Pop-Up Cards

The base for today´s post has been lying around since Christmas. I was searching for easy to do pop-up cards, when I came across a YouTube tutorial for a pop-up card that had EASY in the heading, while it at the same time looked really intricate and complicated. So, out of curiosity I had a peak at the beginning of the tutorial, and decided to make a trial-follow-along. I ended up making a sample version of the pop-up, in paper that was nice enough to make into a real card. A reoccuring problem for me, once I have made a base for a card, is that I more often than not, have no idea how to decorate the card bases I have made. This time was no different, so, the base has been on my desk ever since, just waiting to be used.😂 Almost two months went by before I had somewhat of an idea of how to decorate it. As it often is, ideas come to me when I am in bed, trying to fall asleep, and sometimes I don´t even remember the ideas the morning after.😳 I had just received an order of Lawn Fawn stamps and dies, and that reminded me of a coordinating stamp/die set I have had for a while called Dandy Day, and I thought it would be perfect to build a scene on my card with. However, even with an idea I thought was good, I didn´t do anything about it for yet another week or so.

Finally, the other day I pulled out the stamp set, and started working on the card.

First I needed to build a background for my scene. The stamp set features, as the name promises, dandilions. In addition, it has several mice interacting with the dandilions, in particcular one mouse that comes gliding through the air, holding on to a dandilion. It was this stamp that gave me the idea of what kind of scene to build. So, I needed a sky/ground background in which the mouse could enter trough the air. I used stencils, also from Lawn Fawn, the slimline cloudy stencils, and the slimline grassy hillside stencils. I am never really comfortable when inkblending grass and clouds, as I never am sure how it will turn out, and in this case I was inking up the actual pop-up base itself, and I was worried that I would ruin it. Luckily, the result was, in my eyes, passable, and I could start the actual stamping. I stamped more mice etc than I would need, and did some quick coloring with my Spectrum Noir Tri Blends before die cutting everything. After that, all that was left was building the scene😉, which for those who know me know is never "just"😂. I tend to overdo things, and never quite know when enough is enough. I am reasonably happy with the card itself, but went WAY overboard on the motif for the bellyband😂. Ah well, it is the card that is important!🤩

The YouTube tutorial I used was by Ann Melvin Positively Papercraft: