Birthday

A Pirate Ship Birthday

| ullycatdesigns

I love playing with the mechanical pop-up mechanisms designed by Karen Burniston. Her Facebook page Karen Burniston Pop-Up Peeps is a place for people to post their projects using her dies. Many talented people post wonderful and creative cards and projects. One such person is John Watterson who has created several cards featuring pirates using Karen Burniston dies. His work is the inspiration for this card, and I give him all credit for the pirate figures and pirate sail. I took inspiration for the crow’s nest from him as well.

Backgrounds:  For the blue skies background on the card front, I took a piece of sky-blue cardstock and inked it using a cloud stencil, white ink and a small blending brush. Because the front scene is of a ship’s crow’s nest the viewpoint would be closer to the sky and sun, so everything would look bigger. The inside sky what also done with the white ink and just the blending brush for a more distant look of the clouds and sun. The suns are just one sun made from the Landscape Scene cut in half and the glued to the corners and trimmed again.

Rigging and Crow’s Nest:  I raided my jewelry making supplies for some brown cord to make the rigging going up the main mast. The crow’s nest is made from the larger cupcake holder from the Cupcake Pop-Up set with thin strips of the same brown paper woven through the slits and glued. I used my fingers to put a curve in the crow’s nest.

Pirate Crew:  (Click here to see John Watterson’s marooned pirate post.) While John’s pirate is on a deserted island and dancing a jig, my pirate crew are scouting the waters from the crow’s nest. I used the Monkey die set for the body and head of my pirates, took the beard from the Gnome and Santa set, and the bandana head covering from Tiny Accessories 1. The pants I fussy cut by tracing around the legs and body and cutting a bit wider than the pencils lines. The pirate is glued to the back of the crow’s nest and then adhered to the mast with foam tape.

Pirate Captain:  (Click here to see John Watterson’s pirate captain post.) John’s pirate captain sails with a spotted dog and a black cat in a basket ship. I followed John’s lead using the Gnome and Santa dies for the head, beard, coat and boots. Since John made his own hat, I did similar but used the bowler hat from the Tiny Accessories 1 for its base. The hat is cut from suede paper that I brushed with a white opaque marker to age it. I also used the eye patch from this Tiny Accessories set. The ship’s wheel is from the Cruise Charms and attached to the captain with small foam squares. His hands are from the Gnome set but glued to the wheel. I also added some white gel pen to the beard to make it stand out. My final touch was to add a parrot to the captain’s shoulder using one of the birds from the Tiny Tree set. The captain is glued to the top platform on the mini pops platform.

Ship:  The ship is based on two pop-up mechanisms – the Bam Box and the Mini Pops Pop-Up set and two of the smallest crosshatch long rectangles. The main deck base and mast are cut from a 6 1/2 x 3 1/4 inch piece of double-sided woodgrain cardstock scored and folded at 2 7/8 for the center fold using the tiered platform from the Mini Pops set. (The longer side of the cardstock is the top of the platform.) Train the large platform and top platform to pop-up as shown in the assembly video, but leave the two outer platforms as part of the base.

The main deck is a custom fitted piece cut from one of the crosshatch rectangles. And added after the bam box and its deck have been attached and tested.

The other crosshatch rectangle is folded in half and a bam box glued to the inside just at the fold. (Bam Box assembly video) (The bam box needs to fold out, away from the main deck platform so make sure to attach the box with the arched tab on top with the rubber band side next to the rectangle.) This piece now becomes the bow or front of the ship. Position the tip of the bam box so it just touches the main deck platform. Test to see that the bam box will fold down correctly before gluing in place and that the triangular point of the bow is in the center of the main deck. Cut a 90-degree triangle from the wood grain cardstock that has 2-inch sides. Trim to fit as the deck covering the bam box.

Train the bam box to open and close checking for catchpoints and trimming triangle as needed.

You will need to cut two diagonal tabs in the base bottom to hold the ship sides in place once the card is open.

Attach the main deck to its platform. Trim the back of the base to form a center mast, leaving a back railing at the height of the ship sides or taller. Trim the bottom of the base to 1/8 inch around the ship sides. Add waves to bottom of shop sides. The ship is now ready to be attached to the cardbase. Add waves to hide ship base.

Raft:  The raft is a place to write a personal message. It was made by using the thinnest die in the Long Rectangles die set to cut the planks which were trim down to approximately 3 1/4 inches. Bamboo cord was used to lash the planks together with the ends taped to the backside of the planks. Foam squares adhere the raft to the card. The stamped sentiment was fussy cut and attached to the fancy label which was cut using a die from the Label Charm Pop-Up set.

Shark & Waves:  By using a wave patterned paper, creating the ocean was easy. The waves under the ship and at the horizon line at the card’s center fold were cut using the Tropical Scene dies from light blue cardstock and inked with white ink. The gentler light blue waves in the corners were the off cuts from the waves. The shark is cut from gray cardstock and a scrap of white for his teeth using the Sea Animals set.

Sentiments:  The pirate birthday sentiments are rubber stamps by Crackerbox Stamps and were stamped in brown ink and fussy cut. Thick foam tape was used to pop the sentiments on the front of the card, while double-sided tape was used for adhering “Happy Birthday” to the raft inside.

Envelope:  While this card is designed as an 8 3/4 x 3 3/4 inch slimline card, its thickness of 1/2 inches makes it too thick to mail in a regular envelope and would need its own box or padded envelope.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope it provides inspiration and joy. Please like and leave comments 😊

Supplies Used:

Dies

Stamps

  • Crackerbox Stamps – Arrr Pirate Sayings set of 4

Papers

  • Colored Cardstock and Packaging Scraps
  • Hot Off the Press – Black Suede

Pens & Inks

  • Sakura – Gelly Roll Pen – Medium – White
  • Sharpie Permanent Marker – Ultra Fine Point – Black
  • Green, Orange and Yellow Fine-Tipped Markers
  • Crafter’s Square – Metallic Marker – Gold – .05 in (1.2 mm)
  • Recollections Opaque Marker – Snow
  • Stampin’ Up – Classic Stampin’ Pad – Early Espresso
  • Simon Says Stamp – Premium Pigment Ink – White

Adhesives

Tools

  • Quickstik Tool
  • Die Cutting Machine
  • Scissors
  • Craft Knife
  • Tweezers
  • Pencil
  • T-Ruler
  • Stamping Platform
  • LDRS Creative – Stampendable Stamping Tool
  • Simon Says Stamp – Blending Brush – Small
  • Craftin Desert Diva – Cloud and Pathway Stencil

Miscellaneous

•     Darice – Bamboo Cord

FlamiNgo Tower card

| ullycatdesigns

Need a fun card? Make a tower card with a honeycomb paper feature. Using products purchased from Craftstash, this card was quick to make. The flamingo and green leaves are from a Creative Craft Products bundle which includes the dies and honeycomb paper.

The card base is made with the Terrific Tower die by Sam Calcott of Made to Surprise that creates an art deco feel for this elegant display card. The front sentiment was computer generated.

.The back of the card features a die-cut “Happy Birthday” by Chole’s Creative Cards.

The card will fit in an A5 size (7 x 5 inches) envelope that has a die-cut flamingo from Karen Burniston’s Beach Charms on its back flap.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

Inks

  • Sharpie – Ultra Fine Point – Black
  • Staples – Liquid Stix – Hot Pink

Miscellaneous

Puppy Love

| ullycatdesigns

Puppy love… a dog in your life brings great joy. This is a card from a fur baby.

The adorable dog face with its moving ears, along with the front sentiment die and large paw print die-cut are all from Lynda Kanase’s i-crafter Puppy Face Wiper Inset set.

Watch the assembly video before putting together. The video recommends decorating the front and back of the card before adding items to the inside.

I masked off a banner on the front of the card using low tack paper tape. Next, I did a light spritz of a brown sparkle spray to create a sand like texture. Remove the tape and glue die-cut sentiment strip in place.

I used a left-over strip of decorative paper and two 1/8-inch tall strips of cream cardstock to finish the front of the card.

The card back uses another decorative paper scrap and a die-cut paw print that has its paw pads inked. I found that by attaching the tiny paws pads to a piece of low tack tape, I could easily ink the pieces with a sponge dauber.

I found that the puppy face dies have stencils within them that I used to ink with a white gel pen make highlights.

I added the “love you” inside the card using a Karen Burniston word set.

As with all my cards that are sent in an envelope, I have decorated the back flap with an embossing folder and a paw die-cut. Both the embossing and die-cut were inked with a dark brown ink. The card fits into an A6 envelope.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I the card made you smile and gave you inspiration. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • & Papercraft, issue 204 – Pawfect Pals designed by Adam Prescott
  • Brown Craft and Cream Cardstock
  • Blue, Pink and Black Cardstock Scraps
  • A6 Card and Envelope – Ivory

Inks & Pigments

  • Nuvo Sparkle Spray – Coca Powder
  • Ranger – Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Walnut Stain
  • Sakura – Gelly Roll 08 – Gel Pen – White

Miscellaneous

ALL STAR Birthday Basket

| ullycatdesigns

What to give to an all-star athlete who enjoys playing a variety of team sports? A basket of sport balls of course.

This pop-up birthday card features some of Karen Burniston’s December 2022 release die sets – Wide Woven Basket Box Card, Bam Box and Sports Charms.

Wide Woven Basket: This die set makes it easy to create a rectangular pop-up basket. (Prior to this set you had to die cut an extra set of pieces to widen the basket sides and grass. See video.) When used with the previously released Woven Basket Box Card, you cut two sets of the original size sides and two sets of the wide size sides. Follow the directions on the package or the assembly video to weave the basket and join the sides together. (I choose to leave the top decorative full width rather than folding over as directed in the video.)

Adding Crossbars of Grass: The Wide Woven Basket Box Card includes the wide grass crossbars used to attach the various balls. (I cut four to make a full basket.)

Sports Charms: In the Sports Charm set there are a softball and bat, a golf ball and tee, a basketball, a volleyball, a soccer ball and an American football. All but the softball and golf ball use two dies to create the stitching patterns of the various balls. The softball has embossed stitching lines that I highlighted with a fine-tipped red marker. I inked the golf ball’s indentations lightly with a black ink. (See assembly video for Sports charms.)

Sentiments: I cut an extra set of the weaving panels from the original basket set and folded the two-prong piece in half to glue behind the “T” piece to create a signpost to glue “ALL STAR” from the mini alphabet set. When I glued the signpost onto the back of the basket, I laid it out over the A7 envelope to know how tall I could make it and still fit into the envelope. The “Happy Birthday” used both the sentiment set and its matching shadow set cut from a contrasting color. (I used Glassy Accents on the “Happy Birthday” to make it have some shine which doesn’t show very well in the photos.) The shadow piece is popped up on two foam dots to give some dimension from the basket.

Bam Boxes: To animate the basket when it comes out of the envelope and pops into shape, two small “Bam Boxes” were used. (Assembly video) These easy to make rectangular boxes are powered by a small rubber band. (I used #8 size bands.) These go in diagonally opposite corners of the basket. Once glued in, the basket will only fold flat in one direction.

Envelope: As with all my cards that are sent in an envelope, I have stamped the back flap to hint at what’s inside. This is an A7 envelope.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Colored Cardstock Scraps
  • Light-Weight Yellow and Orange Cardstock
  • A7 White Envelope

Pens, Inks & Stamps

  • Red Fine-Tipped Marker
  • Catherine Pooler – Premium Dye Ink – Spa Collection – Mandarin Spice
  • Fun Stampers Journey – Rubber Stamp – Winners -SS-0362

Miscellaneous

Poppin’ Hexagon Flower

| ullycatdesigns

Karen Burniston’s December 2022 release of new dies has a lot of pop in it. This hexagon flower card is a cross between an explosion box and a flower bud slowly opening.

To make cut eight of the largest hexagons in the Hexagons – Crosshatch die set and six hinges from the Tag Book Pop-Up set which are 1 x 2 inch rectangles. Fold the hinges at the score lines.

Pick one hexagon to be the flower center. Begin gluing one hinge to the underside of the center hexagon matching the edge of the hexagon to the lowest fold on the hinge. Glue a petal hexagon to the hinge matching the petal edge to the highest fold of the hinge.  Continue attaching hinges and petals to center hexagon until all sides are completed.  Glue the remaining hexagon over the hinges on the underside of the center hexagon. (This will be where a personal message can be written.)

Using the smaller crosshatch hexagon dies, cut decorative papers to attach to the petals and center hexagons.

Make a Mini Ball Pop-Up in yellow.  Glue to center hexagon. Make and attach a bee from Flutter Charms die set.

The sentiment uses both the Happy Birthday and its shadow die cut in the polka-dot paper. I used some Nuvo Aroma Drops to cover the words and to add some scent to this flower card.

For the sentiment band I used two pieces of decorative cardstock one piece long enough to wrap around the closed flower and the second piece cut to the width of the closed flower.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • American Crafts – The Color of Memories – 12×12 patterned paper -320473
  • Crafter’s Companion – Vintage Tea Party from Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine
  • Hot Off The Press – 12 x12 double-sided paper – Dotted Duos #2 – pink
  • Echo Park – Happy Easter by Laura Passage and Nicole Seitler – Easter Eggs
  • Pink lightweight cardstock
  • Yellow heavyweight cardstock

Miscellaneous

Patchwork Birthday Pop-Up

| ullycatdesigns

Quilts are cozy and so is this patchwork pop-up birthday card.

This card uses newly released Karen Burniston Hexagon Crosshatch dies to create both the patchwork both inside and outside. It also uses the pop-up mechanism from the Oval Frames Pop-up set. The sewing charms finish the card with decorative elements.

I wanted to create the effect of a flapping fabric quilt on the inside when the card opens. Cheese cloth is the inside patchwork’s backing. Glue stiffened the piece, but it has some movement. A white gel pen was used to add the stitching and sentiment of “Happy Birthday!”

Baker’s twine was threaded through the buttons from the charm set. The buttons are popped-up on foam dots to allow for motion from the twine.

The outside of the card is covered with large crosshatch hexagons and the overhanging pieces are trimmed and the scraps are used to fill in the other half hexagon edges of the card.

The front sentiment is one I used on another card that uses “word surgery” to create the word “sewing”.

I like to decorate the back panel of my cards using elements from the card.

As with all my cards that are sent in an envelope, I decorated the back flap with a birthday sentiment and a note that it was made with love.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

  • Lawn Fawn – Clear Stamp – made with love
  • Waffle Flower – Clear Stamps – Sweet Sentiments – 271296

Inks

  • Stampin’ Up – Classic Stampin’ Pad – Cherry Cobbler and Crushed Curry

Papers

  • DCWV – 8.5 x 11 inches Printed paper – The Everyday Essentials Stack
  • Craft Consortium – A4vPremium Quality Papers – Double-sided Solids – Candy Christmas
  • A7 White Envelope

Miscellaneous

A Hunting Cabin Birthday

| ullycatdesigns

A cabin in the woods, good times with friends and family are what this card is about.

This simple log cabin scene pop-up card uses Karen Burniston’s new fireplace die set and a die designed to cut out trapazoids for pop-up balls, but here I use it to cut a 6-pane window.

Card Base with Window: Starting with a 10 x 7 inch piece of cardstock, scored and folded in half to create a 5 x 7 inch top folded card base. Position the Mini-Ball Double-Ups die so that it will look good from the outside as well as the inside next to the fireplace. The orientation of the widow will be up-side down from what is on the opposite side of the card. Die-cut the window with the card open on a die-cutting machine. (This is the only time you’ll need a wide platform die-cutting machine. If you only have a 6-inch-wide machine you can cut you card base in half, cut your window and glue a strip of paper as the card hinge.)

Cut “logs” from wood grain paper, ink the edges to create roundness and glue in place both on the outside of the card and the inside wall. Cut thinner strips of the woodgrain paper for the floor of the cabin, ink edges and glue in place alternating the seams as a real floor would be installed. (I had left over pieces of woodgrain paper from cutting Karen Burniston’s Landscape Rectangle Accordion that I used to frame the window.)

The back of the card is covered with leftover pieces from this and other cards made from the Craft Consortium papers In The Forest by Clare Therese.

Fireplace:  Watch the assembly video before assembling. Cut TWO of the fireplace fronts and emboss them both to show the bricks.  I tried several different crayons until I found a three color-mixed crayon in the Crayola True-to-Life series of crayons that blended brown, black and burnt orange to color the bricks.

I glued one of the brick fireplace fronts upside down as the back wall of the fireplace. Next is the hearth piece colored to be sooty sandstone that glued to the floor of the card.

I find it easier to attach anything hanging from the fireplace mechanism before I install the mechanism. After experimenting with how best to attach the pot from the Good Luck Charms set, I ended with gluing the charm circle loop to the part of the mechanism where the Santa boots would dangle. I glued some flames to the bottom of the pot to make the fire be all around the pot. The pot moves a little when opening and closing the card.

Glue together the fire and logs and then attach the cube-like pop-up strip into the card base and attach the fire. Glue the fireplace mechanism into card base. Then attach brick fireplace front and mantel. I use thin foam squares to attach the mantel to the brick fireplace front.

Accessories:  Fireplace tools and fender are from the Fireplace Extras 1 set. The lantern is cut from silver holographic cardstock colored with black permanent marker using the small lantern die from the Camping Charms set. The fish is also cut using a die from the camping charms and uses shimmer cardstock with distress inks. The metal plate the fish is on uses the circle from the snowman set. The rugs are from the oval crosshatch set and the deer head is the Christmas animals set on a plaque cut from the smallest crosshatch labels’ set covered in Glossy Accents. The only die that is not Karen Burniston is the fishing rod by Tayored Expressions.

Card Front:  Large tree is from the Christmas trees pop-up set with the center tree inked with Mowed Lawn Distress ink. The inked small trees are from the evergreen pivot panels set. The wee birds are from the tiny trees pop-up set and the turkey is from the feathered animals set.

Sentiments:  “Happy Birthday” is a single die while “DAD” is double cut from the large alphabet dies from green and black and then slightly over-laid for a shadow effect.

Back of envelope
Front of envelope

Envelope:  A brown kraft paper envelope completes the card with stamped images from the companion stamps of the patterned papers by Craft Consortium.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

  • Craft Consortium – Clear Stamps – In The Forest by Clare Therese

Papers

  • Craft Consortium – Premium Quality Papers – 12” x 12” – In The Forest by Clare Therese
  • Craft Consortium – Premium Quality Papers – 6” x 6” – In The Forest by Clare Therese
  • American Crafts – Peebles – Spooky – 12 x12 Double-sided – Candy Toss – 736981
  • Colored Cardstock Scraps
  • Park Lane – 6×6 Paper Pad – Silver Holographic
  • 100 lb. Yellow cardstock 7 x 10 inches
  • American Crafts- A7 Envelope – Brown Kraft Paper

Pens, Crayons, Inks & Coatings

  • Sharpie – Permanent Marker –Fine Point – Black
  • Gelly Roll 08 Pen – White
  • Pigma Micron 05 – Archival Ink .045mm – Dark Brown
  • Crayola – True to Life Crayons -Grand Canyon
  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress Ink – Mowed Lawn, Fired Brick, Black Soot, and Walnut Stain
  • Ranger – Glossy Accents
  • Nuvo – Aqua Shimmer – Glitter Gloss
  • Stampin’Up – Classic Stampin’ Pad – Early Espresso

Miscellaneous

A Riley & Simon Birthday Flip-Book Pop-up

| ullycatdesigns

It’s Stamp-tember at Simon Says Stamp and today it’s Riley & Co’s turn to team up with them.

Moose Riley and pup Simon have decided to do an old-style, silent video using signs to give some birthday greetings which pop-up when you pull the tab.  They wanted to show off all their dress-up accessories in the stamp set, so each image has different accessories – from balloons to glasses, ties and hats.

My card base is a top fold mini slimline card, I cut in two pieces (3×6 inches and 3×6 ¼ inches) scored and folded the longer piece into a tab to be glued over the other piece.

To make the scenes change, I’ve use Karen Burniston’s Waterfall Card die set which makes it very easy to create a flip-book style card without having to do a lot of math. (Watch the assembly video before assembling.)

I’ve added two small mini-pop-up cubes behind each image. You can use any of the small pop-up tabs from other sets such as the Frame Pull-Pop-up. (I cut mine from a thin strip of matching paper about ¼ x 1 ¼ inches, folded into five sections of ¼ inch long. Glue fifth section as a tab to make cube.)

I’ve added a zig-zag border to one of the pages to help hid the small bit of moose antler that sticks out on the left side.

Leftover dress-up accessories were used to decorate the envelope flap hinting at what’s inside.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

Stamps

Miscellaneous

Pirate Treasure

| ullycatdesigns

Lost treasure, pirates, tropical islands, “Arrrr…,” stories of Long John Silver and Jack Sparrow and International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which happens to be today, September 19, 2022, are what today’s card is all about. (And maybe a little Snoopy too.)

I just love little Skellie, the skeleton from Karen Burniston’s new fall 2022 release of dies. Influenced by the many talented designers on KB’s design team, who have used Skellie as a variety of characters, I had to have him as a pirate popping up in a treasurer chest of gold coins, sword aloft. The Tiny Accessories Set 1 provide the eye patch, sword and head scarf to turn Skellie into a pirate.

The treasure chest is its own set of dies that play well with the Parcel Pop-Up mechanism. I viewed both the assembly videos for the Treasure Chest and the Parcel Pop-Up before making the card. Having worked with 19th century traveling trunks, I know that many had decorative paper lining the inside of them, so I chose a patterned kraft paper using the plain side to be wood embossed side (I used the ink the die method from Karen’s video with a brown ink cube) and the patterned side for inside the trunk. The trim is a mirrored brown cardstock with the raised circles colored with a fine-tipped permanent marker.

For the front of the card, I used the side palm trees from the Palm Tree Pop-Up and the wavy sand from the Long Nature Edges set. The Long nature Edges stitched hills die cuts two sets of hills, so the second piece is used inside the card instead of the sand pile die that comes with the Treasure Chest set. Shells inked pink from the Tropical Scene die set complete the front of the card and a starfish on the back of the card for fun. The small island with palm trees inside the card are also from this set.

I’ve been wanting to use my pirate sentiment stamps for some time, and this was the card for them. The “Happy Birthday” that comes with the stamp set is small, so I went with KB’s larger sentiment die and shadow die.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Echo Park Paper Co. – 6×6 Paper Pad Double-sided Papers – Paradise Beach by Michelle Coleman
  • Tan, brown, green and white cardstock scraps
  • Gold foiled packaging scraps
  • American Crafts – 5 x7 Kraft cards & A7 envelopes

Stamps & Ink

  • Crackerbox Stamps – Arrr Pirate Sayings set of 4
  • Memento – fade-resistant Dye Ink – Tuxedo Black
  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress Ink – Walnut Stain, Antique Linen and Abandoned Coral

Miscellaneous