Have a "Meow-velous" Birthday

The card I'm sharing today was created for one of my very special friends who owns a beautiful calico cat named Cheerio. I find it's fun to make pet themed cards for friends who own pets.

For this Double Hinged Pop Up style card, I used Marianne Designs "Eline's Kittens" die set to piece together all the little kitty cats inside.  The shadowed sentiment peeking through the front window on the right side was created in Make the Cut Design Program using Note and Hello Valentica fonts together with the pawprint image. Cupcake was die cut from MFT's "Cupcake and Sprinkles" die. and blinged with some Stickles glitter glue.

As this top fold card is opened, the two panels you see through the front window pop forward and move to the sides to reveal additional side and center panels inside. Template and video tutorial for this interactive pop up card by Tatyana Zhykova can be seen here.

I used a shimmery cream colored cardstock which was dry embossed with a Tim Holtz's "Courtyard" Texture Fade folder for all the panels. It was fun piecing together kitties with different colors and markings.

And yes, I made another matching Slider Box/Surprise Cube Pop Up gift card holder to go along with the card. I used the same "Eline's Kittens" die set for the kitten on the front of the slider box, but this time did some custom cutting in an attempt to create a likeness to my friend's cat "Cheerio".

     

I think both "Cheerio" and my girlfriend approved!

Birthday Wishes for Some Bunny Special

Today I'm sharing the card and matching gift card holder I made to send to our daughter for her birthday. 
 

On the front of the card, I decorated the two panels showing through the window with my favorite  flowers  cut using Spellbinders "Be Bold Blooms" die set and a cute bunny cut and pieced together using dies from Marianne Design Eline's Collectable "Baby Bunny" Set. White pearlized cardstock was used for the panel insets and run through Cuttlebug's "Modern Wallpaper" embossing folder for texture. The sentiment was created using Memo and Hello Valentica fonts in Make the Cut design program. 

On the inside, I used a Doubled Hinged Pop Up mechanism to add movement for a fun interactive card. As the card is opened, the two side panels move apart to reveal the panel behind them. Video tutorial and templates for this pop up card by Tatyana Zhykova of Crazy Paper can be found here.

I used my printer to print the sentiment on the inside and cut it with a shadow layer on my Silhouette Cameo. 

Other than the two sentiments on this card, all other embellishments were created using the dies I mentioned earlier plus Karen Burniston's "Big Birthday Charms" set for the cake slice and presents.

My new favorite way to give a gift card is to enclose it in a box assembled using Karen Burniston's "Slider Box" dies and decorate it to match the card. Lawn Fawn's "Happy Birthday Border" die was used to cut the words on the front.

I always love a surprise element and I'm finding that it's fun to attach the gift card to a rubber band activated Bam Box and add in a pair of pop up cubes in the slider box for some birthday excitement. Pretty sure nearly everyone on my birthday card list will be getting one soon!

Happy Cake Day

 I decided to give the Double Hinged Shutter Pop Up Card mechanism another try with this birthday card for my sister in law. She is mom to a sweet Shiba Inu, and being that I have collected so many Shiba Inu images, I wanted to use some of them on her card.

I love the double hinged movement of this pop up card! As the card is opened, the two images you see through the window on the front of the card pop forward and move apart to the sides to reveal the panel inside the card. 

As the two front panels move apart, the panels attached to them also become visible. A video tutorial and template by Tatyana Zhykova of Crazy Paper for this style card can be found here. For my card, I enlarged the size of the individual panels and the front window so I could get my paper piecings to fit more comfortably.

For the panels on the left side of the card, I used MFT's Cupcake and Sprinkles die for the cupcake and Karen Burniston's Big Birthday Charms set for the slice of cake. Word art "Happy Cake Day" was created in Make the Cut Design program using fonts "Memo" and "Hello Valentica".

Die cut presents and confetti on the right panel were cut using dies from Karen Burniston's Big Birthday Charms set and svg cutting files for the Shiba Inu images are from Creative Cat and Co. All panels were run through an embossing folder from Cuttlebug's Decorative Tile Set.

Truthfully, this was not a "quick and easy" card for me to put together. I think the biggest problem was caused by my wanting to increase the size of the panels and not realizing right away the effect it would have on the entire working mechanism. Paper engineer, I'm not! Finally got the hinges to work properly after several tweaks... I definitely need to practice on a few more cards before I'm feeling comfotable with this pop up.

Double Hinged Shutter Pop Up

This adorable window shaker card which is also an amazing interactive pop up card was shared by my dear friend Kris at a recent crafty friends get together.
 

As the card is opened, the panels with the cute teddies that you see through the shaker window move forward and away to the sides to reveal the sentiment hidden underneath. So fun! There are two hinged mechanisms attached to either side of the card that create all this cool shutter movement.

Kris showed us how she put her card together and needless to say, I couldn't wait to give this card a try as well! I decided to keep my card a little simpler by doing a plain window instead of a shaker window so I could concentrate on getting the pop up mechanism to work correctly. I added a paper pieced Bentley Bear from the "Bentley At the Beach" cutfile set that I got from Marjorie Ann Designs to the left panel and added my sentiment to the right side panel.

I had Bentley hold a bouquet of die cut flowers cut from Spellbinders' Sealed Blooms die set. Sizzix Argyle #2 embossing folder was used to add texture to all the white panels.

As the card is opened, the hinged mechanism on the sides allows the two front panels to pop up and move to the sides to show the sentiment underneath.

The side panels were embellished with a paper pieced slice of birthday cake and a pair of wrapped presents cut using Karen Burniston's  Big Birthday Charms die set.

This was a fun pop up card to put together, and I especially love all the fun movement of the panels. If you'd like to give this pop up card a try, the video tutorial by Tatyana Zhukova of Crazy Paper can be viewed on You Tube here. Tatyana simply names her card "Valentines Pop Up" but I think I will call it  a "Double Hinged Pop Up" for now just so I can  file it under a name which I can easily refer back to in the future.