3D Soccer Ball Birthday Card

My soccer-loving nephew has turned 12 and I thought it would be fun to make a card he could get a "kick" out of. He and his brother used to enjoy receiving extra pieces to make the exact card I made. Alas, they're growing up and it's getting harder to impress them. Luckily my readers are a more forgiving audience!

The soccer ball is made of a single piece of white cardstock that gets glued together. Then the black pieces are added afterwards. I added a springing coil of quilled paper to represent a bounce, and a torn green sheet for grass.

To assemble the ball follow the directions – the numbers match the image below:
1) fold along the dotted line and glue the grey triangle under the white pentagon; repeat 4 times.
2) fold the grey tab under the same white pentagon and glue; repeat 4 more times.
3) fold these remaining gray tabs over and glue to your card

The PDF version will have the black areas printed on the ball, so it's easier for hand assembly. The SVG version will have a perforated white outline with the black in separate pieces. These files are for personal use only. I'd love to hear if you gave it a try!

Download Soccer Ball PDF and SVG

Die Cut Happy Birthday Cards

I had several birthdays to celebrate this month and wanted to make them with my Silhouette SD. I thought I would make one design and customize to match the recipient's favorite colors. This pink and purple one is for our niece who turned 13.

I have long admired paper cutters who cut by hand with a craft knife, but any time I think about trying it, I run the other way because I just don't have the patience for it. I finally drew a cake without measuring a single thing - no rulers or straight lines or grids or pre-thinking it. The fine lines are a delicate piece to remove from the adhesive mat and I manually thickened some areas to make gluing easier, but this is still not something I'd want to make many times over. My laziness is quite the task master!

I dabbed a glue stick like a bingo card - up and down, not rubbing across, or else the glue goes underneath the paper and would show in front. Again, the fineness is a hindrance.

As you can see, there is not much gluing surface here and a little too far on one side means you'll see it from the front so some fussing with the lines are needed.

In the end, I love how the thick black paper feels on top of the metallic colors below. It's a tactile thing that isn't quite the same if I put the colored piece on top, which would have been much easier.

Does anyone else come across this dilemma? Which do you prefer to do - difficult and tactile with challenging gluing OR larger, easier to glue pieces that go on top of the black?

Orchid Background Embossed with Big Shot

I was making an orchid for a 60th birthday card and was cutting 84lb Cover Starwhite Flash Pearl with the Silhouette SD. Normally I'd cut something thinner to make it easier on my machine, but I didn't have a lighter weight paper on hand that matched.

Due to the thickness, I set it to cut 3 times at full strength. It cut nicely enough until it snagged somewhere and then all the remaining cuts were off, ruining my design and card stock.

So I tried again, this time with 2 cuts at full strength. It didn't snag or misalign, but this time it didn't cut all the way. So for the entire design I had to manual cut the remaining fibers and at times my patience ran out and I yanked the bit out, leaving little torn bits behind. Looking at it with my Type A personality meant I wasn't happy with the bits. But which do I try again?

My friend recently bought a Big Shot and it came to my rescue! I used the same sheet I had just manually weeded and cranked it through, bits and all.

Seconds later a beautifully embossed texture has appeared on the front of my card without any bits hanging around, making the subtle backdrop I wanted, without all the drama.

So, how many more sleeps until Christmas...

The orchid and leaves are made of Stardream paper. I dotted the deep purple paper with a gold ink pen.