put together for my dear friend Kris. Truth be told, I was in a creative slump during this time so I pulled out my Spellbinders Big Blooms dies. Not sure what it is but I've found that something about this floral die set always seems to help stir up the creative juices for me.

    

                                     
I started by creating a cut file for a circular frame with a personalized birthday sentiment welded around the perimeter. Font used was Arial. I cut the frame three times and layered them on top of each other for dimension. Then I added a paper pieced Franklin teddy bear from Marjorie Ann Designs inside the frame and embellished with lots of fun blossoms and leaves that I had die cut using the Big Blooms die set. Clear resin dew drops were randomly added for a little bit of sparkle.

Inside, I used Karen Burniston's Twist Flower Pop Up mechanism to pop up and raise a panel with Franklin teddy bear surrounded by more flowers. 

To create this panel, I first glued the teddy bear and flowers together in an arrangement to my satisfaction, scanned this into my computer at true size,  then imported it  into Make the Cut Design program where I was able to create and cut a black out shadow panel for the teddy and flowers.

Last, I added more flowers to the left corners of the card and the sentiment box and it was done. 

I also made a matching gift card holder using Karen Burniston's "Slider box", "Bam Box", and "Surprise Cube Pop Up" dies."Happy Birthday" sentiment was die cut using Lawn Fawn's "Happy Birthday Border" die. When the drawer of the slider box is pulled open, two surprise cubes pop out and the gift card pops up from inside. Still loving this fun way to present gift cards!