CHERRY BLOSSOM VALENTINES CARD

(Parcel Pop-up)

Happy Valentine’s Day!  

This card is a big mash-up of some products that I’ve been wanting to use. It’s pretty fascinating how sometimes an improvised card comes together. The most important feature is of course the pop-up, this time being the parcel pop, used very simply - no gimmicks (I’m afraid of overplaying the hand with everything going on!). I wanted a clean and simple card.

First, the inspiration…I was watching one of my favorite creator Kristina Werner’s video on YouTube (by the way, did you know that some content creators has subscription memberships that gives you more content? I didn’t know that, but of course I joined lol!). I was struck by her dramatic cards that included a background element of using different colored strips of card stock…it’s like an extension from the color palettes from those color cubes. It’s like the time I saw Yana Smakula use embossed black background, very striking and clean. Plus I’m a big fan of Concord & 9th’s color stock, so I just picked five colors and cut them into 3/8” strips and started applying them to an adhesive sheet. Brilliant brilliant background for my new toy, We R Makers new punch board to make Shadow Boxes. Great depth and, again, dramatic.

Next up, it’s Cherry Blossom season! I love Altenew’s Craft-A-Flower dies (which utilizes a smart keyhole system). This cherry blossom branch is from their upcoming March release and includes a lot of teeny tiny pieces. I always prefer to cut it all out of white stock and color blend it myself though these petals are so small it’s hard to do too much.

Inside, the parcel pop will lift up the Happy Love Day, which is Kristina’s release by C9 from January. And then I have this small bridge, also from Altenew’s upcoming March release, that includes stamps for fallen cherry blossom flowers. I stamped some directly onto the card and die cut some and stuck it on there with foam dots for dimension. At the last moment I remembered the color strip background and decided to use the three blues - to imply water under the bridge. It was already past Valentine’s by the time I was done…so mad dash to take pictures of the card and I probably had the finished card in my possession for less than 3 minutes before it was rushed upstairs to be gifted to mom.

I hope you like this mix and match card (another one is in the works, I’ll see if I’m able to finish it). But if you like what I do with florals, I encourage you to visit my (work-in-progress) website www.kenchien.com where I have Altenew cards as part of my participation in their Educator Certification Program (AECP)…they’re all still obviously Ken-style cards (if I have a style), but quite different. I wonder how you feel about them - just press the button AECP up top.

But I’m also working on loading past cards from peeps and elsewhere onto the site. After all, the reason I decided to spend time starting a site is to document my card making journey (you guys have witnessed most of it lol!). As I played with the website making, AI-assisted, program, I was having too much fun with buttons that shake, wiggle, move etc…but it also gave me a chance to create a section on the front page dedicated to the three releases since I joined Karen’s design team (so grateful everyday!). My hope is when I figured it out that the cards I created for each release will be accessible by clicking on that particular banner. Things will be organized not only by release, but my blog or ramblings will accompany each card, with videos and additional pictures (and direct link to YouTube making of clip if there’s one).

Thanks! Happy Valentines