I made this card for a friend who recently almost<\/em> bought a dog at a pet shop. I am happy and relieved to say that she didn’t and with this card that I am encouraging her to adopt from a shelter or rescue organization or get a dog from a reputable breeder.<\/p>\n

I knew I wanted a large card to create a kind of “store front” look with a bright, welcoming awning and a large picture window. \u00a0To add an interactive element, I made the front window a floating shaker through\u00a0which you could see a room full of puppies from the Mama Elephant “Playful Pups” stamp set<\/a><\/span><\/span>. Oh my gosh, aren’t those puppies the cutest?<\/p>\n

<\/a>The following are the Copic colors I used for the puppies, tennis balls, and bones:
\nDalmatian:<\/strong> W1, 8, 9; Bandana: BG11, 45
\nRolling Golden Retriever:<\/strong> E21, 11, 13 and 41; Belly and muzzle: E41 and 41
\nCenter Terrier-mix:<\/strong> E33, 35, 23, 37, 29; Muzzle: E41 and 51; Collar: B24, 29; Tag: Gold metallic Sakura Gellly Roll Pen
\nWeimaraner playing with ball:<\/strong> C1, 3, 4 and colorless blender; Collar: R22, 29
\nFrench Bulldog:<\/strong> E40 and 70; Ears and muzzle: R11; Collar: B01 ; Spikes: Gold metallic Sakura Gelly Roll Pen
\nBear squeaky toy<\/strong> (drawn with a Copic\u00a00.01 pt Multiliner pen and fussy cut to cover letter in stamp image): RV00, 02, 13 with belly covered in \u00a0Raspberry Fizz Flower Soft for fuzzy texture
\nTennis balls:<\/strong> Y11, 13, 15
\nBones:<\/strong> C1 coated with Glossy Accents for shine<\/p>\n

I started with a large 8.5″ x 12″ piece of heavy kraft card stock for the base. To accommodate the dimension of the pups, I also added a 1\/8″ gusset at the top fold. I then cut a window out of the front panel with an X-Acto knife 7 3\/4″ by 3 1\/4″. \u00a0I cut a second panel with the same dimensions so that I could insert the shaker pocket between these two panels to create a floating shaker on the front of the card without interfering with all the pups on the inside of the card. I created the shaker pocket using a scrapbook layout sleeve and a We R Memory Keepers Photo Sleeve Fuse Tool<\/a><\/span><\/span>, filling it with tennis balls and bones that I stamped, colored and die cut from the Playful Pups set; pearlescent and gold sequins; and white seed beads (I find that adding something with a little dimension like beads helps all the shaker pieces move around better).<\/p>\n

<\/a>For the awning, I cut a piece of 2 3\/4″ by 8.5″ piece of striped patterned paper and used the\u00a0Martha Stewart Eyelet Lace Punch Around The Page Set<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0to punch the end corners and along one\u00a0edge of the paper. Then I scored the paper lengthwise at 3\/8″ and 2 3\/4″ to create the area to attach the awning at the top of the card and the drop\u00a0overhang. To finish off the\u00a0window, I just cut strips of white card stock to frame the opening and layered a couple of thinner strips at the top and bottom to add some visual weight to the window framing.<\/p>\n

The puppy playroom inside was easy to create. I first cut a piece of pink wood grain patterned paper to 8.5″ x 4.5″. Then I found some pale blue puppy paw print paper that I thought would make the perfect flooring and cut that to 8.5″ x 3″. To create the look of a 3D room, I drew in vertical wall lines 1 1\/4″ in from either side and 3″ down the card. \u00a0I connected the bottoms of those lines with a horizontal line to create the back floor. Finally, I cut away the floor paper at a diagonal from the bottom of the wall lines to 1 1\/2″ above the bottom of the card on both sides. \u00a0If this is unclear, please watch the video where I point all of this out on the card so you can see what I’m describing.<\/p>\n

Then it was just a matter of positioning all the adorable puppies that I had colored up and die cut using the matching Mama Elephant Creative Cuts die set<\/a><\/span><\/span>. I popped all of them up on foam adhesive to add a little dimension and added a little extra fun with an extra muzzle layer for the French Bulldog\u00a0which I fussy cut out and popped up with more foam adhesive and putting the whole Golden Retriever up on a home made action wobble (if you are interested in how to make an action wobble, see THIS VIDEO<\/a><\/span><\/span>).<\/p>\n

The following is a video share of this card:<\/p>\n