Christmas Pop Up Book

You may recall the Twas the Night Before Christmas Pop Up Book from last year that I made just for fun – to put my pop up skills to the test! I ended up giving it to my boss’s boss so her children could enjoy it. Maybe I’ll have to make one for my new niece and nephew this year 🙂

Well, thanks to my husband and the purchase of this fabulous product: The Silhouette Cameo, I have made the new and improved Christmas Pop Up Book version! My hands are happy that I’m finally putting the x-acto knife aside because the Cameo is my new best friend for paper-crafting

PROS:

1. You can custom cut and print any design – I mean ANY design that you want
2. You never have to buy a die cut cartridge or mess around with expansion packs
3. You can download designs from their online store and automatically start printing right from your computer
4. Online designs are endless and they are really cheap $0.50-0.90 per design.
5. Their customer support staff are super friendly and they respond really quickly through email
6. And again…you can CUSTOM create your own design and print out any font, style, shape, or image and it will cut it out perfectly and intricately.

CONS:

1. It’s a little tricky to set up…there are white rollers on the sides that you have to slide to adjust the settings for smaller paper designs. These things are so difficult to budge the first time you try it! It finally worked for me when I discovered from another blog that wearing rubber gloves will help you grip them enough to twist the pinchers out of the notches.

* A NOTE to FELLOW ETSY SELLERS: Make sure that if you use the Cameo, you purchase the license for commercial use and avoid the designs that say “for personal use only” if you intend to use a copy-righted design in a product. You can, of course, create your own designs in the Silhouette Studio software that comes with it so that your original work can be used in your own products, but just make sure you don’t incorporate a personal-use-only design in a commercial product!

I actually purchased the Fiskars Fuse (die cut & letterpress combo set) on Black Friday. It was marked down to $179.99 from $299.99, so it was worth the price to try it out. But before I even took it out of its packaging, I came across a Cameo demo video on YouTube and instantly became awestruck.  I have since returned the Fiskars Fuse – as it doesn’t even compare to this machine. Most craft stores have this machine on sale right now $100 off – so don’t purchase it directly through Silhouette.com if you can help it.

Here is just a taste of some of the work the Cameo can do 🙂

Twas the Night Before Christmas: Pop Up Book Photos

A couple days ago I did the video for this pop-up book I created, but here are some pics of the whole thing, scene by scene. This one took me about a full week to put together and some of the scenes took more than one trial run. It was tricky trying to figure out the design and mechanism for some of the pop-ups. I practiced some of the cut outs on computer paper that I took home with me from the recycling bin in my office.  I was determined to use only my left over scraps from holiday card-making and not buy new paper for this project.  A couple of stickers (made by Jolee) are also left over from card-making. I will admit that I did need 1 additional sheet of black cardstock paper in order to finish the cover, but other than that, this project was made entirely from scrapbooking and cardmaking scraps and left over paper. For all of you who love scrapbooking and paper crafts as much as me, remember to make good use of all of your paper and don’t let your scraps go to waste.  I hope you like it!

Made from this pile of scraps:

Happy Holidays!

Pop Up Card: Pop Up Christmas Tree and Presents

This is a card I recently made for my parents! I wrote the rhyming verse. The stickers are made by Jolee and the paper is from Stampin’ Up. The design and craftwork though is made by me, Emily! I will post a short tutorial soon on how to create a basic Christmas pop up card.

Have a beautiful day!

Pop Up: Christmas Card

I had a request from one of my co-workers to make a Christmas pop-up card for her son, Tanner. It was a last minute request and I didn’t have time to do a quick video of it, but I did manage to snap a few photos.  She requested to have the card left blank so she could write her own messages on it. There are 3 special pop-up scenes for Tanner. I have more Christmas cards coming soon! I have received a few more requests that I need to hurry up and finish before I leave for my holiday vacation.

Have a great day everyone!

Pop-Up Book: Twas the Night Before Christmas

After hours of slaving away meticulously trying to get every scene just right, I have finally finished my newest pop-up creation: Twas the Night Before Christmas book. Take a look at my video below! Happy Holidays! 🙂