Cherry Blossom Wave Card

Enjoyed making the Stadium Wave Card for our granddaughter so much that I decided I should do another. I thought a floral one would be fun to do so I chose to do one with die cut cherry blossoms as a Mothers Day card.

Happy to finally have had the chance to use my iCrafter Cherry Blossom Bursts die to cut and piece together all the flowers for this card. Sentiment on the card front was cut from gold foil board, using Brisk font and shadow on the Silhouette for "Mom" and a Gemini Swash Sentiment die for "love you".

Finally remembered to do a short video showing the Stadium Wave Card in action.

On the inside, I added more cherry blossoms and leaves onto each of the eight accordion panels of the stadium wave mechanism.

Side view of the card shows the strips of cardstock folded and adhered together that create the fun stadium wave effect for this pop up card.

Lots of room on the left side of the card to add our sentiment, matted with gold foil board. 

 

Before closing, I want to also share this fabulous Mothers Day card I received in the mail from my very dear friend, Bev.

Bev added a beautiful bouquet of flowers tied with a bow onto a rubberband activated pop up ball for a fun pop up surprise card. Love, love, love everything about this card, and especially how she perfectly matched the colors of the flowers in the bouquet to the flowers in the patterned paper!

The fun pop up floral bouquet was collapsed and hidden in this lovely gatefold card with dry embossed panels and kept closed with a belly band  embellished with flowers and a cute medallion. I'm truly blessed to have such creative and thoughtful friends! Thank you for stopping by today. Hope you're having an enjoyable, relaxing day.

Mothers Day Box Cards

I have two Mothers Day Box style cards to share today. One I made for my mom and another which was sent to me by a very sweet friend. This first box card made for my mom was inspired by Spellbinder's Large Die of the Month for March called "Flowering Tree". When I saw all the beautiful box cards others were creating with this die, I knew I had to add it to my collection too. 
   

Initially I had imagined making all sorts of fun cards using this die by adding cute stamped or paper pieced critters sitting under the pretty flowering tree. I guess I was so excited that I neglected to pay close attention to the finished card size (3x5") which was too tiny for even my smallest critter stamp. But since I really had my heart set on having the tiny kokeshi dolls from Dandelion Design's "Enjoy Today" stamp set stand under the tree for my card, I knew had to make a few size adjustments to make it work. I started by creating a cut file in Make the Cut for a template similar to the die for the base card, but in a larger size and next, I made an extension to add to the tree trunk so it would be taller. 

I also created a cutting file for the "Happy Mothers Day" greeting using Arial and Commercial Script fonts. The original Spellbinders die was used to cut the tree branches, textured leaves and pretty blossoms that I loved most about this die set.

Dandelion Designs adorable kokeshi dolls were stamped, heat embossed, colored and their kimonos paper pieced.

I also created a matching inset to add to the back of the card so I could add our Mothers Day sentiment. In the end, I was happy with the finished card and more importantly I learned that I need to be more careful to take notice of the size of the dies I'm purchasing.

This is the absolutely amazing box style card I received in the mail for Mothers Day from my dear friend Bev. I just love the intricate cuts and all the tiny, tiny details on this card!

Designed by Furrow and Feather, the svg cut file for this "Rattan Plant Shelf Box Card" can be found on their website together with several more similarly beautiful intricate cards. 

In addition to the delicate cuts of the rattan shelving, I was really amazed at the details of all the tiny plants, candlesticks, books and other items on the shelves. Imagine the eyesight and fine motor skills required to assemble this card!

A fancy label inset was added to the backside of the card for a personal message. I continue to be intrigued by the many forms and shapes of different kinds of box style cards. I love that talented designers and crafters come up with so many fun versions of box cards!

Mother's Day Cards

I am often amazed by the number of different shapes and styles of box cards creative card makers have come up with in recent years. This fun envelope shaped box card from the Lori Whitlock store especially caught my eye and I thought it would make sweet Mother's Day cards to send to my friends who are moms.
 

The original cutfile by Lori Whitlock creates a card about 3.5" x 4.5" in size. I increased the size of the card by about 25%; mostly because I was in a hurry to get these done and I didn't want to worry about intricate fiddly cuts.

The finished size of my cards was about 5.5" x 4.25" with a depth of 0.75".  The only other change I made was to add an insert of printed paper on the backside of the card.

Here's the view from the top where you can see the center panel with the flowers inside the envelope box. I used Stickles glitter glue and a white gel pen to add some bling and accents to the flowers and butterflies.

I added a insert panel to the back of the card where I used a stitched oval die to create a space to add my sentiment. These were easy to assemble and I was pleased at how they turned out. Wish I had gotten started sooner so I could have made more!

Here's the Mother's Day card I put together for my mom. I decided to keep the front of the card simple with a sentiment behind a gold bordered window embellished with a few flowers.

Flowers were cut from Cottage Cutz' "Teacup Mouse" die, and leaves from Stampin' Up's "Little Leaves" die. Flatback adhesive pearls were used for the flower centers.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's photo collage die to animate eight photos and a die cut sentiment for a fun surprise. 

"Happy Mother's Day" shadowed cut was created using Brisk font in Make the Cut Design program. Die cut words "love" and "you" were cut from dies from Karen Burniston's Pop 'n Swap die set and I used Punch Bunch mini punches to cut the flowers and leaves.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Hope you are relaxing and enjoying your special day!

    

Touched by Kindness

As promised, today I'm sharing some fun crafty treasures I recently received from two very sweet and thoughtful friends.

My dear friend Bev warmed my heart again this year with another beautifully handmade Mothers Day card. I love the clever design of this box card shaped as a tea cup with brightly colored blooms! Bev's thoughtful gesture of sharing her love with the cards she creates during Mothers Day and other special occasions always brings much cheer and has inspired me to try to do the same.

This fun spa inspired Mothers Day gift is from my amazingly creative friend, Lorna. Lorna wrapped a bar of scented soap with delicate Japanese tissue and embellished with this totally adorable paper pieced bubble bath girl. Definitely outside the box creative, right? And Omgosh, how cute is that little rubber duckie!

But wait, don't put your cuteness monitor away just yet! This super kawaii Boys Day treat box, also designed by Lorna pushes the cuteness level sky high!  I love how she rolled washi papers to make flying carp windsocks and suspended them in air with beads strung on fishing line. Isn't it amazing what a little paper, beads, ribbon and fishing line can create when you have the creative prowess of Lorna?

Before I sign off today, I wanted to let you know that I was recently notified that Feedburner will no longer be providing email notifications for my blog posts. I honestly thought it had ceased to function a while back, but if you'd like to receive some sort of notification, the platform I currently personally use is Bloglovin'.

Mothers Day Shaker Card

Happy Mothers Day! I decided to make shaker cards for Mothers Day this year. I got started working on my cards early, because I wanted to make extra cards to send to special friends and  because shaker cards always seem to be a bit of a challenge for me to put together.
 

I started by printing "Happy Mothers Day" word art from the Silhouette Design Store on the inside panel of my shaker. Scalloped oval frame is a freebie svg cutting file shared by Heather M on her blog here. Lacy corners were cut using the Filigree Corner die from Lala Land Crafts.

I used Lori Whitlock's Decagon Pop Up Swan svg for the paper pieced swan and blossoms, adding stickles to the flower centers and scattering a few extra sequins for some bling.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's Cake Pop Up die (AGAIN!) to create the hexagonal platform for the crowned swan and blossoms.  I added more die cut filigree corners and an oval matted in gold for the sentiment. The sentiment shown here is for the cards that I made for my special "mom friends".

I knew I had to have this swan cutting file from the first time I saw it in the Lori Whitlock Shop. I've always thought of swans as being beautiful, graceful, magical, and a symbol of motherly love... so I felt this would be perfect to use for my Mothers Day cards.

The original cutting file for the swan (Lori Whitlock's Decagon Pop Up Card - Swan) creates a very impressive ten sided stand alone pop up card, but since I already had my mind set on creating a pop up inside a card, I used Karen Burniston Cake Pop Up die to install a hexagon pop up platform in the card.

I've been having way too much fun using this hexagon pop up platform in my cards recently so I'm pretty certain everyone on my list to receive a card will probably get one... or more! 

I also have a pair of amazing Mothers Day surprises I received from my crafty friends that I want to share, but will save for my next post. Till then, please have an enjoyable, relaxing Mothers Day!  

Flowers for Mom

I was excited to finally use the Karen Burniston Flower Pot Pop Up die set that I purchased a while ago with the express intent of making our Mothers Day cards this year.

I had watched Karen Burniston's assembly tutorial video for this die more than half a dozen times so I felt pretty confident the pop up mechanism would come together fairly quickly. But as it turns out, I ended up spending way too much time going back and forth on the design elements of the card... what colors to use?...which patterned papers?...which flowers and leaves?....etc, etc... that I barely finished the cards in time.

I finally settled on my favorite pinks and decided to make cutting files to create my own version of a layered flower instead of using the daisy style layered flower dies that came included in the die set. Layered butterfly was cut from Cheery Lyn Designs Small Exotic Butterfly dies; and I used C.C. Designs Olive Branch, Stampin' Up Little Leaves Sizzlets, as well as the leaf branch included in the pop up die set to cut the leaves.

Here's the fun pop up flower pot inside the card.

 Difficult to see from the photos, but I layered a combination of glitter and pearlescent cardstocks on the flowers and butterfly for a touch of bling. Flatback pearls were used for the flower centers.

Although I suspect this pop up die mechanism was designed to be used in cards with a portrait orientation, I decided to change mine into a landscape oriented card at the last minute. I first assembled the flower pot and attached it to a doily I had cut on my Silhouette. I then made the mistake of  filling the pot with flowers and leaves before attaching the flower pot to the card base. Didn't realize until I finally secured the doily and pot to the card base that all my flowers were facing to the right of the card! So rather than removing the stems and recutting all the branches to rearrange the flowers, I decided to rotate the card to a landscape orientation.

  

 I tried to balance to awkward placement of flower pot by placing the sentiment boxes to the upper left and bottom right of the finished card.   

Here's a shot of the flower pot pop up from the top which show how the struts in the flower pot run perpendicular to each other. The funny thing is, although it was this feature that really attracted me into purchasing this pop up die, as you can see in the final card, I ended up using the only the struts that were parallel anyway. That's okay, I'm looking forward to spending more time playing with this die set and learning how to better use it to it to its full creative capacity.

Mothers Day Surprises

Want to share some of the sweet and thoughtful handmade surprises I received for Mothers Day this year from two crafty friends.

This beautiful Mothers Day "card in a box" card filled with delicate and intricately cut flowers was created by my dear friend Bev, who always tells me she's "not crafty" and "doesn't like to craft much". Wow, pretty amazing for someone who thinks they're not crafty, right? Love the soft colors and the flatback pearl centers... so pretty!

This pair of adorable house shaped treat holders was created by my super talented friend, Lorna. You may have noticed the one on the top is the westernized house, and the one underneath is a Japanese style house with the shoji doors and little kimono clad girl. No matter where in the world you may reside, its still the same... "Home is where your Mom is..." , so true, right?
Thank you Bev and Lorna for the special surprises, and for making me feel so special!

Mothers Day Wiper Cards

I had grand plans to present our moms with fancy flowers in a pot pop up cards for Mothers Day this year but somewhere along the line I got frustrated with the mechanism of the card not working as smoothly as I had hoped and opted to just go with a simpler wiper style card this year instead.

Found some very cute Doodlebug flower and butterfly cutting files from the Simply Spring Collection over at the Lori Whitlock store that I thought would work well with my card. To save some time, I had my Silhouette cut all the pieces for the flowers and butterflies from plain white cardstock and used my Copic pens to color all the pieces while they were still on the mat. I added stickles and gemstone accents to the centers of the flowers for some fun sparkle. The banner on the front of the card was created using  a banner cut file and the print and cut feature in Make the Cut.

As the card is pulled open, a little butterfly flies up from behind the flowers. For the wiper mechanism, I used one of the wipers from Mama Elephant's "Wiper Surprise" die. But since I ended up making my cards wider than the original die card size, I had to extend the length of the die cut wiper arm by adding a strip of clear acetate to get the butterfly to pop up where I wanted it to.

You can see the acetate strip extension  onto which the butterfuly is attached in this photo taken from the top of the card. I've come to realize that although assembling the base of this card is very easy, sometimes it can get tricky when trying to get the wiper element to hide and pop up right where you want it to. Lots of experimenting, trial and error, but once you got it to work, its so cool!                                                             

Lots of room on the backside of the card to add our loving sentiments to our dear sweet moms.

And since I thought our mom's might not know how to "open" their cards, I printed these instructions to include with their cards! Lol! Happy Mothers Day!