Shake It All About

My DT blog post today features a card I made for our godson’s 3^rd birthday.  I like to make interactive cards for him and made this one a shaker card with a surprise pop-up inside.

For the background, I made an inky panel using Distress Spray Stains in Mustard Seed, Broken China and Twisted Citron.  Once dry, I white heat-embossed the Grunge Birthday Words  stamp all over and trimmed to 5¼” square.

For the shaker elements, I used the no.3 from Birthday Balloons stamps and dies.  For speedy stamping, I die-cut lots of threes from white card.  I die-cut a three from the centre of a larger piece of scrap card and put this in my MISTI.  I positioned the stamp in the aperture and picked it up with the lid and then added each die-cut and stamped the 3.

Using a square die, I cut the background to form a frame for the shaker.  The frame was taped onto a square of blue card to centralise it, then the background was glued into the centre.

A sheet of acetate was glued to the back of the frame and then thick foam tape attached.  Star confetti was added onto the background, together with the die-cut threes, then the frame attached over to create the shaker.

For the pop-up, I die-cut balloons from the left-over inky panel and white heat-embossed the decoration on three of them, adhering a no.3 to others.

The pop-up mechanism is quite simple and can be made bigger or smaller as required.  I used a 3” x 4” piece, marking at 1½” along the 4” side.  I scored up to this line and also trimmed off a ½” section upwards from the line.  I scored diagonally from the centre scoreline to the pencil line and trimmed off the excess, as shown below.  The only part that will be glued to the card are the two small tabs at the side of the scorelines.  The decorative element must not be attached to the triangular section to the right of the score line or the mechanism won't fold flat.

I like to check that the mechanism will work and be hidden when the card is closed so have a trial run using blue-tac to hold the mechanism in place.   Once I was happy with that, I trimmed off any overhang of the top section of the mechanism and glued it in place, ensuring that the centre scoreline was in line with the scoreline of the card blank. 

Lastly, I stamped the sentiment from Best Birthday Ever, trimmed it and attached to the acetate.

Another sentiment was stamped on the inside with the balloons.

Here’s a little video of the balloons in action.