Dad's Birthday Card

As a child, it was always exciting to get a card with your actual age printed on it.  When you are young you are always "going on ..."  (5 going on 6, etc.).  Once you are an adult, the actual number is less important, however, the "milestone birthdays" (usually the ones divisible by five) often are celebrated with a card that highlights the number.  When you reach a certain age, you start to brag about your age again - I remember my grandmother, who died at 89, always said she was "in her 90th year!"

I decided to make my Dad a card with a nice big shiny "87" on the front.  I wanted to use chipboard and did not have time to fuss with drying times for glitter or paint.  So, once again, I reached for the DCWV "Dazzle" stack with the incredibly shiny silver paper.

For the first time in a very long time, maybe years, I pulled out my old red Sizzix machine and the "Fun Serif" dies.  I cut the 8 and 7 from chipboard and from the Dazzle paper (since this is one sided paper I made sure to have the "right" side of the paper against the cutting edge of the die).  Then I wondered what would be the best way to make sure that the Dazzle paper was firmly attached to the chipboard.  I decided to use Scor-Tape but soon realized that it was not easy to make it fit the chipboard after it was cut.

So, I added some 1/2 inch Scor-Tape in closely spaced lines across the piece of chipboard and cut the numbers again.

This nifty little trick gave me numbers with a nearly solid covering of double sided tape so I could easily adhere the sparkly layer to the pieces.

You can see here how much better this worked than the example on the left where I was trying to fit tape to the number after it was cut!

I also used the 1/8 inch Scor-Tape on the inside of the card.  Since it is a pop up card, I wanted to be sure the insides would stay firmly attached.  I placed strips of the tape all along the sides and top of the folding parts of the card.  I removed the backing strips and set the insert into the card base.  Then I folded the top down onto the sticky tape.

The moveable parts are now firmly in place. 

Next I added tape to the bottom section of the insert, removed the backing and folded the card shut on top of the sticky insert.

This pop up insert will stay in the card no matter how many times it is opened!  I added some gems to the candle flames after this photo was taken.  This is a file from the Silhouette store that I purchased and cut with my Silhouette SD.  A lot of the files in the store are very simple or are things that I could make myself but this file would be very time consuming to make so I was happy to pay 99 cents for it.  I have already used it for several birthday cards.

We had a great trip to Pennsylvania and Dad is doing well.  Here he is with our younger son just before we left to drive home this morning.  Thanks again to all of you who sent cards - he really enjoyed them and particularly liked seeing how many different states they had come from.

It was fun to see all of the guesses about what I paid for this little box and the treasures inside it.  Miz MaryAnn got it spot on - $2!  I think that was a great deal.

My hand is healing - the stitches are due to come out Wednesday morning.  I can move the fingers much more easily now that the swelling is down - a good thing since I'll be decorating a Christmas tree today. I hope your Thanksgiving preparations are going well - we will have a veggie feast here and then will go see some of our family for dessert.  No turkey since we leave the next day for Spain and our vegan son won't be wanting turkey leftovers while we are gone!

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Birthday Cupcake Pop-ups

These basic pop up cards are easy and fun to make.  I made three identical cards for our triplet nephews last year.  We are missing their birthday while we are at the wedding (it was the same day as the rehearsal dinner) but we'll have a celebration when everyone is home again.

You can read the original post with complete step by step directions HERE.


We will be totally caught up in the last minute preparations, travel  and then our son's wedding so for the next few days I'll be posting some links to some favorite projects and posts that address topics that I am asked about frequently.  I'll update with wedding photos when I can and will be back to a more normal routine after the first week of September.  Thanks to everyone for all of the wedding good wishes.

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Pop-Up Birthday Cupcake Cards

I have always been interested in pop-up cards.  I think it is fun to see an unexpected surprise when you open a card.  I made some simple pop-up cards for the triplet birthday cards.  I will be posting more types of pop-ups in the near future and I thought it would be a good idea to start with an easy one first!  (Fair Warning - this is a very photo heavy post since I wanted to show the process in detail).

I wanted to keep the cards simple so I decided to start with some cardstock that is covered with "Happy Birthdays" - this is from a DCWV Spring Stack from a couple of years ago.

When I looked at the 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock I could see that the design was symmetrical around the 6 inch measurement.  By cutting the sheet in half and then cutting the card bases I could create matching cards and have a bold brown "Happy Birthday" near the top.

I cut the cardstock into two 12 x 6 sections, then cut a 4 1/4 x 12 inch strip keeping the block of type I wanted at the top of the card to the left of the strip.  I scored and folded the cardstock at 6 inches and then trimmed 1/2 inch from the bottom to create a vertical A2 card base.

I used two sheets of cardstock to make three identical card bases.  The cardstock I used allowed me to keep the cards very simple but you could do an elaborate front with many layers on the plain base. 

I simply added a seven cut from glitter cardstock to finish the fronts.

One quick tip - I nearly always use Design Studio, even for simple cuts like this, because I can conserve paper.  In the screen shot above you can see how the sevens would cut if they are just entered directly from the cartridge.

By rotating one of the sevens I was able to fit them together closely and use less paper - this is particularly nice if you are using specialty paper or have only a limited amount of a certain paper to work with.

Next, I needed to figure out how to make the pop up portion of the card.  I created a cardstock inner layer for the card and added two slits one inch apart and two inches long, centered in the inner layer.

This is the screen shot of the inner layer.  To make the slits, I simply chose a two inch square and then used the center bottom handle to slide up the bottom of the square until it was a very thin line.

Next, I scored the insert in the center with my Scor-Pal.  The insert is slightly smaller than the 11 x 4 1/4 inch card base so I needed to place it carefully.

At the left side of the Scor-Pal, I placed the insert at the 1/8 inch mark...

...and then scored at the 5 1/2 inch mark as you would for a vertical A2 card base.

After folding the inner layer along the score line (remember to fold towards the "mountain" of the score line), I placed the fold against the right side of the Scor-Pal and scored at the one inch mark from the top slit to the bottom slit.  I lined up the scoring tool with the top mark and brought it down lightly along the line but didn't press down until it was between the two cut lines.

Then I folded along the score line - first in one direction and then in the other.

Next, I pushed the pop up section up through the fold.

Now when the insert is closed it looks like this.

When the liner is opened it looks like this.  The cupcake will be attached to the front of this folded tab.

Yesterday, I asked if you could guess which cartridge I used for the inside - well, it was one of my favorites - A Child's Year.  You need to be sure that the object you will be adhering to the pop up tab will fit comfortably inside the card.  The cupcake at 3 7/8 inches is 3.919 inches wide so it will fit in the 4.25 inch wide card.

I used the same procedure to cut out three cupcakes using as little paper as possible by rotating one and fitting them together along the top of the mat.

There are many, many possible cupcake choices - for a while it seemed like every Cricut cartridge had a cupcake or two!  I like this particular cupcake because it has a small scallop cutout and this will let some light shine through when the cupcake pops up.  I saved the little scallop strips to use on another project.

I cut the frosting layer in white glitter cardstock.  The design has a spot at the top for a cherry and, since there is not a layer cut on the cartridge, I simply punched out 3/4 inch circles and placed them behind the frosting.

Here is a close view of the back.  A slightly larger circle might be better - 3/4 inches just fits!

I used a gold Martha Stewart glitter pen to accent the cut lines in the base of the cupcake.

I chose Scor-Tape as my adhesive to be sure that the cupcake would stay firmly attached to the card.  I put the tape on the front of the folding section...

...and centered the cupcake face down on the liner.  I knew that the cupcake would be properly centered when I folded down the top.

This side view shows you how the cupcake will fold up and down when the card is opened and closed.

Now all that is left to do is to adhere the liner to the card base.  I used my ATG and placed adhesive around the edges of the top side of the liner.  Then I centered it on the card and folded the card base down on top of the liner.

Once the top is connected, just add adhesive to the bottom and fold the card base on to the liner.  By doing it this way you won't end up with a crooked insert and your card will open and close smoothly.

Here  you can see the inside of the three cards for the triplets.  I thought it looked a bit plain so I pulled out a Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page set (Double Loops) and punched around a 3 1/4 inch square of white cardstock.  When using the Punch Around the Page sets you need to start with the correctly sized piece of cardstock for the punches to line up perfectly.  The sets come with a chart giving the dimensions and I also have posted it several times - here is a LINK to one of the posts.

When the mats are added they look like little doilies and provide a perfect place to write a message and sign the card.

Here is one more view of the card.  This is a very simple pop up to make.  You can use this basic concept and make the card much more elaborate.  There are many other types of pop up cards to try so watch out for the next card in the series!

School starts tomorrow in our part of the world - I'll be at the neighborhood "Breakfast at the Bus" to see all of the little ones off for their first day!

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