Santa Slider Window Card

Santa Slider Window Card

I know Christmas isn’t really about the presents, but gift giving is included in our celebration…

Christmas morning looks very different in our house now that my 4 children are adults. A few years ago, we moved from piles of wrapped gifts to a few small things and a monetary gift. I stressed about what we would do in the morning with very little to open and made it my mission to come up with a different “Christmas Morning Activity” for the kids each year instead. The first year was easy. They each received 10 wrapped boxes, each containing various amounts of money, and they needed to open them all to see how much their total gift was. Then it got trickier! We did a scavenger hunt one year where I hid a bunch of envelopes containing money near various holiday decorations around the house. They each got a list of clues, and when they found each decoration, they found the money-filled envelopes with their names on them. They worked in teams/pairs and tried to see which pair could find all their loot first. Another year, I hid puzzle pieces (for 2 identical Christmas puzzles) around the house, and the same teams/pairs had to find all the pieces and build their puzzle first. This year, I found a Christmas themed home version of an “Escape Room Challenge” which the teams raced to solve. I’m amused at the friendly competition between them as they attack the challenges each year!

Another difference for this year was that instead of giving them cash (which required a trip to the bank to make the withdrawl and then another trip back to deposit it into their accounts), I transferred the money directly into their accounts. It felt a little weird to just tell them I transferred the money so I wanted to come up with an interactive card to “present the gift” to them. (It took me a while to get to the card project for this post, but I finally made it – lol!!)

When the ribbon is pulled, Santa slides back to reveal the gift. (Theirs actually had the amount showing!)

(inside: Use it to buy something fun!)

I created the Santa from a Silhouette cut file called “Santa Cartoon” (design #283758) by Sarah Bailey. The slider window card was created from another Silhouette file called “A2 Santa Slider Window Card” (design #100187) by Lori Whitlock. This file includes a Santa as well, but I had already purchased the “Santa Cartoon” file so I thought I would go with that.

The designer paper is called Christmas Cheer Peppermint by Lily Bee Designs. The card stock is Gina K Designs Cherry Red, Christmas Pine, Warm Glow, white, black and a scrap of yellow. All the text was computer generated.

Thanks for checking out my card project (and for putting up with my narrative leading to it)!

Sweet Treat Valentine’s Day Card

Sweet Treat Valentine’s Day Card

Sweet Valentine's Day Card 1

(inside: have a happy day!)

I made gumball machine shaker cards for my kids for Valentine’s day, and the “gumballs” are mini m&m’s. This fun card design was made with the “Snow Globe Gumball Machine” die set from Creek Bank Creations. As the product title suggests, this one set contains elements to create either a snow globe or a gumball machine. (Their video tutorial shows how this shaker card was made.)

The m&m’s are fun to shake, but they are also yummy to eat! When you open the card, you will find a zip strip that enables you to tear open the panel behind the gumball machine to get to the candy. How fun is that?! Creek Bank Creations has a zip strip die, but I already owned the “Essential Sentiment Rip Strips Die-namics” die set by My Favorite Things so I used that one instead. I stamped “open” on the strip using a stamp from the “Push Here” set from Lawn Fawn.

To cut the acetate for the shaker window, I used a die from the “Standard Circles Small” set from Spellbinders. I used pre-cut self adhesive foam rings from Creekbank Creations to create the shaker “resevoir” but forgot that I needed a double layer for each card to accomodate the thickness of the m&m’s and had not ordered enough. I ended up cutting my own foam rings for the last card from foam sheets with a die from the “Stitched Circle Ring Die Set” – both also from Creek Bank Creations. (I used a Copic Marker (C7) to color the edges of the foam so it blended in from the side.)

The red on red heart paper is from the “Happy Anniversary” digital paper pack by PrtSkinDigital that I purchased on Etsy. The light gray card stock is Bazzill Tiara, and the dark gray is from the “Cool Waters” pack by Recollections. I also used silver mirror card stock by Gift Boutique.

The greeting is from the “Miniature Type” stamp set by Clearly Besotted. It was heat embossed with white embossing powder and cut with a die from the “Sentiment Strips” die set from Photoplay. The sentiment on the inside is from the “One in a Million” set from Gina K Designs (retired?).

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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Harry Potter Spinner Pop-Up – Birthday Challenge #6

Harry Potter Spinner Pop-Up – Birthday Challenge #6

Harry Potter Spinner Pop-Up 1
(inside: have a magical day!)

Kelly came up with the idea for my 6th “birthday challenge” card (and for her birthday card this year). Happy Birthday, Kelly!

Kelly loves Harry Potter and wanted him featured on a card. Specifically, she wanted a “cute” Harry Potter image and a card design where the design on the front continued to the inside. She also wanted something to move when the card was opened. Here’s what I came up with…

Harry Potter Quiddich GIF

The moving element is the elusive golden snitch that Harry has to catch while playing quiddich for his school/house team. The pop-up mechanism is part of the “Spinner Square Pop-Up” die set by Karen Burniston. Check out her video tutorial to see how this type of card is made.

Harry Potter Spinner Pop-Pp 2

Harry was created with pieces from an svg file by JuicySVG that I purchased on etsy. I created a few extra pieces that were not part of the original design; he had no shoes and looked like he was wearing (black) dress robes which wouldn’t work while playing Quiddich -lol! Since he needed to be seen when the card was both closed and opened, I cut a window on the front and covered the opening with acetate.

Stamps were from the “Vertical Greetings” set (retired?) by Gina K Designs and “Fairy Friends” by Lawn Fawn.

I created a cut file from this google image for the golden snitch. The patterned paper on the front is from the “Wizard Paper Pack” from DigitalCollageCafe. Digital paper from the “Wizard School II” by cachivachedesign was used to create the cut file for the goal posts. Both of these shops can be found on Etsy.

At first, the goal posts were adhered directly to the inside of the card, but the snitch panel kept getting caught on the thick gold card stock so I cut the goal posts from an additional white panel and inlaid the gold pieces where the white ones had been. This made the goal posts flat and no longer interfered with the pop-up panel.

My original design included a clear, shaker panel for over the window opening to give the illusion of “magic” around Harry, but there was so much static between the two layers of acetate that the sequins stuck to the acetate and completely blocked Harry from view. Crazy, right?!

Harry Potter Shaker Fail

(The shaker panel in the photo is unfinished; I did not adhere the top frame to cover the tape since I ended up not keeping it on the card.)

I also originally wanted to decorate the inside to look like a quiddich pitch/stadium, but the acetate window made that difficult. Everything I tried clashed with the patterned paper on the front when the card was closed so I ultimately went with a CAS look for the inside. (With all the fails, this card took much longer to create than it should have – lol!)

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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Build a Snowman – Birthday Challenge #5

Build a Snowman – Birthday Challenge #5

Build a Snowman - front
(inside: Have a super cool birthday)

Kevin came up with the fifth of my “birthday challenge” card ideas, and it’s the card I made for him for his birthday this year. He had quite the list of requirements…

It had to have a cute boy wearing a hat. The boy had to be rolling a snowball to make a snowman. (Kevin wanted the snowball to get bigger as it was being rolled; I told him I didn’t think I could make it both roll and grow, and he chose for me to make the snowball roll.) And finally, the boy had to actually build the snowman. I think he’s trying to kill me – lol!!

The “cute” boy with a hat rolling the snowball is on the front of the card…

Build a Snowman - GIF 1

The “rolling snowball” was achieved by creating a “penny slider/spinner” element. HERE is a tutorial I previously posted for making a penny slider/spinner card.

I made the boy build the snowman on the inside.

Build a Snowman - GIF 2

For the “build the snowman” part of the challenge, I created a “slider card” element. HERE is a tutorial I previously posted for making a slider card. (I actually needed to use my own tutorial to remind me how to create this type of card!)

Build a Snowman - inside

The boy image was part of a digital stamp called “Boy Tickling Snowman” by kindacutebypatricia that I purchased on etsy. It was a line art image that I separated and “colored” with my Silhouette software. (My original thought was to die cut all the layers and paper piece the boy, but some of the pieces were too tiny for my Silhouette to cut cleanly so I created a “print and cut” file instead.) I did need to alter the position of his arm on the front so he could roll the snowball. The snowman is part of the same digital stamp.

The snowy sky was created with Stormy Sky Distress Ink, a blending brush, and a mask. Once inked, I spritzed the panel with water which reacted with the distress ink and created the white “snow” spots. I added a few hills with GKD Soft Stone ink and the mask.

The trees were cut from GKD Christmas Pine card stock with dies from the “Evergreen Die” set by Creek Bank Creations. I added a bit of snow with Chunky White Deep Impressions Embossing Enamel by Stampendous. (The powder wouldn’t stick with the tiny amounts of Versamark, so I used glue instead.)

I used several other Creek Bank Creations dies as well – the deer from the “Into the Woods Die” set, the greeting from the “Happy Birthday Chunky Sentiment Die” set, and a slit from the “Slit Die” set.

The sentiment on the inside of the card is a stamp from the “Snorkel Fun Penguin” set by Your Next Stamp, and the speech bubble was made with a die from the “Tag That!” set from Spellbinders.

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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Happy Birthday, Friend – Flip Card

Happy Birthday, Friend – Flip Card

(inside: We’ll be friends until we’re old and senile… then we’ll be new friends! Happy Birthday)

This interactive flip card features a seemingly “normal” card front with a surprise panel hiding beneath it.

Jennifer McGuire calls it a Pop-Up Panel card and shows how to create it in this video. (This is similar to a waterfall card but with only one flipping panel.) For Jennifer’s sample, she creates a 4 x 5 1/2 inch card base to allow the 1/4 inch tab to hang over (and still fit in an A2 size envelope). I wanted my finished base to still be 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches so I started with an 8 1/4 inch panel (instead of 8 1/2) and scored it at 4 (instead of 4 1/4). The back is still the standard size, but the front is shorter to allow the tab to hang out.

The images on the front are from the “A Little Something” and “Happy Birthday to You” stamp sets which are both from Gina K Designs (both retired?). I heat embossed them with GKD Fine Detail Black embossing powder and colored the packages in with Copic Markers ((Y15 and R29).

front of card

front of card when tab is pulled
inside when card is opened

The message on the hidden panel and continuing on the inside is from the “Just Kidding” stamp set from Stampin’ Up (retired?), and these were also heat embossed.

The “pull here” stamp was from the “Push Here” set from Lawn Fawn. I tried to heat emboss that to keep it all consistent, but it kept getting blobbed/blurry so I just stamped that in black ink. (Not sure why I was having such trouble with that!)

The patterned paper was from the “Hello Sunshine” paper pack from Gina K Designs (thanks Diana!). I used Wild Dandelion for the base.

I used a die from the Sizzix “Card, Base Step-ups #4” (discontinued) to create the slot needed for the flip mechanism, but you could easily create a slot with any slot die or even a craft knife or scissors; it doesn’t need to be that perfect/exact since you don’t see it when the card is assembled.

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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