Birthday Pop-up Box Card

I've heard that a current trend in card making is pop-up box cards. I've seen a few videos on YouTube and photos on Pinterest. Since my brother's birthday is coming up later this month, I decided to try making one for that.

I found this step-by-step tutorial by Dina Kowal through Pinterest. The fact that it gave measurements, photos, and I didn't have to watch and re-watch a video to get all the pertinent information (like measurements) appealed to me. I followed her instructions for cutting the pieces & constructing the box. Then came the fun (and sometimes frustrating) part--decorating!

I used a few sentiment stamps from both Simon Says Stamp's "Birthday Messages" and Sweet 'n Sassy Stamp's "Birthday Bash" sets, cutting those stamped pieces with a banner die from Spellbinders. For the "celebrate" banner, I white heat embossed the word, then blended Faded Jeans Distress ink over the banner. I colored each letter in the "wish" stamp from the "Birthday Bash" set with different colored markers, then stamped that onto white cardstock and inked the edges with Wild Honey Distress ink. I used Hero Arts mid-tone shadow ink in Navy to stamp the front-most sentiment, and inked the edges of that banner with Faded Jeans.

The "Happy Happy Bday" balloon is a set of 2 stamps from "Birthday Bash." I first stamped the silhouette stamp with Tumbled Glass Distress ink, then stamped the word image over that with Stampabilities Royal Blue pigment ink. After the ink dried, I fussy cut the balloon. I used the party hat stamp from that same set, heat embossing it with blue embossing powder over orange cardstock. As a finishing touch for that, I made a tassel from silver embroidery thread, covering the bottom of the tassel with circles punched from silver glitter paper.

I die cut 3 balloons using the smallest die from this set, and punched 5 stars with a Recollections 15/16" punch. To put everything together, I cut narrow strips of clear acetate, and glued one end of each strip to the back of each of the elements. I let that sit overnight to be sure the glue was thoroughly dry. Then I positioned and glued the other end of each strip to the inside of the box and dividers. I made sure, before the glue set up, that the elements would all be basically inside the card when it is folded and placed in an envelope.

Close-up of the decorations inside the card

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Let's be Clear" (used clear stamps & clear acetate strips)
Virginia's View Challenge #5: Die Cutting (die cut banners & balloons)
Simon Says Stamp's Work It Wednesday: Anything Goes