Relaxing Teddy Bear Retirement Card

 Here's a card and gift card holder set I put together for a dear friend who recently retired from her workplace.  

 

I kept the front of the card simple, decorating with die cut images from different companies: Stampin' Up "Adirondack Chair", Lawn Fawn "Stitched Rounded Rectangle" and "Stitched Hillside Border" dies, and an unbranded double palm tree die from "Custom Crafter 500" store on Etsy. The Happy Retirement sentiment was computer generated using Brisk Extended font.

On the inside, I used the "Adirondack Chair Pop Up" die set from Karen Burniston to create a fun pop up card. 

I made a very similar card to this one several years ago when I created the cutting files for the palm trees, wave border and slippers, so decorating the inside of this time card took a lot less time to do. 

The one thing I did do differently this time was to add a sitting teddy bear to the chair. I used the "Bentley at the Beach" cut file from Marjorie Ann Designs to paper piece Bentley the bear and propped him up onto the adirondack chair with a tropical drink. The cut file for the "Summer Cocktail" is a freebie from Cre8ive Cutz.

Then, for a matching gift card holder, I decorated a slider box with a mini version of the front of the card, using the adirondack chair die from  the "Tropical Collection - On the Beach" from Creative Expressions. Fishtail banner was hotfoiled and cut using Spellbinders "Hexi-Gems Sentiments" Hot foil plate and die set.

As the drawer is pulled open to reveal the gift card inside, the panel with the beach scene pops up.  The svg template for this fun pop up slider box comes from the Lori Whitlock Shop. I really like that the pop up panel can be decorated as you please and that the slider drawer is deep enough to hold candies or even a small gift.

Pop Up Adirondack Retirement Card

Not too long ago I picked up a couple adirondack chair dies, thinking they would be perfect for making fun retirement or vacation cards. Lol, now that I'm in the phase of life where I make more retirement cards than wedding or baby shower cards, I figured my purchases were justified.                                      I kept the front of my card very simple, creating a beach scene using Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside border for the sand and a cloud patterned paper for the sky. I used a stitched rounded rectangle die to cut it out and added die cuts of palm trees and my first adirondack beach chair. "Happy Retirement" sentiment was computer generated using Brisk font.

On the inside, I added a pop up adirondack chair put together by using  Karen Burniston's die with the same name. 

This adirondack chair pop up is easy to install because the die cuts the chair directly from the card background. Things get a little tricky though, if you want a chair that's a different color or print than the background. In my case, I wanted the background to be sand, palm trees, and sky and the chair to be white, so that involved a few extra steps which are explained very well in Karen Burniston's assembly tutorial for this die.

 

I added a pair of sunglasses and flipflops paper pieced with cut files created from free clipart, and a cool drink created from a freebie cut file from Cre8tive Cutz. The drink was attached to the chair arm by attaching a piece of acetate to the bottom of the glass and threading it through a slit made in the arm. Thank you, Karen Aicken of Painted Mountain Cards blog for the advice on that!

I used the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside die to cut another strip of sand colored paper to create a pocket on the backside of the card as well as a simple gift card holder. Sea shells were cut from very old Quickutz dies.

I had lots of fun creating my first adirondack pop up chair card. I've been seeing many adorable cards that other crafters have made with this die where they have propped cute little critters up in the chair... can't wait to give that a try too!