Bunnies Galore

Although Easter has come and gone, I have one last project: a card shared with friends at a crafting get together, and some Easter treats from my crafty friends to share today. 

As you can tell from the bulging card in the photo, this card turned out to be quite bulky so I decided to use a belly band which doubled as the decoration for the front of the card to keep it closed.

The pop up inside is made up of several layers of stepped and angled panels... lots of places to add lots of different embellishments! For my card I used lots of bunnies and chicks created using dies from Eline's Collectibles Baby Bunny and Chicken Family die sets. Also used dies from Karen Burniston Easter Charms and Spring Animals sets. Spellbinders Club Blooms die set was used to cut the flowers.

Views from the top and side show the three steps and six angles that make this pop up. The idea for this card comes from Sam Calcott of Mixed Up Crafters. She calls this a Pop Up Picture Panel Card and provides all the instructions and measurements needed to recreate this type of card on her You Tube Channel, here. 

As much as I liked the overall look of the pop up in this card, I didn't care too much for the resulting bulkiness. I'm sure that including so many embellishments, each being made up of several layers of cardstock added to the thickness. I did another test version of this card earlier using only flat  images and it turned out a lot flatter, so I may try a similar card again later. 

This was the only Easter card I made this year so it was mailed to our granddaughter. Hope she liked it!   

The Easter Bunny didn't stop at our home this year but happily I have crafty friends who shared their special creations for the holiday.

Sweet friend Kris made this adorable bunny treat holder filled with chocolates and wrapped it up in a very cool cellophane treat bag that's printed to look like a basket. So cute!

Dear Lorna cleverly origami folded a kawaii bunny basket and also this fancy Easter Egg holder with ears. She added cute bunny faces and wrapped each in cello bags with the cutest Easter toppers.

Thank you for stopping by for a visit today. Hope everyone was able to relax and enjoy Easter.

Bunny Treat Boxes

In addition to the cookie boxes I shared in my last post, I also had enough time to put together two kinds of bunny treat boxes to share with friends and family for Easter.

Inspired by all the very cute and creative Easter treat boxes posted online made by others, I put together this very simple bunny treat holder using the cut file for a bunny from a shaped Easter Bunny Card designed by Lori Whitlock.

By welding a mirror image of the bunny to the original with a rectangular gusset, and by adding two holes to the necks, I was able to place a small cello bag of treats in between and secure it in place with  ribbon tied into  a bow. And of course I couldn't forget to add a pompom for a cute bunny tail.

My second bunny treat box is not really a box, but a "Bunny Candy Wrap" from My Scrap Chick, which was originally designed to hold a 1.5 oz Hershey Chocolate Candy Bar.

I saw a post on their Facebook page where crafters had decreased the size of this template to hold smaller sized candy bars and decided to try changing the size too. Instead of a bar of chocolate, I wanted make mines to hold Yoku Moku Cigare cookies so I enlarged the template to be taller and deeper.

Bunny's bow tie serves as the belly band that keeps the wrap closed.

By enlarging the wrap, I was able to fit three cookies to into each holder. I especially liked that these came together very quickly because no gluing was required to create the wrap.                                         I had fun putting together 15 sets of the two Easter treat holders; the later Easter date gave me extra time to spend crafting. Did you know the day Easter's falls on each year depends on the moon cycle? It won't be for another 5 years for Easter to be late in April again. Next year Easter falls during the first week of April so I may not be as productive! Hopefully I'll remember to start planning early.

Easter Bakery Boxes

Made cookie boxes to share with a group of ladies with whom I've been friends with since high school. We try to get together once or twice a year to share a meal, touch bases and have fun reminiscing. There's a lot of conversations about travel, grandkids and especially, "Oh! Do you remember when...?"

With Easter just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to make Easter themed cookie boxes. I found a great tutorial for designing easy templates for hinged lid boxes of any size by Dr. Sonia SV on her blog "Cards and Crafts"  I created my template in Make the Cut to make boxes, 5" x 4.25" with a depth of 1.5" and a capacity to hold half a dozen medium sized cookies. I added an oval window on the lid to make them look like those bakery boxes that show the cookies inside.

I started decorating the box lid with a pastel plaid digital paper from the Happy Easter Digital Paper Pack by Printable-Cuttable-Creatables. Marianne Designs Eline's Chicken Family and Baby Bunnies Collectable dies were used to piece together the bunny and chick; and Happy Easter was die cut from Karen Burniston Easter Charms Set. The oval scalloped window frame was created in Make the Cut by welding circles around an oval shape.

Put together eight of these boxes, filled them with butter cookies and wrapped them in cello bags cinched with a tulle bow. These were fun to make! With Easter falling late in April this year, I had fun crafting to my heart's delight... more to come!

Kokeshi Rectangular Pop Up Card

If you're thinking this Rectangle Pop Up Card looks familiar, you're absolutely correct. It's almost  exactly the same as the card I posted last week except that I swapped Hello Kitty with a kokeshi doll for this card. 

I really liked the look of the Japanese torii gate with the cherry blossom tree behind it on last week's card but since this card would be for my mom (who isn't a big fan of Hello Kitty), I decided to use a paper pieced kokeshi doll image instead. 

The cutting file for the kokeshi doll was one I created for a card I put together last year from clip art purchased on Etsy. I really love the time saved when I can re-use older cut files to make new projects!

Since I also had the cutting files for the torii gate and cherry blossom tree already made and sized, cutting and assembling this card was fairly quick. The template for the rectangle pop up base was purchased from the Lori Whitlock store.

The front panel of this card was decorated with tiny punched sakura and a hot foiled and cut "Happy Birthday" using Simon Hurley's hot foil plate and die. Then I added a computer generated sentiment to the back panel.

Here's a view of the card collapsed and flattened, ready to slide into an envelope. This rectangle pop up card is quickly becoming one of my favorite style of card.

 

Hello Kitty Rectangular Pop Up Card

Isn't it remarkable how Hello Kitty appeals to girls of all ages? I remember adoring her as a young adult, then as a mom of a daughter who also loved Hello Kitty, and still even now as a gramma with a granddaughter. This fun rectangular pop up birthday card was created for my sweet friend who also is a fan of Hello Kitty. 

For the base pop up template, I used the "Rectangle Pop Up Arbor" svg cut file purchased from the Lori Whitlock Shop. Before cutting, I enlarged the original template to as large as would fit onto a 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock.

Then I swapped the original garden arbor from the purchased file with a Japanese torii gate. I also switched out the tree from the original file to a tree with cherry blossoms. Cutting file for the Japanese gate was created in Make the Cut design program from an image found on the internet and cut file for the tree is a freebie file, "Autumn Tree" from SVG Cuts. The cherry blossoms were cut using an old mini punch from Punch Bunch.

Cutting file for Hello Kitty dressed in a kimono was traced in Make the Cut from an old coloring book image, and the fan she's holding was created using an old Cricut cartridge called "Pagoda". The Happy Birthday sentiment on the front was foiled and cut using Simon Hurley's "Birthday Sentiments" hot foil plate and die by Spellbinders.

I love how this card folds flat for mailing.

I also made a very simple gift card holder and embellished it with tiny cherry blossoms to match the front panel of the card.

Casino Style Birthday

When I learned my brother in law would be spending his birthday in Las Vegas, I knew I wanted to make him a Vegas themed card. 

I decorated the front of his card simply by gluing miniature playing cards together to create a great hand. The sentiment and shadow layers for both the sentiment and the cards were created in Make the Cut design program.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's House of Cards die set to add this huge, fun pop up. The large gold shadowed sentiment on the left was die cut using a MFT Stamps "Celebrate" word die.

 

This was my second time using the House of Cards die set and the assembly of this card went a whole lot smoother and easier than on my first try. I kept the design of my House of Cards to a simple 4 story structure using playing cards I had printed onto plain white 110 lb cardstock and everything came together very nicely. Looking forward to trying to build more architecturally challenging structures with this die set soon.

In keeping with the Vegas theme, I decorated this slider box with a print and cut image to look like a slot machine. Used glitter, foil and holographic papers on the panels to give the slider box the "bling bling" excitement I always feel whenever I walk into a casino on the Las Vegas strip.

As the drawer to the box is pulled open to reveal the the gift card inside, the front panel of the box pops up. Hope my brother in law enjoyed his gift and card as much as I had fun making them!

Thanks Sew Much!

Ever had a card you spent hours creating for someone special get lost in the mail, never to be received or seen by the person you sent it to? Such is the sad tale of this card that I sent to my very crafty aunt (who loves to sew)  to thank her for some craft supplies she had shared with me. 
  

I used Whimsy Stamps "Thanks Word and Shadow" die set to cut the shadowed sentiment for the front of the card  and embellished with die cut buttons, thimble, scissors, needle and thread from Karen Burniston's "Sewing Charms" die set.

On the inside, I used the mechanism from Karen Burniston's "Twist Flower Pop Up" die to animate the teddy bear and sewing machine in the center of the card.  As the card is opened, the panel with the teddy bear and sewing machine twists to pop forward into position.

I used Marjorie Ann Designs "Franklin's Fall Quilt" svg cutting file for the paper pieced Franklin teddy bears and larger spool of thread that he's sitting on.

Shadowed sentiment was created in Make the Cut Design program and the smaller spool of thread, scissors, and sewing machine were die cut from the "Sewing Charms" die set. Large blank space on the left side of the card is where I wrote my thank you note. I had fun putting this card together, thinking my aunt would really enjoy it. Luckily I had taken photos of the card so I could show her. We're both disappointed she never received it.