Saturday, December 6, 2014

Cards come in boxes, too!

Woo Hoo, I'm actually updating on a regular basis over the last week! LOL Hopefully, this will continue to happen, because I have SOOOOOO much to share with y'all, the stuff I've done over the last few months!

And, to keep me company, I have my little Stormy kitty. This is pics of her, RIGHT NOW, that I jsut took. She's helping me write this blog post. Well, mainly she is telling me to stop taking pics of her and get back to writing this blog post. But, she is really saying, stop writing that blog post and PET ME!!! lol

 

Anytime I'm in my "craft cave" (my craft room, I call it my craft cave, cause sometimes, I lock myself in here for DAYS crafting!) she is always in here, SOMEWHERE. Usually, it's either on my lap, or on my counter somewhere. I really do try hard to keep her off the counter, and/or off the items I'm working on, because I don't always know if someone is allergic to cats. She is the only one allowed in here with me, out of all our furbabies, because she doesn't play with my stuff, or STEAL IT, like her sister does. LOL

Anyhow....So, My baby sister had her 22nd birthday on December 2nd. WOW, weird! 22 on 12-2-14 LOL. Anyhow, I've always just made her regular folded cards, and this year I wanted to try something different.

I made my first ever CARD IN A BOX! These things are all the rage right now. Well, I guess they were earlier this year, and I'm not really seeing them as much now. Anyhow, this was my first one, and I LOVE how it turned out!

I would have much rather liked having used a cupcake stamp, but I thought something other than a stamped image for the major focal point, would be best. So, a fuzzy cupcake it ended up being! lol

Here's a sneak peek, click below to see the rest!!






So, the idea of "A Card in a Box" is that it folds flat (or semi-flat, or as flat as ya can get it! LOL) and then the recipient squeezes it open and the stuff inside "pops out" like a 3d card! In reality, this is all dependent upon how much "stuff" you stuff inside of it. I didn't stuff too much stuff inside of it, so it all actually "popped up" when it's squeezed.


The couple of tutorials I watched, and a lot of the card in a box I've seen on blogs, not everyone decorates the outside "flaps" (i.e., those flaps on the top of the box), but I just couldn't leave them plain. Before taping down all of the outside pieces, I put them on the box to see if I should do all of the bottom one kind of paper and all of the top another. I decided to go with alternating instead, it looks SO cute!

Here are some more pics!

This is the whole "Card in a Box". I love how that cupcake stands out behind everything. It's like, Here I am, EAT ME!!!! haha (and boyyyy did we eat some cake!!!!!! Marble cake with Caramel butter cream icing. OMGosh, it was DELISH!!) And that "22" medallion is what I wanted to be the main focus, besides the cupcake. I also kept with the alternating paper on different sides on this part of the box as well. All edges of ALL paper used on the flaps and outside of the box are distressed with black ink.


I made my card in a box with 5 layers, but I've seen cards with SO much more.  Like I said, this amount of stuff was just perfect for this card! I made 2 layers of flags, one layer, as you can see, with large flags on the outside and the other layer with small flags on the outside.
The flags were actually cut with the Stampin' Up! Itty Bitty Banners dies and then I just folded them over. the 2 middle flags were kept closed with a heart brad, and the others I just used a mini glue dot.
I used colored toothpicks and white embroidery floss, which I used some Stampin' Up! Certainly Celery to color the ends of the threads. I wish now I would have left them white so they would stand out more.


 I did a lot of altering and manipulating of items to put on this card.
For the Medallion behind the flags, I used a # chip from the Basic Grey, Fact & Fiction Line. It's the Fact & Fiction Designer Chipboard Alphabet and Number Stickers. This set of chipboard is THICK and HEAVY. I'm really surprised the chip held up on the very thin piece of acetate I used to adhere it to, to make it stick out of the box.

 Anyhow, here is what the # Chip originally looked like.... look in the bottom right corner of the packaging, with the chip that has the # 4 on it. I forgot to take a pic of the chip before I altered it. LOL

I added the # 22 on a red sheet of paper in Metallic Silver sharpie and then I outlined the 2's in black. I used a sponge dauber and distressed the edges of the little red circle in black, also. Then I adhered it to the chip with some glue dots and a tad of glossy accents (just to make sure it stuck forever! LOL) and then I added a few black dots all the way around the chip.

It took me a about a dozen tries to get the 22 jsut right, and I never did get it exactly how I wanted. But, I did come close enough. See, here are all my tries! I had ot keep the #'s a certain size to fit in that tiny circle!






Also, there is "Xmas Red" stickles going around the whole outside of the chip, but that's hard to see. This card in a box was really difficult to get pics of, so the "glossy" and "shine" and "shimmer" doesn't show well in this card. I swear, I used LOTS of stickles on this card, I always use lots of stickles! LOL


For this part of the card, I used a punched paper rosette from the Serendipity & Shine on Collection of Basic Grey. If you've noticed, I really, really love Basic Grey!! Going around the medallion, I added a black dot on the edges, and a dot of Xmas Red stickles closer to the center of the medallion, on each flap. I heat embossed in Silver the happy birthday sentiment, which of course is from Stampin' Up!, and then I ran it through my shiny new Big Shot with the coordinating dies for the Itty Bitty Banners stamp set.

The cupcake is a felt cupcake from "Tiny Crafts". I adhered that to a wide, thin piece of acetate along with the "celebrate" banner. The banner was on one of the bigger medallions in the 4 pack, and I just carefully took it off so I could reuse it. I outlined it in black, outlined the middle, used the Metallic Silver sharpie, and then distressed it with some ink between my fingers. I wanted it to have a bit of a grungy look.
I also used Stickles (Xmas Red and Diamond) to adorn the tops of the flags and the dots on all of the "red" papers (on flaps and outside of box).

In the pic above, you can barely see a paper clip... I made a super mini envelope and used a thin strip of cardstock and some stamps to make an i.o.u. I was working on a gift for her, but it just didn't work out and I had to push it aside...so, I'm still working on a different gift for her, so she will get double the gifts for Christmas. LOL (I did NOT take a pic of the i.o.u. cause my notes inside my cards are "personal" and not to be read by others, sorry!)

I have really always LOVED seeing all the AMAZING cards in a box, but never could figure out how they were made... and, there are TONS of tutorials out there, with different measurements. I've watched many, and tried it a few times and always failed. I guess I just got too frustrated. But this time, I found a decent tutorial and I knew I had to put my mind to it and get it done. I really thought mine would turn out to be bigger, but the saying goes, bigger isn't always better, and this definitely fits for one of those times.

I think if the actual "box" of this card were any bigger, it would have left way too much room and space to cover, and I also think that anything else added to this card, would have just been too much! My sister isn't really that much of a "girly" girl, and I think this is as girly as I could have went with it. I mean, i didn't wanna give her something that was puking rainbows and spewing glitter, LOL. She is, well, very beautiful, and she has her own style. She is really into music, movies and video games. I always call her a hippy because she is SOOOOOOOO laid back and so very easy going. She loves to ride her bicycle, which btw, she got a really awesome new cruiser for her b-day, and she loves to hang out with her friends, and I'm going to assume, from her attitude and personality, she is ALWAYS the life of the party. :) Maybe if I weren't so *cough, cough*, old, I'd hang out with her more. LOL
She's grown up to be so awesome and so gorgeous. She's so much different than i thought she'd be, when she was little. the thing I love about her the most is that she LOVES jokes. Her voicemail message even tells people to leave a joke for her. of course, I love jokes too, but mine always end up being so corny!!!
Here's one... What did Gordon Ramsay scream at the chef? "Why did the Chicken cross the road? Because he's RAW, because you didn't cook him properly". (imagine him screaming that in his amazing accent, ooooomgosh! LOL)    yeah, I have bad jokes! haha.

Well anyhow, that's it for this blog post, you'll find my EXTENSIVE supply list below. Come back soon cause I have lots more to share!

Keep on Craftin'
~Melisa Marie


Supplies used:
Cardstock/Paper:
 White 80 lb. card stock (sentiments), Recollections Kraft Cardstock, Colorbok Light Bright, Darling Jewel, MME Stella Rose Follow Your Heart.
Embellishments: Stickles; Diamond, Xmas Red; Basic Grey Fact & Fiction Designer Chipboard Alphabet & Number Stickers, Basic Grey Serendipity & Shine on Accordion Medallions, Making Memories heart brads, Tiny Crafts felt cupcake, White embroidery floss, All Night Media silver embossing powder
Writing/Coloring Medium(s): Silver Metallic Sharpie, Zig Writer; Pure Black
Ink Pads:   Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin’ Up! Certainly celery (re-inker for the embroidery floss string ends)
Stamps: Stampin’ Up! Itty Bitty Banners
Dies/Punches: Stampin’ Up! Itty Bitty Banners dies, Stampin’ Up! Hexagon Punch
Tools: Slice glass mat (I always have this on my work space, it adds stability to my wood counter), MS Score Board, Cricut Paper Trimmer, Scissors, Inkadinkado Acrylic Stamp Blocks, Sizzix Big Shot, Ranger Inkssentials Non-Stick Craft Sheet (15 in. x 18 in.), Glossy Accents, Acetate Sheet, Scotch Double Sided Scrapbook Tape, Glue Glider Pro; Permanent, Glue Dots 3/16”, Finger Dauber Sponge, Darice Heat Gun.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Melisa Marie, thanks for becoming a follower of my blog! I'm so glad you did so that I could visit you and become a follower back. I love your blog title because I have bipolar too and always love to see people being so open about it. I will look forward to reading your future posts!
    Rebecca.
    x
    P.S. Your card in a box is gorgeous! Love the photos of your beautiful cat too :)

    ReplyDelete

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