Pop-Up Card Teacher Gifts

Hello! I am home again!

Good times were had. Family was visited. Dancing was done. A knot was tied between my little brother and a lovely young woman. Busy busy were these last several days. But I am back! It's good to be here. I've missed you.

To the crafting then?

Prior to the break, the boy wanted to make little parting gifts for his teachers. Inspired by the simple pop-up cards in the book: "Step by Step Crafts for Children", we decided to use the basic concept presented and put our own twist on it. When asked what he thought his teachers might like in their cards, his immediate response was: "Dinosaurs!" That wouldn't have been my first suggestion, but I rolled with it. I figured that, if nothing else, they'd probably be the only dinosaur-themed gifts his teachers would be getting. I'm all for uniqueness. So what the heck eh? Sure, why not!

Luckily, only the simplest of materials were needed for these cards, and we have reams of paper products, from cardstock to construction paper, so we were set. Aside from the creation of the actual pop-up mechanism (I did that part), we worked side-by-side on every step of the crafty process. All elements except for the dinos are his designs: trees, rocks, lettering, placement, paper choices. At the boy's insistence, I did the fussy-cutting of the dinosaurs he'd traced from two different dino books. We also got to use "The Boy Font" again, yay!

I firmly believe that some of the best work presented on this blog has been projects involving my children. And these cards are no exception. I adore the final outcome. They're little 3-D collage-y works of art. And I'm not even remotely biased. I'm not!

Hey and guess what? No envelopes were needed, nuh-uh. We just punched holes in the edges, taped in a gift certificate, and closed them up with a ribbon!

Oh yes, and I just happened to notice another nifty - and totally accidental - detail of the completed cards too. When flipped one way, the closed card looks like an M, while flipped another way, it looks like a C, his two teachers' first initials. How lucky is that? Serendipitous-ness is what that is.

We done good, didn't we?

Well, I'm off! It's so nice to be back. I'll see you again on Friday, okeedoke!

This post is linked to Someday Crafts' Whatever Goes Wednesday, and Skip To My Lou's Made by You Monday.