A New Pop-up Cake

I had quite a few birthday cards to do in December, which gave me a chance to play and experiment with different styles of cards. This is one I did for the daughter of one of dh's co-workers who celebrated her first birthday. The front of this card was done in Design Studio, welding letters from Mickey Font, Princess Hello Kitty from Hello Kitty Font, and the number 1 from Plantin Schoolbook. The grid/frame was created by welding squares and rectangle shapes from the George cartridge.
I used a matchbook type closure, embellished with a little lace (Martha Stewart doily edge punch) and a scalloped circle (SU scallop circle punch, SU Think Happy Thoughts stamp set, rhinestone flower from Photocraft) to keep it nicely closed.

And here's the surprise pop-up cake on the inside! Actually, I guess it's "half" a cake, but I thought it was so neat, I had to try this. Although I have seen this type of pop up cake card a few times in pop up instructional books, I didn't think I'd ever attempt one on my own, mostly because I am a total klutz with an exacto knife.

But not too long ago while blog surfing, I came across Linda Davis' blog, Just For Sharing, where she had posted her version of this pop up cake which she created with Inkscape and SCAL. Linda generously shares her scut and svg files for her creations on her blog, and I was excited to try this, knowing my Cricut would be doing the cutting instead of my exacto knife!

Just look at all the cuts on this cake! My cricut cut each one of those lines perfectly straight and in the right place. Such would not have been the case had I attempted to do this by hand. Thank you, Linda, you made this very intricate card so easy to do with your cut file! All I had to do was fold and decorate...

Ballerina Hello Kitty is from Hello Kitty Font cartridge, "happy birthday" and "allison" is from Opposites Attract, hearts & scalloped half circles are from George, and the number 1 from Plantin Schoolbook. Tiny flower cuts are from a sizzlit die and tiny ovals were cut using a Fiskars hand punch.

Had quite a bit of fun embellishing my half cake, but after it was done I thought it looked more like a stage than a cake! Oh well, maybe next time I should add some candles on it to make it look more like a cake.

Hugs 'n Kisses 'n Butterfly Wishes...

This was my first attempt at a "Cake in A Box" which I originally saw (and immediately fell in love with) done by Patti on her blog, Creations By Patti. As I've mentioned many many times, Patti is one incredibly talented and creative lady, and the things she comes up with never ceases to amaze me. You can take a peek at her awesome cake creations posted here, complete with tutorials on how you can create one too. Her work is so beautiful and meticulously done, I am always so inspired by all she does.


When the cover to the box is lifted, this is what it looks inside....kind of looks like one of those little "explosion boxes"...

The sides of the box fold down...

And opens up to a full 12x12 inches laid flat, with lots of room for embellishing and sentiments!

One of the nicest things about this is that since the cake never gets folded flat, you can embellish it to your heart's desire without ever having to worry about the bulkiness of it or about whether or not it will hold its shape.

I used pretty butterfly printed card stock from s.e.i.'s Chocolat collection to do the cover and inside panels for my box.
Here are a couple close up shots of a few of the panels...

The sentiments on each panel were computer generated using Scriptina font, printed on vellum, and adhered onto the individual panels. Panels on the inside and sides of the box outside were embellished with fancy scrolling cuts from the Home Accents cartridge.

The sweet little paper blossoms you see sprinkled on the cake and panels were made using a hydrangea flower Design Studio cutfile created and very generously shared by Shirley O on her blog, Paper, Scissors Ink. Shirley is quite a wiz at designing some very cool stuff on Design Studio and SCAL. Take this link to to her blog and you'll agree! (Don't forget to leave a comment thanking her if you decide to download any of her wonderful cutfiles!)

And here's a close up of the Sizzix Pop Up Cake in the center. I loved Patti's butterfly cake so much, I had to try one too. Butterflies on mine are pink vellum cut with a Martha Stewart punch, and embellished with tiny pearls. Cake sides are washi paper and the scalloped "icing" is a border cut from Plantin Schoolbook. Used a Nestablilties scalloped circle die for the "doily" and a 1/4" handpunch for the holes.

It took me quite a while to put this all together, but I must admit it was so much fun! This special little cake in a box was created for my mom for her birthday last month. The best part of it all was watching her face light up as she opened the box to find her cake inside... makes everything seem worthwhile, right?

How Many Candles?

Here's a kind of fun card I came up with for my bil's recent birthday. Though he comes across as being a quiet person, he often says the most witty and funniest things when he does speak. I wanted to make him a card that would bring a smile to his face.

For his card, I used "the Count" from the Sesame Street Friends cartridge, and cut him at 9 inches. Couldn't find candles that I liked so I created my own using the rectangle and leaf shapes from Plantin Schoolbook. The wording on the front of the card was created by welding letters from Base Camp in Design Studio. Used some old patterned paper from KI Memories for the background and layered and foam dotted all my cuts onto it.

Sentiment on the inside was computer generated using a font called "Kosal Says Hi". Hope my bil enjoyed his card as much as I had fun making it...."Muah ha ha ha ha!"

You're Still the World to Me!

Dh and I celebrated our anniversary in October but I never had a chance to post the card I created for him. Figured that since Valentines Day is just around the corner, now might be an appropriate time to post this card.

First saw this style of card created and posted by my awesomely talented blogging pal, Patti of Creations By Patti, as a very cool Halloween card together with her tutorial. Patti originally got the idea for her card from Jan Tink, who claims fame as its oringinator, and calls this her "Marvelous Magical Marquee Card". Jan also has a video tutorial for this on her blog, which is definitely a must see to fully understand how to put this card together.



So, although the front of this card looks rather plain, opening the flaps to the card...





...reveals a sweet surprise, as the bright glittered moon...


...is "magically" replaced with an image of the world!

Here's the card fully open...

Really liked how this turned out, and hope to experiment with it a bit more, to do another soon, hopefully with a larger window.

For the embellishing on this card, I used scalloped heart frames created with Design Studio, Cricut and the George cartridge. Tiny stars on the front are from a Fiskars hand punch, larger star is a Marvy punch. The crescent moon is from the George cartridge, glittered with stickles. The world die cut is from Quickutz. And the cute teddy bear couple is a scut file created in Inkscape and SCAL using a stamped image from a Darcy Hunter stamp. Font used for sentiments is DJ Fancy. As a final touch, I added a few heart shaped raindrops from Cloud Nine.

2010 Roars in Like a Tiger!

This was my first project to celebrate the New Year. Being that 2010 is the year of the Tiger, I decorated my "designer bag" with the tiger head cut from Animal Kingdom. Originally I had hoped to find a fiercer looking tiger and do a cut with SCAL, but being that I was short on time, I had to settle with this "cute" tiger instead. Used my new Pagoda cartridge (thanks, Kris!) for the bamboo cuts behind the tiger and Plantin Schoolbook with welding in Design Studio for the "Happy New Year".

Here's the back view of the bag...

Back of the bag decorated with more bamboo from the Pagoda cartridge and "2010" cut with Plantin Schoolbook. The gold prismatic paper is just wrapping paper cut to fit, and the red Asian borders on the top and bottom were cut from Japanese washi paper.

I used the tutorial created by Cambria Turnbow on her blog, "Stamp A Little Love, Baby" to make the designer bags, but altered the size to a larger size to accomadate my goodies. For my bag, I cut the bottom box piece to 4-1/2"x6-1/2" and followed the rest of her instructions.

For December Graduates

Here are a couple graduation cards I made for two very dear friends who graduated from college this month. Again, I used the style of gift card holder shared by Dawn Griffith on her video tutorial.

For my cards I used a cutfile I had created using the George cartridge and Design Studio so the base cards on these were pretty quick to do.




The first card went to a sweet young lady, so I chose to use cuts from the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge. For the front of the card, I cut Hello Kitty at 2 inches and added the grad hat from the Locker Talk cartridge, flipped and also cut at 2 inches. The "Congratulations" is a Sizzix Sizzlet from the Cardmaking Set.


For the inside I used the Hello Kitty graduate cut at 4 inches. Made her gown in green for the University of Hawaii and tassel yellow for the Bachelor of Science graduates. Sentiment inside was computer generated, and font is Lambo Hmk. All background printed papers are from the DCWV Sweet Stack.



My second card went to a young man, also graduating from the University of Hawaii. The owl cut on the front of the card comes from the Happily Ever After cartridge, cut at 3 inches. Graduation cap is from the Locker Talk cartridge, cut at 1.5 inches.

The die cuts of the cap and diploma on the inside of the card are from Quickutz.

Congratulations and best wishes once again to our two UH graduates!

Seasons Greetings, 2009

These dainty little snowflake favor boxes were created to share at the Cricut Club meeting held in November at Photocraft Hawaii. The whole concept of this design was actually lifted from the cute little Halloween spider favor boxes shared at the previous month's meeting by my good friend, Kris. At the meeting, one of the members commented on how cute a snowflake would be on that box for Christmas. I thought it was such a great idea and decided to do a cutfile with Design Studio for it. I really liked how these turned out. I used George and the Joys of the Season cartridges to create the cutfile for these. Wasn't too sure at first what to use for the box base, so I experimented with different types of paper - vellum, Bazzill bling (blue), and clear shrink plastic. I really liked how they all turned out, still can't decide which is my favorite. Snowflakes were simply cut with white cardstock and embellished with stickles and some Robin's Nest dewdrops. Boxes were then filled with yummy Hersheys Kisses.

Here are some of the other wonderful Cricut projects that were shared by members at the last meeting. Super cute snowman gift tag was created by Michele...the snowman is from the Hello Kitty cartridge. List organizer folder was shared by Kris...the festive "Ho, ho, ho" font is from the Storybook cartridge, welded in Design Studio. And the fancy pillowbox favors/ornaments are a brainstorm of Robin...she used the Wedding Solutions cartridge to create them.

Photo Craft store owner Brian was kind enough to make individual kits with all the pieces cut from the Hello Kitty cartridge so that all of us who attended the meeting could do this cute Hello Kitty "Make and Take" Christmas card. Isn't this holiday Doodlebug patterned paper the cutest? BTW, for anyone that might be interested, the next Photocraft Cricut Club meeting is scheduled for Sunday, January 10th at 12:30 pm. It promises to be another fun afternoon of informal sharing of ideas, tips and projects.

I didn't get to do too many crafty holiday things this year because I just got started too late. But I did get to do at least one simple gift card holder for our mail carrier. The template and instructions for this are shared by Dawn Griffith of Dawn's Stamping Thoughts on a video tutorial here.

For my card, I used a cutfile I created on Design Studio using George. But if you watch Dawn's tutorial, you'll find this card is so easy that you can quickly put it together even without a cutfile. The cute little reindeer is from the Doodlecharms cartridge, and holly and berries are cut from a QuicKutz die. "Happy Holidays" is a QuicKutz SkinniMini font called Banana Split.

The only other Christmas card I made this year was the annual family Christmas card. Funny thing, when I first came up with the idea for this card this summer, I thought it would be fast and easy because I knew would be using my Cricut to cut all the pieces. I guess forgot to take into consideration how long it would actually take for my Cricut to cut all the pieces (7 for each card), as well as the time it would take to assemble my 90 cards once all the pieces were cut. Then there were the unanticipated mechanical difficulties. Halfway through the cutting phase, Design Studio and Cricut suddenly stopped communicating, and I found I had to let the machine rest a good 15 to 30 minutes between cuts. Thank goodness my dh and dd helped with the production and mailing of these.

Here's what the finished card looked like opened up...a slightly altered gatefold style card. I used the round card cut from the Wild Card cartridge to create the base, George to cut the circle inserts and photos, and Joys of the Season cartridge to cut the wreath.

Hope everyone had a wonderful time with family and friends this Christmas! Happy Holidays!