More Baby Blocks

I had so much fun making my nieces Baby Blocks Cards that I was inspired to use the Wooden Blocks concept for a relatively simple pop-up card. The blocks are 1.5 inches square, so they flatten securely inside the 5.25 inch square card. I cut the letters and frames (and the interior squares) with my Cricut. The yellow doilies were cut with a Sizzix die, and the scalloped ovals for the message section were cut with Spellbinders dies. The card base is a double-sided DP from my stash.

For the front, I totally raided my embellishment stash! The "Welcome" and "ABC" 3D elements are actually stickers; I can't take any credit for their awesomeness!

The "ABC" sticker has a red button on the right side, which causes it to flash with tiny lights. It's stuck to the base sticker with Velcro, so it can be removed to replace the battery.

The metal words were both heat-embossed, the "Baby" in a white/glitter mix and the "girl" just in glitter. I hung a metal charm from the "g" and adhered all the metal pieces with Glossy Accents.

The adhesive pearl swirls were cut from larger pieces. The lace daisy trim is from my stash; I literally had this much left!

Here's another view of the inside:

I'm entering this card into these wonderful challenges:
4 Crafty Chicks: Bling
The Crafting Cafe: A Baby Is Born
Natalie and Amy's Challenge: Celebrate Something
Sarah Hurley Challenge #83: Texture and dimension

Thank you for visiting,

Last-minute Greetings

This week's Aud Sentiments and Allsorts challenges pretty much sum up how my house looks right now: Happy Holidays and Last Minute Christmas!

My creative life was changed forever when I discovered the world of origamic architecture, and it was further changed by my discovery of the pop-out pencil holder at Extreme Cards & Papercrafting. Using her template, I created my own version in SCAL. I had precut 7 yellow houses on my Cricut, so when I realized I needed some special cards for family all I had to do was glue on some pretty paper! The little cards on the front are hand stamped and punched; I also made small yellow message stickers for the inside.

Supplies: DCWV, Martha Stewart and Recollections cardstocks, gStudio silicon stamps, Stash brads, CraftSmart ink, Fiskars scissors & punch, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Offray ribbon


Happy Holidays! You can download the personal use only cutting file for this card here.
If you do, please leave a comment to let me know. And I'd love to see photos!

All wrapped up

I've been pretty excited about Christmas gift-giving preparation ever since I discovered the pop-up gift card holder at Whoopsie Daisy. One of my favorite parts of this design is that it's basically just a card on the front, so you can design it any way you want. For this card, I added a bottom flap and tied a present-style ribbon around the card, so that it will pop open merrily with a simple tug. I plan to hand-write the recipients' names onto the tag. I'm entering this particular card in the Anything Goes Craft Your Passion Challenge.

Ah Scrapmaster's Paradise, you never let me down: I found the color inspiration I wanted in their simple, not-quite-traditional combo of bright green, light green & rosey red. I wish I hadn't missed the deadline for this combo, but oh well!

Because I wanted the final card to be a standard 5.5x4.25, I abandoned my original one-piece card design in exchange for two inside pieces and an outside cover. I had big plans to make my own pop-ups in SCAL for Christmas, but when December arrived I went ahead and splurged and bought the pop-up words predesigned from SvgCuts.

Inspiration: Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combo #77: wild wasabi, garden green, rose red
Craft Your Passion Challenge #35: Anything Goes

Pop up words cutting file: Premium Pop Up Cards SVG Kit from SvgCuts
Pop-up gift card holder tutorial inspiration: Whoopsie Daisy
Supplies: ColorBox ink, ProvoCraft Texture paper, Core'dinations & Recollections cardstocks, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Offray ribbon, stash eyelet, Crop-O-Dile II, ZipDry glue, Fiskars decorative scissors, rubber wood-block stamp by Great Impressions

Merry Whimsy

I've been whittling down my pile of Christmas-themed paper for cards (which I can't post yet, since the intended recipients should see them before a billion bloggers!), so I haven't been looking outside for inspiration too much this week. Sitting back and admiring my basket full of cards, however, made me want to try something different, so I took on the merry challenge at ColourQ.

Mom had sent me a bunch of stamps she collected, amongst them a whimsical set of Christmas-themed fairies that seemed meant for this particular mix of colors. I was very pleased to find an excuse to use them!
On white I stamped the scene in three colors (green, turquoise, red), and then did my best at shading with colored pencils. I used the snowflake that came with the stamp set to add yellow and green elements to the scene and backing paper. For that little something extra, I added a stripe of yellow and green ribbon.

Upon posting this, I realized that I missed the ColourQ deadline. How did that happen?! Oh well, I do it for the challenge anyway!

Inspiration:
ColourQ Challenge #62: real red, daffodil delight, tempting turquoise, glorious green + white
Dutch Dare Card Challenge #92: Christmas

Supplies: ColorBox inks, Core'dinations & Recollections cardstocks, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Tim Holtz scissors, ZipDry glue, Fiskars decorative scissors, Offray ribbon, silicon stamps from my Christmas stash, Crayola colored pencils

Sassy Rudolph and Angel Rainie

As I mentioned in my last post, Therese Travis at Paperfaces Designs is rolling out her holiday images. She sent us several adorable digi stamps and svgs, but I just had to drop everything and use her Angel Rainie, who comes with her own reindeer.
I made a two-color (with gold "aging") easel card, and used brads to make the reindeer head and the angel wings move. I used "pop-up presents" to weight the easel. Here is the card laid flat:
And from the side:

Supply list: Cricut personal cutter, SCAL software, Core'dinations card stock, JoAnn Craft Essentials heart brads, Oriental Trading Co. jingle-bell brads, Offray ribbon, ColorBox gold ink, Crop-A-Dile 2, Zip-Dry glue. PaperFaces digi stamp: Angel Rainie.

New projects featuring PaperFaces Designs

Not that one could tell by this blog, but I've but in the eye of a real crafting storm for the past few weeks. Sometimes I feel like I have two crafting moods: too many insane ideas, and no ideas at all. Recently, however, I've discovered a third: working on another version of an idea. Wild, I know.

Therese at PaperFaces Designs shared part of her upcoming Christmas holiday series with her design team, and I just love all of them. Our Holiday projects will post soon, but I couldn't help but use a couple of the angels for everyday cards.

Pop-up present card supply list: ColorBök card stock, DCWV Blossoms & Butterflies paper, HP color printer, generic matte photo paper, Galena metallic ribbon, Zip-Dry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, PaperFaces digi stamps: Angel Stacie and Angel Goldie.