baskets

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

Thanksgiving Basket

| ullycatdesigns

Being thankful for friends, family and a good harvest is what this basket pop-up card is all about.

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

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 cut four rope handles because my cardstock was printed on the back side – so two ropes glued together.)

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 and glued them in rather than tucked as suggested in the video.)

Autumn Elements: The leaves, vine, pumpkin and acorns are all from a previously released Karen Burniston Autumn Elements die set. (I didn’t do a test layout of my leaves with the basket folded closed overt the envelope, hence the folded tips of leaves to fit into the envelope.)

Sentiment: The “Happy Thanksgiving” is from the Karen Burniston Autumn word set. It is a single layer of a contrasting color from the basket. For the matted label on the back of the basket, I used the large rectangle and the smaller stitched rectangle from Karen Burniston’s Slim Frames set. This label is for a personal message.

Bam Boxes: To animate the basket when it comes out of the envelope and pops into shape, two small “Bam Boxes” were used. (Bam Box 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. (I recommend using a heavy weight cardstock for bam boxes and letting each stage of gluing dry before moving onto the next step.)

Envelope: As with all my cards that are sent in an envelope, I have stamped the back flap. This time it is stamped with my main sentiment. This is an A7 envelope.

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

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Rubberneck – 6 x6 Paper Pad Double-Sided Papers 80# Cardstock – Autumn Leaves
  • A7 White Envelope

Inks & Stamps

  • Catherine Pooler – Premium Dye Ink – Spa Collection – Mandarin Spice
  • Stampin’ Up – Classic Stamping Pad -Crushed Curry and Pumpkin Pie
  • Crafter’s Companion – Nature’s Garden – Autumn Blessings Collection

Miscellaneous

Happy Christmas Basket

| ullycatdesigns

There is something magical about going to a Christmas Eve Candlelight church service on a frosty evening. That is the feeling this basket card is hoping to invoke.

This Christmas card features some of Karen Burniston’s December 2022 release die sets – Wide Woven Basket Box Card, Church School Tiny House Add-ons and Bam Box. All of the pieces were cut from two types of white cardstock with silver ink added to some pieces. Vellum was used behind the windows.

Church: The assembly of the church starts with the Tiny House base with its windows cut out while still flat. (Save the window frames to glue back into openings.) Cut rectangles of clear vellum to be glued on the inside of the church over the window openings. Trim excess vellum away from round window as needed. Coat the two roofs with glitter gloss. Coat window frames and door frame with glitter gloss. Using door die as a stencil, color door handles silver. Color the two crosses silver and glue together. Color the two halves of the tall charm holder on the church tower silver.

Assemble the tiny house as directed in assembly video. Don’t fold back bottom tabs, but rather trim off the tab on the house side, leaving the back or pointed side’s tab attached. Follow assembly video for the church tower. After adding the Bam Boxes, cut a rectangle to fit on the inside of the church to cover the other half of the church front. (This piece will stabilize the church when attached to the basket and will block light if you add LED lights.)

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.

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 colored both sides of the ropes with silver metallic pen and then coated with a glitter gloss brush pen before attaching them.)

Adding Crossbars of Grass: The Wide Woven Basket Box Card includes the wide grass crossbars. (I cut four to make a full basket.) I trimmed away the grass leaves where the church would be. The front tab on the church is NOT attached to the crossbar, but rather acts as a guide for when the church and basket are folded closed.

Bam Boxes: To animate the basket when it comes out of the envelope and pops into shape, two small “Bam Boxes” were used. Watch the assembly video first. The church also uses two Bam Boxes. 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 or church. Once glued in, the basket or church will only fold flat in one direction, so make sure both church and basket fold in the same direction. (I recommend using a heavy weight cardstock for bam boxes and letting each stage of gluing dry before moving onto the next step. I found that making a bunch of Bam Boxes at one time is useful for having some ready made to use on other projects.)

Tag, Bells, Holly and Berries: A tag is tied to the handle of the basket for a personal message. It is cut using the tag die from the Karen Burniston Tag Book die set. The bells are charms from the Church School Tiny House Add-ons colored with a silver gel pen. Karen Burniston’s Pattern Plate of Holly was coated a glitter gloss while the berries were colored with a silver gel pen. The holly leaves and berries were cut apart for decorations on the basket, tag and in the basket grass.

Sentiment: The “Happy Christmas” is from the Karen Burniston Word Set 3 -Holiday. It was cut three times from white, and the top layer was not weeded out of its original piece of cardstock while it was being colored with a silver gel pen. The three layers were glued together before being attached to the front of the basket.

Lights: I added an inexpensive string of LED fairy lights to the inside of the church. (You can find these at Dollartree and Poundland stores.) Because the lights restrict the movement of the Bam Boxes inside the church, the lights need to be removed to fold flat.

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

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Brazzill – 12×12 Smooth Cardstock – Coconut Swirl
  • White Heavy Weight Cardstock

Pens & Brushes

  • American Crafts Metallic Marker – Silver
  • Gelly Roll – Gel Pen – Silver
  • Nuvo – Aqua Shimmer Brush Pen – Glitter Gloss

Miscellaneous

A Basket of Flowers For Mom

| ullycatdesigns

Mothers deserve special cards. A basket full of roses using Anna Griffin’s new Basket Pop-Up kit and a few tea service pieces from an older Anna Griffin Favorite Tea Embellishments made the perfect card for this special mom.

The envelope was stamped with stamps from Anna Griffin’s Treasury of Stamps and Dies using Stampin’ Up Always Artichoke ink.

Other cards using stamps and papers from Anna Griffin include:

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A Spring Basket of Flowers

| ullycatdesigns

Special aunts deserve special cards. A basket full of spring flowers using Anna Griffin’s new Basket Pop-Up kit and a few flowers from an older Anna Griffin Pretty Paintings kit made the perfect card for this special aunt.

The envelope was stamped with stamps from Anna Griffin’s Treasury of Stamps and Dies using Stampin’ Up Soft Suede ink.

Thank you for looking at my blog. Please like, comment and follow. 🌞

Other cards using stamps and papers from Anna Griffin include:

The Urge to Create

| ullycatdesigns

Finished inside Autumn pop-up

When does a cupcake become a bushel of apples with a gift card? When rain cancelled my afternoon plans and the idea, I had been tossing around for a few days with a new die beckoned.

cupcake package

I started with Karen Burniston’s Cupcake Pop-Up die and since the cupcake liner dies cut slits in the design, I cut a liner and some thin strips from brown paper and embossed the liner using Stampin’ Up’s Sizzix Big Shot Basket Weave Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder to give texture to the bushel basket. Next, I wove three strips alternating between liner slots with each strip.  For the smaller liners I texture embossed and wove two thinner strips to form the woven baskets.

Back cupcake pop-up

Next, I cut a sheet of glittered craft cardstock 6 inches x 10 inches scoring in half at 5 inches. I folded with the glitter side inside and opened it again centered the Pop-Up cupcake die following Karen Burniston’s directions on the package and assembly video. After measuring a gift card and the width of the frosting on the cupcake, I knew there was just enough space to cut a slot in the frosting for a gift card slider. I also had to cut small extension slots at the base of the cupcake liner. (The yellow pencil and silver scissors point to the two slots cut with an X-Acto knife.)  I traced the outline of the cupcake on the back of a piece of the glitter craft cardstock as well as the outline of the gift card overlapping it with the frosting and finally cut the card outline with some of the frosting on top. The gift card slider resembles a tag shape with straight sides and a decorative top.

Square added with basket

I found I needed to reinforce the cupcake shape by backing the shape with another cupcake cut from the craft cardstock. Next, I cut a square the width of the frosting and traced where the slot needed to be cut.  Once the slot was cut, I glued it to the front of the cupcake.  I tested the gift card slider moving it up and down with the gift card taped to it.  I found that I needed to clean-up the slot cuts to get a smooth slide. Once satisfied with the slider slots I glued the large basket to the square over the cupcake liner leaving the top edge unglued so I could tuck corn stalks and apples under it.

To decorate the Pop-Up, I used the large cherry die from the cupcake set and cut approximately 20 with short stems from thick red Hero Arts cardstock. A black Sharpie marker and a white gel pen were used to color the apple stems and shiny patches. I cut four corn stalks using the leaf dies from Karen Burniston’ Flowers and Bee die set. And I cut eight of the tiny flowers from the same set in a maroon cardstock and another eight in a bright yellow cardstock. I fringe cut around four each color flower and pushed the fringe up and glued them to the center of the remaining cut flowers.

flower die

Test arranging the four corn stocks to hide the slider slot and act as the backing to glue the pile of apples, I then glued the base stem and first two leaves to the square, tucking the stems under the edge of the basket. Starting from the top edge of the basket I put a dot of glue on the back of each apple and then placed them as one would when stacking real apples in a basket. The top few apples I rounded between my fingers to add dimension and glued the edges, but not the centers down.

CU Autumn Pop-up

The small baskets of chrysanthemums use the fringed flowers glued to a scrape of craft cardstock adhered to the basket. The leaves are scrape green cardstock from my stash. I used Stampin’ Up Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals to adhere the three loose apples which were rounded between my fingers.

Using red double-sided-sticky tape, I adhered on side of the glitter craft cardstock Pop-Up to an A7 size heavy craft card (5in x7in) and then the other side of the pop-up as recommended by Karen Burniston in her assembly videos.

To have good CRX (card recipient experience), I used the arrow tab from Karen Burniston’s Frame Pull Pop-Up Die and cut it from brown paper, adding a part of a yellow sticky note for the arrow color and folding it over the tip of the gift card slider tag and adhering with glue. I trimmed the excess of the brown tab off.

I found two stripes of red and white gingham-checked paper in my scrapes and pasted them onto the card. Because I didn’t have a specific person in mind to give this card to, I’ll leave it unfinished until autumn when I can finish it up for a wedding card or a birthday card.

Gift card pulled Autmn pop-up

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

Embossing Folder:

Paper:

 

Miscellaneous: