Personalized Graduation Card

I put together another recessed window style graduation card for the last of the 2025 high school graduates in our family. If you've been following my blog for awhile you probably know that I often fall back to making this style of card for graduation cards. Checking back, I see that I first designed the cut file for this card 13 years ago! Gee, I hope this card doesn't seem too outdated!

Whenever I use this template, I simply edit the cutting file by updating year of the class and the name of the graduate on the front of the card. I search online for a photo of the graduate's school campus to use as a backdrop inside the recessed window. I also like to use the school colors, logo, or mascot to create a very personalized card.

Inside, I added a pocket for a place to slip in a gift card holder. Graduate's school mascot is a fox so I added a paper pieced fox from Eline's Collectables. Mortarboard cap and diploma were cut from  very old Quickutz dies and "congrats" from Karen Burniston's "Word Set 8".

Seashell Shaped Card

It's halfway through July already and I'm realizing that I'm quickly falling behind on my card crafting schedule! This is the card I had to rush to make and send  with a box of collected goodies for our granddaughter to enjoy during her summer break from school. Might not look like it at first, but it's supposed to be a seashell shaped card. I added Stickles Glitter accents and a few flatback dew drop baubles because I thought it looked so plain, but maybe that made it look even less like a seashell?
 

That's okay, the fun happens when you open the seashell to find an ocean floor scene with a pop up mermaid princess inside.

I printed a digital undersea background image found online for the inset and added lots of Stickles glittery accents to add sparkle to everything. I used Copic markers to add shadows, a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen for highlights, and a bit of chalk for added color to the cut pieces on the fish, seaweed and mermaid. 

The svg template for this "Pop Up Card Shell Mermaid" was purchased from the Lori Whitlock Shop.  I loved how quick and easy it was to put together once everything was cut. 

Lastly, I cut a double layer of shadowed insets from text weight papers and adhered them to the back of the card so I'd have room to add a personal note to our granddaughter.

Butterfly Double Fan Pop Up Card

Pulled out my favorite Spellbinders "Delicate Butterflies" dies to make this fun birthday card twice for two very special friends. I used pearlescent cardstock for the butterfly wings, gold foil board for the bodies, and glitter cardstock for the shadows. Gold glittered flourish swirls were cut using a very old Quickutz "Flourish" die and hot foiled sentiment was created using Spellbinders "Be Bold Glimmer Sentiments" hot foil plates and dies. I also randomly glued on a few iridescent sequins for a teensy bit more sparkle.
 
Inside the card, I installed two of the mechanisms from Karen Burniston's Photo Fan Pop Up die for double the fun. I saw others doing this on Karen Burniston's Pop Up Peeps Facebook page and wanted to give it a try too. 
Since the mechanism for this pop up consists of six spokes, adding a second one right below the first allowed me to add more than twelve butterflies to this pop up!

Of course the potential for catch points increased with this many butterflies but it wasn't too bad as long as I checked the positioning by opening and closing the card each time I added another butterfly. Both of the cards I made were for friends celebrating milestone birthdays so I diecut the numbers using Quickutz Studio Alphabet Set and adhered them to the base of the Fan Pop Up mechanism.

I also made a simple matching gift card holder by decorating  with the same diecuts I had used for the front of the birthday card and the word "celebrate" using Lawn Fawn "Celebrate Border" die.

I'm really enjoying the versatility of the Photo Fan Pop Up die I used for this card and am looking forward to playing with it again. 

Showers Of Love

This is the wedding shower card I made for our niece and her fiance. As you can see, I kept with the same color scheme and theme of the couples shower I posted about last week.                                         The inspiration for this double heart fold card comes from a "Dutchdoobadoo Art Heart Card" die I saw  posted on Pinterest. Although I wasn't able to find a source for this die in the U.S., I went ahead and created my own version of a template for it using Make the Cut Design Program.

I cut the heart shaped insets for the front of the card from Photoplay glimmer cardstock matted with with gold foil board. the blue insets were dry embossed using a very old "Elegant Lines" Stampin' Up embossing folder. Cherry blossoms were cut using WikiCaps "Cherry Blossoms Outline" die for the petals and i-Crafter "Cherry Blossom Box" die for the stamens. AB sequins were randomly glued to the hearts and I used a gold glittered organza ribbon tied into a bow to keep the card closed.

 Kept the inside of the card simple with the sentiment printed on beige parchment and matted on dark blue and gold foil.

Couples Wedding Shower

This is the invitation and favor I put together for a couple's wedding shower hubby and I hosted last weekend for our niece and her fiance. The couple told me their wedding color scheme was navy blue, sage green and blush pink so I went with those colors for the shower as well.

I have to admit that at first I felt a little uneasy working with the color scheme the couple had chosen but after searching online for inspiration, I was happy to see how well pink cherry blossoms on a dark blue background looked so good together. It brought back memories of viewing "Yozakura" or cherry blossoms at night in Japan.

I printed the invitation on a beige parchment using "Hello Valentica" and "Chocolada" fonts and matted it with gold foilboard and dark blue cardstock.  Frantic Stampers "Petite Sakuras", Marianne Designs Creatable "Branch" dies and Punch Bunch mini punches were used to cut and piece together the branch of cherry blossoms.

I used the "Cherry Blossom Box" die from i-crafter to create the template I needed to make 45 of these favor boxes. I used Photoplay Glimmer and Bazzill Bling cardstocks to cut the boxes and gold foil board to cut the Chinese double happiness medallion glued to the front.

Petals on the cherry blossom were edged with Stickles glitter glue and I glued tiny topaz AB gems onto the stamens. 

Boxes were filled with yummy Big Island Candies Chocolate dipped Macadamia nut Shortbread and Mika Mints and tied closed with a shimmery green organza bow.

Staggered Charm Accordion Card

My card today is a birthday card made for a very special friend. This was my first time trying a "Staggered Charm Accordion" style card; it's not a new technique but it's one I've been wanting to try for a long time!

 

I followed Karen Burniston's video tutorial on how to use her "Charm Accordion" die set to assemble this card. A little different than than the original way this die was meant to be used, Karen's tutorial explains how to  make a card with staggered windows rather than having them all in a straight line.

I added paper pieced images of Sanrio characters holding signs to read "Happy Birthday To You!" onto the inner panels in each of the  windows. Hard to tell from the photos but I also dry embossed the cardstock directly behind each character with a different design. Then I used jump rings to hang tiny cupcakes and a flower into the little open frames which connect the inner panels. I thought I was done but still felt something was lacking so I  added one last design element: a double heart die cut from Karen Burniston's "Label Charm Pop Up" die set together with a thin strip of cardstock as a border on each page.

All the panels swing and swivel into position as the card is spread open.

 

On the back side of the last panel, I added a place to add a sentiment and sign my card.

Last thing was to quickly put together a simple pocket style gift card holder decorated with my friend's favorite Pochacco and the same double heart border I used on her card.

Wicked Good Birthday

 

Our granddaughter recently celebrated her eighth birthday with  a Wicked (the movie) themed party. In as much as her gramma loves themed cards, this was the card she came up with for the birthday girl.

This display style "Showcase Pop Out Card" was designed and taught to us at a recent crafting get together by our dear friend Lori. A little difficult to see in this photo but the center panel of this card pops out as a 3 dimensional frame when the card is opened. I ran metallic gold cardstock through a Sizzix "Stars & Swirls" embossing folder for the two side panels, and used pink glitter cardstock with green foil board for the bottom drop down panel to give this card a max amount of glitz and bling. The center panel was created from a sticker purchased from RedBubble. On my request, dear Lori helped to make this extra special by adding her magical Stickles glitter enhancements.

Here's what the card looks like with the bottom panel pushed up and the side panels closed, ready to be tucked into an envelope. I also added a belly band with images of Elphaba's boot and Glinda's shoe which were part of a set of "Wicked" clipart purchased on Etsy.

Our birthday gift to our granddaughter was a year's subscription of monthly STEM project boxes from her favorite  Crunch Labs. Since there was no physical gift for her to unwrap, I made a pretend "giftcard" by sizing and printing Crunch Labs' logo onto cardstock and running it through my thermal laminator. I put together a simple pocket style giftcard holder embellished with another "Wicked"clipart image from the set purchased. Always fun to come up with themed cards and gifts!

Recessed Window Grad Card

School's out and graduation season is upon us again. It's been awhile since I've made a recessed window card style graduation card so I searched my archived cutting files to make this card. Just had to quickly edit the file with the current year and personalize with the graduate's name. 

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the recessed window card is similar to a shadowbox style card with a depth of one-fourth inch. I added a photo I found online of the graduate's high school campus inside the window, covered it with clear acetate, then added the cover plate panel with the graduate silhouette and class over it. I used Arial font to cut the graduate's name on the front panel and backed it with a layer of acetate and gold glitter cardstock.
 

On the inside of the card, I added a pocket decorated with the school emblem for a place to tuck a gift envelope. The mortarboard cap and tassel used on the envelope was cut using a very old Quickutz die.

I liked that this recessed window card came together quite quickly and am thinking I should start using this card style more often.

Milestone Birthdays

As much as I love and enjoy my hobby of making and sending birthday cards, being that I'm a very slow crafter, I can usually only manage to finish enough cards each year to send to close relatives and a few crafty friends. This year, however, several of the close friends I grew up with are celebrating milestone birthdays so I decided to challenge myself by trying my very best to make and send special milestone birthday cards to each. This card was the first of  the seven I hope to complete this year.

I used a quilted coverplate die from Honey Bee Stamps to create a stitched background and added a paper pieced Franklin teddy bear from Marjorie Ann Designs together with lots of flowers die cut from Spellbinders "Be Bold Blooms" die set. Tiny butterflies were cut from Memory Box "Butterfly Delights" die. Happy Birthday sentiment was hot foiled and die cut using Simon Hurley's "Birthday Sentiments" set.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's "Twist Flower Pop Up" die set again for the mechanism to animate a large center panel with another paper pieced teddy bear and a double tiered cake. I used  Marianne  Designs "Birthday Cake" die for the cake and a very old  QuicKutz "Studio" alphabet die set for the glittered gold "70".

After assembling the teddy bear, cake and flowers together, I scanned and imported the image into Make the Cut design program so I could create and cut a shadow layer for it.

I also put together a simple matching gift card holder to enclose with the card. 

Initially, I started jotting down all the measurements and instructions needed to recreate this pop up  card with the intention of  making six more of the same to send for all the milestone birthdays I mentioned. Though the overall design of this card seemed simple enough,  it took a bit longer than I expected to cut and assemble all the embellishments needed. Looks like I may have to come up with some alternative ideas for a card that will be quicker to complete.

Puppy Twist Flower Pop Up Card

Knowing how much my niece loves her Malshi (Maltese + Shih Tzu), I wanted to surprise her with a card that featured a likeness of her dog for her birthday.

I found some adorable digital doggie clipart created by artist Yuki of Elytra Studio on Etsy and just had to pick up a set. I thought one of the images looked just like my niece's dog, so I created a cut file, cut her from white cardstock, then used Copics to color her up to look like my niece's beloved "Kinako".

For the card front, I used a cut file for an open scallop circle to frame the dog and embellished with flowers die cut using Spellbinders "Be Bold Blooms" die set. Happy Birthday sentiment was hot foiled and cut with Spellbinders "Birthday Unboxing Glimmer" set. I also randomly glued on a few flatback clear dewdrops to add some sparkle.

 

Inside, I used Karen Burniston's "Twist Flower Pop-Up" mechanism on a panel I created with another paper pieced dog and flowers. As the card is opened, this panel twists and rises up to the center of the card. The "Twist Flower Pop-Up" die set comes with large daisy dies to attach to the mechanism (thus the name "Flower Pop-Up"), but I'm finding it fun to use this mechanism to animate a lot more than just flowers.

To create a matching gift card holder, I enlarged the dog image and had her hold onto a little paper pieced envelope which opens up to reveal a gift card.

And finally, here's the photo of my niece's sweet little dog, "Kinako" which I used as inspiration to create her birthday card. Isn't she absolutely adorable?

Daruma Pop Up Card

For my sweet friend Lorna, who enjoys all things related to Japanese culture and tradition, I created this Daruma themed birthday card.
 

The inspiration for my card came from this super cute Daiso shopping tote decorated with images of many colorful Daruma dolls.

I especially loved the different whimsical faces of each daruma on the Daiso tote, so I scoured the internet in search of cute daruma faces. After finding a few, I print and cut them and used them to piece together several daruma in fun, bright colors. Cutting file for the Daruma doll bodies was created in Make the Cut Design program.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's Photo Fan Pop Up die set to install the mechanism for this fun Daruma pop up. 

The Fan Pop Up mechanism is made up of a half circle with six spokes, so I attached a Daruma doll to each spoke and three more onto the half circle. To hide the spokes, I attached three different sizes of cherry blossoms which  were die cut using the Cherry Blossoms Outline die from Wiki CAPS. Flower centers were punched from gold foil board using a Punch Bunch mini punch.

I decided to make a Daruma shaped gift card holder to go with the card. To do this, I enlarged the template for the Daruma body (with a window for the face) to be large enough to fit a gift card, and created a pocket by welding a blank mirror image to it for the back. "Make a Wish" sentiment was added using the print and cut function. Then I made an insert that would fit inside the Daruma "pocket" with the Daruma face printed on it, a pull tab, and tabs to hold a gift card.

I found it fun and challenging to create this Daruma pop up card and gift card holder.  I hope my sweet friend enjoyed it as much as I did putting this together!