A Kokeshi Box Card for a Special Friend

Here's a birthday card I put together for my bestest blogging pal, Patti of Creations By Patti blog. It's another box style card, but with windows on all four panels; I believe it's called a "Go Round Card". This is only the second time I've attempted this type of card (first one was for my daughter's birthday last year). And since I have yet to find a tutorial for this card, making this continues to be a "big experiment" for me.
For Patti's card, I knew I had to go with her favorite Asian theme. I was inspired by shoji screen type table lamps like these...

...and decided I would use the delightful kokeshi dolls from the books by Annelore Parot to adorn her card.

Here's a view of the first two panels:

And the next two panels:

The box panels with windows were created in MTC by joining and welding rectangles, ovals and fancy label shapes together. MTC also rendered the kokeshi and panda images into cutting files which were cut using a Silhouette Cameo.

Here's Michiko and Emi....

...Yumi and Aoki....

...and of course little panda.

I used a Quickutz die to cut the branches and sakura blossoms are cut from Punch Bunch and Carl punches. A 1/16-inch EK circle punch was used for the flower centers. Kokeshi faces were cut from white cardstock and colored with Copics; and kimonos were cut from digitized washi paper.

Here's a peek at the bottom of the box which shows how the struts that hold each kokeshi doll in place are adhered to the inside of the box. As you can see, the construction is very similar to the struts inside the very popular "Card In A Box" type card except the struts on this card run parallel to the four sides and are adhered to each other as well as to the inside of the box.

And finally, here's the card flattened, which needed a box type envelope about a half inch in depth to fit in. I have to admit it took me quite awhile to finish this card. Though it was quite challenging and fun, I don't think I'll have the time or patience to do this card too often. I guess you could say this was a one of a kind card for my one of a kind very, very special friend!

Birthday Wishes for Some "Bunny" Special

Got another "box type" of card to share with you today. This one is actually very different than the sliding box cards I've recently been hooked on. For one thing, windows on this card are on the panels rather than the corners of the box. The second difference is that there's no sliding mechanism. The pop up mechanism I used on the inside of the box which anchors the cut out images is the same as is used on most simple pop up cards. A little time consuming to put together since there are four windows to fill and embellish, but worth the extra time for someone very special, right?
Here's a look at each of the four panels...

I used MTC to create each of the box panels with the oval  cut out window; and the cute baking bunny images are from Kristi W. Designs which I purchased a while ago as a svg cutting file set called "Bunnies Making Cupcakes" from Kadoodle Bug Designs.  Hmmm---must have been quite awhile ago because it seems to have since retired and is no longer available on the Kadoodle Bug site. Daisies are from an old Quickutz die and label is another Pinterest digi find rendered into a cutfile with MTC. Sorry, the photos aren't very good because of the poor lighting and shadows created from inside the box, but if you click on the photos you should be able to get a better look at those adorable baking bunnies.

Here's a birds eye view of the card from the top which shows the strips of cardstock inside, glued together to form rectangular "boxes" which served as the base for mounting the bunnies. I first saw a card similar to this created and shared by Monica Soto on the Scrappy Dew website. I totally fell in love with Monica's card (she calls hers a "Go Round Card") but never could figure out how it was made. Saw this type of card again much later on over at the Instant Cardmaking Downloads site, this time called a "Spring Box Card" and with a free photo tutorial by Beryl's Crafty Creations.  Although I started out constructing my card according to Beryl's tutorial, I ended up having to change it up a bit since the base was unable to support the heavier weight of the paper pieced bunnies. However if you plan on using stamped images in your box, the spring type base in Beryl's tutorial should work just fine.

And here's the final "folded flat" photo. This one is pretty fat so I ended up making a box for it instead of an envelope. A lot of trial and error (mostly errors!) went into putting this card together, but I liked how it turned out and am looking forward to trying another one soon...and hopefully I'll eventually figure out how to do this more quickly...