Kirigami Cards

I am super excited to show yo one of the projects I've been working on this week! 

As some of you know, I recently got a Cricut for Christmas and it's my very first electronic cutter. Goodbye, sore fingers and Mr. Exacto blade!! Well, ok, not goodbye really because I will use you for other things but you can sit quietly in my tool drawer until I need you for something else. Anyway, as I was saying, my lovely sister gave me this Cricut with one stipulation attached. Yes, she put a condition on my present but hey, that's her for ya. ;) 

Her one requirement? I had to make her a card using it. Not bad, right? It's not like she wanted me to cut out a billion damask patterns and stitch them together for her to wear as a necklace or anything. 

So that is precisely what I did. Now, bear in mind that this is my first ever time of making my own card like this so I know it's not as fancy as some but I like them. I had some pretty papers that I cut down to fit in an envelope and then I used the Cricut pack Grow My Garden to cut out a few flower shapes and a butterfly. While I was making my sister's card, I decided to just make one for my aunt in Germany too.

I folded the pattern to the inside of the card and then used the strip with the blank cutouts to embellish the bottom. Then I layered and played with various other flower patterns on the front. 

Never content to leave well enough alone, I went hunting around on-line and found THIS:

Is this not cool or what? It's a 3-D orchid that pops out of the card when you open it. The site I found it on is called Easy Cut Pop-Up and they sell the patterns for these for pretty cheap. I decided to buy their whole flowers and butterflies set because it came with a ton of designs for about $12 and it ended up around $.50 a design. Not bad if I say so myself. I pulled out some parchment and used it to print the design on. The directions were really easy to follow and in no time, I had two pretty orchids popping out of my little home-made cards!

I used a little watered down ink to brush some color on the one for my aunt. I don't know if I like it yet or not. I also cut out a small square of the same parchment to write my little message on. 

And then, because I can't leave well enough alone and I wanted the recipients of these to really feel special when they opened them, I made two pendants that matched the colors of the cards. The one in my aunt's has a touch of red and that soft parchment shade in it while my sister's had some pretty blue-green shades that went well with the inside of the card. 

I used some copper elastic cord to loop through the pendants and then punched two holes in the card to wind the cording through. Then I just tied the cards shut with it. 

So what do you think? ^___^


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