Pop-Up Purr-fection!

My card this week is a very special one, made for one of Mr L’s childhood friends.  What makes it particularly special is that Gav was found to have a brain tumour around 10 years ago and doctors predicted that it was unlikely that he would reach the ripe old age of 40.  Fortunately, many surgeries and drugs mean that he is still here with us and we had a great celebration.   Gav and his wife are into wine and cats so that was my theme.

To make the base for my pop-up card, I cut two pieces of card 8½” x 7½” and on both, scored with the long side at the top, at 3¾” and 7½”.  On one, I rotated the card through 90 ˚and scored along the centre at 3¾”.  I trimmed down the score lines to the centre score line, cutting the 1” tab at an angle.  On the other piece, I rotated through 90˚ but only scored across one panel and the tab.  Again, I trimmed down the score lines to the centre score line, cutting the 1” tab at an angle.  I glued the pieces together with one of the tabs.

Next, I cut my mats and layers; the mats ⅛” smaller than the panels and the top layer ¼” smaller.  I rounded the corners and those on the card base too then started decorating.  For the champagne element on the side panels, I used Visible Image’s Anyone For Bubbles? and stamped, clear heat-embossed the champagne bottle, masking between stamping.

For the fizz coming out of the bottles, I used the small bubbles stamps and some yellow and gold ink pads.

Finally, I stamped and heat-embossed the corks.  I really love how this gave the card movement!  The corks and bottles were coloured with Copic markers.   I repeated the process to make the panel for the other side.

Now for the long back panel.  We always joke about how our lives are ruled by our cats so I thought I’d have a “feline overlord” watching from the background and stencilled The Cat’s Whiskers together with Two Tone stencil for texture.

To tie in, I used the Two Tone stencil for the front panel too, heat embossing the sentiment from Birthday Wishes.  I personalised the card by die-cutting the letters from black glitter card and greeny-gold metallic card.

All the panels were adhered to the black mats and attached onto the card base.  I then glued the final tab in place to form the box shape and added a few platforms inside to support the pop-up decoration.

Gav and Aimee have two cats so, using That Lovin’ Feline, I stamped 2 cats and attempted to colour them to look like Tim and Graham (he’s the grey one!).  The rest of the decoration was from Anyone For Bubbles and cut out using the coordinating dies.  Lastly, I die-cut 40 and attached the numbers on strips of acetate.

Here’s the card again from a different angle.

This is how I folded the card to go in the envelope.  Before I cut the card base, I ensured that I had an envelope of a suitable size and this fit easily into an 8” square envelope.