Pop Up Retirement Card

Before I left the corporate world to take over the store, I worked for a local software company for over 12 years. Lots of the folks I worked with are still there and this week, one of the old managers retired and we were invited to his retirement do. It was lovely to catch up with old friends for an evening but it also meant a special card (you know the ones that take forever to make!) was required.

When I need something special, I often turn to something interactive as these types of card often wow the recipients as they don't know how we made them!!!! The one I turn to most often is the Lawn Fawn Platform Pop Up as they look so impressive when they're done and as far as interactive cards go, are pretty easy to put together.

For this one, I took the platform elements and cut them all from green card, adding grass to the T-tabs - I wanted to go outdoors for this card as Graeme loves fell running and his camper van. Once I had the base put together (watch the Lawn Fawn video for instructions if you are unsure how, Kelly-Marie takes you through it in more detail than I can explain here) I then set about creating the backdrop and foreground - both using the same die - The Platform Pop-Up Cloud Wrap-around Die.

For the foreground I used the die as standard, cut once from white card and used a few shades of green to blend it to look like hills. I added the sentiment from a die cut alphabet to the front before I glued this to the pop up die so I could do it flat and get the spacing right.

For the background, I wanted it to be higher than the elements I was placing onto the tabs - the tree, the campervan and the running shoes. So I used the partial die-cut technique, just cutting the top of the die to get the shape and the start of the crease lines. I lined it up on a scoreboard and used an embossing tool to lengthen the crease lines until I got my desired height and then trimmed the bottom on my trimmer before blending blue to a fade out at the top and adding the rainbow and clouds and sun that are found in both the dies I used.

Now came time to fill the pop up - starting at the back, I added a tree - I used the Evergreen Tree from Mama Elephant for this - die cutting the bark from woodgrain card and the leaves from a couple of shades of green. You just glue the bottom of the tree to the grassy layer at the back of the pop-up - see the downwards shot to show how each element is a little way apart in the die.

Next came the brilliant camper van - this was made using the Hippie Bus die from A Pocket Full of Happiness which has all the elements you need to make a van in whatever combo you like. As I wanted to be able to see the tree through it, I cut the outline die from acetate and used that as my base to layer all the van elements onto - it has everything even down to the windscreen wipers! I'll definitely be making some more of these as they are so fun to put together! Glued to the central tab just by the tires. The running shoes are not in our store - sorry, I don't usually use supplies we don't sell but this was a very specific card - I don't even remember where I bought these from as they are likely 12-15 years old!

Once all the elements are glued on and dry - the card can them be popped up or folded flat for posting (this has to go in an A5 envelope as it was larger than a standard pop-up platform was designed to be but this is one of the things I love about our hobby - you can stretch the products to do what you want and mix and match brands so you get exactly the elements you need to make something so personal for the recipient.