Joy Pop Up Box Card

This is my 3rd entry for My Favorite Things' "2017 Card Design Superstar" challenge. I'm entering this in the "Innovation Master" category.

I decided to make a pop-up box card for this challenge. I have a hit-or-miss track record with this type of card, but I keep trying to perfect my technique! I think I did fairly well with this one, if I do say so myself! :)

I created the box from 140 lb. watercolor paper, following the instructions in this post, and the measurements from a different post. After cutting & scoring the paper, I sprayed it with Dylusions London Blue & Vibrant Turquoise; Luminarte Radiant Rain Shimmering Mist; & Heidi Swapp Teal Color Shine mist. Since I was using snowflakes, I just wanted a variety of blues to go with the "cold" theme. I dried that with my heat tool, and repeated the process with the insert pieces. Once everything was dry, I used Dylusions White Linen mist to flick speckles on both sides of the main box piece, to mimic snowflakes.

After I assembled the box, I glued in the insert pieces. Then it was time to work on the decorations. I stamped the 3 smaller snowflakes from My Favorite Things' "Sophisticated Snowflake" set (apparently discontinued) in Versamark onto Essentials by Ellen 40 lb. vellum. I heat embossed with Recollections Snow embossing powder, and fussy cut them out. I used a tiny piece of Scor Tape to attach a 1/4" wide strip of acetate to the back of each snowflake, hiding the adhesive behind the embossing.

I applied more Scor Tape to the bottom of each acetate strip, and adhered my snowflakes to the inserts in the box. I also adhered a few to the back of the front panel of the box itself. They were a bit too floppy, so I used tweezers to add another tiny piece of tape further up the strip, and adhered each strip in those spots to the insert/box panel.

Side view of box, showing the stamped snowflake panel

For the side panels, I cut pieces of white cardstock so there would be a 1/8" border all around when I adhered them to the box flaps. I stamped them with the same snowflakes, using Hero Arts Soft Pool and Memento Teal Zeal inks. I used both first & second generation stamping with the Teal Zeal.

I used one of the "Stitched Scallop Basic Edges" dies from My Favorite Things to die cut the top & bottom of my greeting panel. I stamped the "Joy" from "Joyous Christmas Sentiments" (also from MFT, but discontinued) in Memento Danube Blue ink in the center of the panel. I then used Hero Arts Pastel Blue ink to stamp a snowflake over the greeting, to add some interest but still not compete with the greeting. Finally, I adhered that & my 2 side stamped panels to the box flaps.

I really like how this came out overall. My only regret is that I didn't stagger the heights of the snowflakes more. But hey--live & learn, right? I hope whoever gets this card will get a kick out of it!