Birthday Bears: Z-Fold Box Card

I've been on a 3D card kick. I first started making the card-in-a-box style cards. Then, I made some shadow box cards. Now, I've made a set of Z-fold card-in-a-box cards!

Here's one of them: birthday bears. I just love these tiny bears from Dreamerland Crafts. They are just perfect for scene building, like in this card.

This card type is easier to make than it looks! Basically, take your base card with the inside facing up and fold it in half with the open side on the right. Then, take the top piece and fold it back on itself in half again. For the bottom strip, start with the right side face down. Fold it in half with the open side on the right. Then, fold the top piece back on itself in half again. That's what forms the box shape.

Then, you just put in some "benches" to layer up some depth for your card. The grass is a border die I have from Top Dog Dies (no longer in business). Since the blue was supposed to be the sky, I added an extra strip of green grass on the card base in the corner, or else blue sky would show on the inside of the box shape. This card did not originally include the clouds but the sky background seemed so empty. One of my creative friends suggested adding some clouds, so I did! I used a small scalloped scissors I have and free handed them. I like it much better with them!

I made the cupcake (or bonbon or truffle) with paper scraps. It's just a scalloped circle punch and a rectangle with a strip and a heart. After I layered the scalloped circle behind the rectangle, then I angle cut the bottom. If you have a paper crimper, you could crimp the rectangle first, to give it that cupcake wrapper look.

I popped one bear up on acetate so it looks like it's floating with the balloon. I coloured all my bears with alcohol markers - mostly Copic markers but some Spectrum Noire too.

I added sparkle to the balloon with my Wink of Stella glitter brush.

I like that these cards fold flat to mail in a regular envelope, but stand up easily for the recipient to display and enjoy for a few days. Do you have a favourite "fun fold" type of card?