Birthday Surprise

It's our friends' son's birthday today and he loves cake and martial arts so I came up with a fun card for him!

I used Top It Off from Concord and 9th  and I stamped a chocolate cake using Espresso and Mocha inks from Altenew's Coffee Break set and then set about hiding a ninja inside - well where else would a ninja hide on your birthday????

There are 3 layers to the card to make it all work.  The cake is stamped and fussy cut and will eventually be stuck to the front of the card with foam tape in 5 places only.  I added foam to the edges of the bottom two layers, and the left hand side only of the 3rd - the right hand of that layer and both edges of the top layer are free of foam to allow the ninja free movement up and down.

I started with the middle layer first through as this is the layer where the pull mechanism goes so I cut a white card the same size as my base card and stamped the sentiment from MFT's Twice the Wishes at the top - it seemed appropriate to go with the surprise hidden inside the cake!

I placed the cake in place and drew a pencil line so I knew where to stamp the candles as they need to be underneath the ninja or you wouldn't see him when he pops out.  I stamped them shorter than the stamp but any excess is hidden by the cake anyhow.

Then comes the die cutting - centralise the double slider loop slot die from MFT and underneath cut a notch (I just grabbed a handy oval die but any shape would do, you just need space to see and grab the pull tab).  I stamped the pull and arrow onto a strip of kraft (matching my chocolate cake theme) using the mini interactive labels stamp set and then stamped and fussy cut the ninja (you could die cut him but the dies are currently out of stock) then with the addition of a 1cm wide strip of plastic we have all we need to make the mechanism slide.

1. Thread your plastic strip through the slots and secure behind (I use redline tape as it holds strong.)
2. Secure your pull tab BEHIND the stamped panel lining it up so it is level with the bottom - this will be the default position.
3. Line up your tab so it pulls down as far as it will go - hold your cake in position and then line up your ninja and secure his bottom foot to the front of the plastic.
4. Check it all works!   This is really important as it's hard to undo once you stick it all together and discover it's stuck (ask me how I know lol!)
5. Secure the cake in place over the ninja.
6. Secure the stamped panel to your base card with more foam tape ensuring none gets in the way of the slider mechanism.

You don't have to use a ninja obviously - you can have anything you like pop out of your cake - a present, a punch of flowers, a cocktail or bottle, or even an animal - whatever is most appropriate to surprise your intended recipient - why not give it a go!   As an extra incentive - from now through the weekend - the cake stamp set and it's co-ordinating die is on sale so you can grab one at a discounted price to make your own pop-up surprise!  (no code required)

Catch you Sunday

Tara

A Heap of Cakes

I've moved away from Christmas today as I needed to top up my birthday card stash and I'm trying to avoid eating sugar my mind naturally went to cake!  So I have lots of cake on my cards thanks to Concord and 9th's Top It Off stamp set which gives you lots of ways to combine a cake

For my first one I went off the edge to give the impression of a huge cake and layered it up with the 3 cake layer stamps but repeating the striped layer - because I went off the edge this gives me the opportunity to get more layers but still get the stepped look.  I went with pinks and greys and stamped the fun sentiments directly into the cake as the cake itself fills the card.  A few dots of Oyster Grey Nuvo drops give the look of icing to finish it off.

For the second card I went with a more autumnal colour scheme of orange and browns and this time added the candles to the top.  Finishing with liquid pearl icing highlights and a couple of sentiments from MFT's Anything But Basic Birthday Wishes as finding sentiments from other sets is a great way to get variety from your stamps and this sentiment goes perfectly with cake cards!   I used inks from Warm and Cozy and Summer Afternoon from AlteNew.

I made one more card with a more weddingy theme whilst I had the stamps out and this time just used one of the cake layers but masked it off for the top two tiers to get the stepped up look just using one stamp.   I used tea party, warm gray, and red sunset inks and finished with "icing" in oyster grey and liquid mercury.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

We will get the latest release from Lil Inkers in store later today or tomorrow - last week was a difficult week and we fell behind on store admin and are still playing catch up.

The latest release from MFT is in transit but it did ship late due to a PayPal issue so it may not be here in time for release day but we'll get it live as soon as we can.

The latest release from Concord and 9th is ordered but they never ship until around the 10th or 11th once they've got over their retail rush.  We therefore normally get that release around a week after release.

AlteNew have a stamp and die release on the 11th October - we are waiting for it to ship so are not yet sure if we will have it for release day or  not.  The new brush markers will come with that release as will the new build-a-flower.  As that brand are pretty much doing weekly releases, it is just impossible to keep up-to-date so we are trying to get them to ship everything that is released in a month ahead of time so we can release when they do but it's not proving possible at the moment. 

Mama Elephant have another release on the 15th which is gorgeous again and we will have that for release day along with whatever restocks on the last release they have available.

Neat and Tangled have just sent their new release details to us so that will be ordered this week.

We should also be able to order the new Hero Arts monthly add-ons this week (kits only available direct from them)

That's all for this week

Tara