Hello Summer!

Today I'm sharing the card I made and sent to our granddaughter last month in celebration of the end of another school year and the start of summer vacation. I found some old cutting files of Sanrio's Hello Kitty and Friends at the beach that I created several years ago and decided to put them to use again. Paper Flowers and LD Charming Bold fonts were used to create the cut file for the "Hello Summer" greeting.
 

I recently learned a new (for me) pop up mechanism by watching video tutorials by Purple Girl Crafts and Graphic 45. It's called a Diagonal Panel Pop Up or Diagonal Twist and Pop Up mechanism and it's an updated version of the Twist Panel Pop Up card mechanism. Here you can see the four panels in the center of  this card pop up and open at a diagonal (rather than parallel to the fold) when the card is opened.

I added a paper pieced image of Pochacco riding a dolphin to the fourth pop up panel and suspended a smaller dolphin above him using a strip of acetate.

Hello Kitty surfing on a wave was added to the second panel. Then I added a paper pieced My Melody, some fish and a turtle together with framed insets for the sentiments onto right and left sides of the card.

I really like the look of this Diagonal Twist Pop Up Panel card and am looking forward to playing with this mechanism again soon; perhaps a floral version?

Kokeshi and Cherry Blossom Arch Pop Up

After seeing and admiring all the beautiful photos taken by my dear friend of cherry blossom trees in bloom during her recent trip to Japan, I was inspired to make a cherry blossom themed card for her birthday.

I used old kokeshi girl svg cut files I created a while ago for this card. Digital washi paper was used to paper piece the kimono, then the kokeshi girl was glued into an oval frame.  Lawn Fawn's "Happy Birthday Border" die was used to cut the sentiment.

Four sizes of cherry blossoms were die cut in different shades of pink using Elizabeth Craft Designs "Spring Blossom Collection Cherry Blossom" dies. Flower centers were cut from gold foil board.

Inside, I installed Karen Burniston's "Arch Pop Up" mechanism to create another cherry blossom arch pop up card.

This time instead of the Sanrio characters I used on my last cherry blossom arch card, I  placed two additional kokeshi girls to both sides of the arch. Sentiment boxes bordered in gold foil board were added to the bottom left and right sides of the card.

I must admit that I've been having more fun playing with this Arch Pop Up die set than I ever expected. This is thanks to all the talented and inspiring card makers that share their wonderful creations on Karen Burniston Pop Up Peeps Facebook Group. So many fabulous ideas... can't wait to try them all!

A matching gift card holder was decorated with more die cut cherry blossoms and a "celebrate" sentiment cut from gold foil board using Avery Elle's "Sentimental" die set. Inside, I added the gift card to  a sliding pop up mechanism that I learned here from Srushti Patil. "Happy Birthday" stamped sentiment is from Mama Elephant "Paola's Wishes" stamp set.

Sharing with Old Friends

When I got together for lunch with some high school friends earlier this year, I made several of these little treat boxes and filled them with cookies to share.

I used a laser printer and my Silhouette Cameo to print and cut the old friends word art from pearlized gold cardstock. This was then hot foiled using a Heidi Swapp Minc with toner reactive foil sheets. I cut a shadow layer of the tree from  gold metallic cardstock, layered it behind the tree, then adhered it onto a white square panel with foam tape. It's a little hard to see from the photo but I dry embossed the white square panel behind the tree with an embossing folder that had a repeating leaf design. This was then matted onto gold metallic cardstock and glued onto the front of the box.

The template for the box is a simply a square  box with flaps extending over the top of the front and back. The flaps meet at the top and I threaded gold lame ribbon through holes on the top to tie a bow to keep the box closed. I was able to put together a dozen of these boxes fairly quickly and was happy that they turned out looking like I had spent a lot more time than I did making them. Pretty certain you'll see me using this style of box again when I need to make treat boxes to share.

Shiba Inu Accordion Card

This was the Shiba Inu themed card and gift card holder I put together for my sister in law's birthday this year.

I used Arial and Hello Valentica fonts to create the the cut files for the shadowed "Happy Biirthday" sentiment on the front of the card. The paper pieced Shiba Inu pups I made for this card were inspired by the many cute, wide eyed and cartoon-like Shiba Inu images I've been seeing lately on Pinterest.               

I may have gotten a little too ambitious but I decided I wanted to try making a landscape style accordion card using the paper pieced Shiba Inu images. For the base card, I started by using Lori Whitlock's "Swing Through Card" svg cut file template, enlarging the size and altering the orientation of the card to landscape. 

The swing through panels were created by welding shadow images of the Shiba Inu pups together. I struggled to get the correct sizing of the shadows in this step, which caused the card to buckle in the closed position.

Even after redoing multiple times, I had to settle with several "bandaid fixes". Hope my sister in law doesn't look too closely at the construction of her card!

I used Lori Whitlock's "Pop Up Drawer" svg file to make the matching gift card holder. Happily, this came together a lot easier! I kept the decorating simple, using  another paper pieced Shiba Inu image for the front pop up.  "Celebrate" sentiment was created as a print and cut image which I ran through my Heidi Swapp Minc with toner reactive gold foil.