Box of Flowers Card -- what a breath of springtime!

Shhhh, it's soon to be a BIG-0 birthday for one of my friends and papercrafting students, Susan. She is unabashedly turning 70 at the beginning of March.  

Given that she sees me as her crafting inspiration, I needed to go "all out" on a birthday card for this special woman. I never tried a box card before, and this would be my opportunity.

First the pictures of the finished project:

This is the card, folded flat, measuring 6"h x 5.5"w

This is the card with its flaps opened and pushed out to a "box".

Now, there are many tutorials on how to make this card (just do as I do, Google it, and/or search on YouTube).  The best tutorial I found was on a blog by a woman named Cathy at http://extremecards.blogspot.com.  This is her cutting file:

Here is a link to the blog post where Cathy describes how to assemble the box: 
http://extremecards.blogspot.com/search/label/boxes

Then the fun of decorating your box begins!  I used Close To My Heart's new line of Ariana papers and Complements to decorate the base and to make the flowers. The colors in this line of paper are some of Susan's favorites, so I think she'll really like the card.

I cut the words "Happy Birthday" from Bazzill metallic paper that I bought from Scrapbook.com, using the multi-cut feature on my Silhouette Cameo and one of the great files by Rivka Wilkins for the Silhouette Online Store.   The glittered letter stickers in Susan's name and 7-0 are retired Pixie glitter letters, from Close To My Heart. The butterfly die and the leaves on vine die are both from Cheery Lynn Designs. The ribbon is "Olive You" Rumple Ribbon by Lovebug Creations. 

To allow the flowers to have some movement when the card is closed, I mounted each on a green florist wire by taping it to the back of the flower, and covering the tape over with a circle of floral paper. The numbers 7-0 are on thin silver wire, to match, instead. All of the wires are glued or taped onto the center fold tab (see template, above) which rests in the inside of the box. Oh, and I used my favorite corner rounder (by CTMH, of course) on the flap edges to complete the look. 

Why not bring a little spring into your household by making one of these pretty pots of flowers for your desk?

July = Vacation!

Oh, happy day!

During the first week of July, the manufacturing plant where I work (day job = bills paid) closes for annual maintenance. It's a forced vacation, and a time to catch some rays as well as refresh my creativity in the loft. It calls for an easel card to place on my desk. Here it is!

To create this card, I used the adorable image of the relaxin' cat from Hambo Stamps. This image of the "Cool Cat" is actually a FREE digi-image that you can download by clicking HERE. I've purchased many of the Hambo Stamp images as I think they are totally adorable!

For this image, I colored it using a combination of colored pencils with gamosol technique to blend, Copic Markers, and a white accent pen. I cut the image from my white drawing paper using Cricut's Accent Essentials cartridge (the cloud shape, on shadow, using the "Center Point" feature), and cut a yellow highlight piece slightly larger for mounting. I inked the edges, as the white seemed to get lost on the yellow.

I then cut a palm tree using Cricut's Summer Vacation cartridge. I cut multiple images, some from brown (for the trunk), some from Bazzill's green for the leaves. I stacked the brown for the trunk to give it dimension, and then cut apart the green leaves and stacked/splayed to give the tree a more realistic feel. I used hot glue to be sure the leaves stayed where I wanted them, quickly.

Bling time! I punched through the leaves using my Big Bite CropADile, and placed two brads. The brads I used were yellow, which just looked a little "off" when said and done. So I blinged them with cinnamon-colored Stickles.

I created the text "On Vacation" using Sure Cuts A Lot, setting and manipulating the font to make it look more fun. I twisted the last "n", for example, and elongated some of the letters. Then welded, glued and blinged with Stickles.

The card design was placed on a small A-frame easel card onto which I glued a fun paper from a summer stack.

Hambo's Cool Cat accurately shows what I'll be doing at poolside for the next couple of days. Then I have some writing to do, and some more play too. Enjoy your "cool" days of summer!