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.