Hi, crafty friends! I’m back today with a super simple card. It’s a shaker card, and I tend to spend forever on my shaker cards, but this came together so quickly.
I’m using the new Animal Valentines Koala image. There are three other animals to choose from (bear, cat, giraffe) with the same balloon design and punny sentiment to match, but having lived in Australia, I just had to use the koala.
I adopted Laura Bassen’s new coloring motto for 2023 for this card: “no muss no fuss coloring”. This was very simple, a few grays and a little bit of pink for the cheeks, the inner ears and the belly. I used a craft knife to cut out the interior of the balloon and printed another panel with just the balloon in the same size. I colored that balloon in green (thanks for the color suggestion, Liz) and added foam strips along the outer edge of the balloon, before filling it with tiny iridescent stars from the Icicle sequin mix from Hero Arts. I then added a piece of acetate on top to complete my shaker, and adhered the koala panel to the shaker, making sure to line up the window with my shaker heart balloon as best I could.
I added foam tape on the back of the rest of the panel and adhered it to a top fold card base. The card base is actually Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, but I adhered a panel of Clover cardstock from Concord & 9th on top to create the green front. The color matched with my green balloon, but I don’t have unlimited amounts of Concord & 9th cardstock, so I’m trying not to use it all at once. Also, it’s a thinner cardstock, and not sturdy enough on its own to hold the weight of lots of foam tape and a shaker.
Using the largest of the dies in the Stitched Rectangle Scallop Edge Frames die set from My Favorite Things, I die cut a frame from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink. This is such a perfect soft grey, I love it. I finished off the card with a few enamel hearts from Altenew, from the Green Fields pack and the Rock Collection.
The iridescent stars inside the shaker heart really catch the light nicely.
Super simple color palette, as I mentioned.
As soon as I saw this stamp set, I knew these snow globes would make the perfect shaker cards. The stamp set comes with the snow globe and six different scenes you can stamp inside. I, of course, opted for the penguin, but there’s also a snowman, a car with a tree on the roof, a house, a tree with presents and a village, as well as a few sentiments.
I stamped and colored the empty snow globe on a quarter sheet of X-Press It blending card. I stamped the penguin on a separate piece of blending card and colored that for the inside of my snow globe. I glued a few Kort & Godt pearls around the penguin and put him aside while I worked on the rest of the card.
I cut the center out of the snow globe and adhered a piece of acetate to the back of the white cardstock, before adding foam tape on the back of the shaker area, making sure not to leave any gaps. With glitter inside the shaker window, you don’t want it to escape.
I put a mix of clear Distress glitter from Ranger and some micro beads inside the shaker area, before adding my colored penguin to the exposed adhesive of the foam tape to close the shaker.
I initially put too much inside (I always seem to put too much inside) and had to pour some out to get the perfect amount. I then adhered my popped up snow globe to a card base I created from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I used the merry script die from Mama Elephant to cut the word merry three times from Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things, stacking the die cuts for a dimensional look. Near the bottom of the letters I softly ink blended a bit of Blueberry Sky ink from Papertrey Ink to add a little bit of a gradient. I stamped the word Christmas from the 
This is a fairly simple looking card, but it’s got tons of dimension and a shaker card is always fun, right?
Not a whole lot of Copics for this one. I did also use B90, which is a color I made myself using an empty marker, some B91 refill and blender refill.
I decided to create a full card shaker this time. They’re fun to make, and a lot easier than you’d think. Even easier (and way faster) than regular shaker cards! At least they are to me.
This is the 
This cool, deep pink is so much fun to use for Christmas cards, it’s unexpected and fun, and matches the Autumn Rose color cardstock from Papertrey Ink sooo well.
I created my shaker pocket from half a stamp storage pocket from Avery Elle. I created score lines and folded so my panel would fit inside, used score tape on the back of the bottom and sides of the pocket and filled it before folding over the top flap and sealing it shut.
I used the Icicle Sequin mix from Hero Arts to fill my pocket. This mix has clear sequins, matte white sequins and iridescent star confetti, just enough to create interest, while not being too distracting. It’s a perfect mix for wintery shaker cards.
For the die cut word, I used the Believe die set from Simon Says Stamp. I die cut the shadow from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink and the word itself from Autumn Rose cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink. I adhered the two together and then directly onto the shaker pocket. If you’ve never created a full card shaker before, I urge you to try, it’s so much fun!
I tend to go overboard when I color snow. No exception this time 🙂
I colored the scene in using my Copics, before using Iceberg ink from Altenew with the Slimline Cloud Edges stencil from My Favorite Things to create soft clouds in the background. I then sacrificed one of my stamp storage pockets from Avery Elle, using about half of it for this card to create the pocket for the colored panel to slip into. I know there are full shaker covers on the market, but I don’t have any, and the storage pocket was easy enough to alter.
I filled my shaker pocket with sequins and gems from the Candy Corn mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. This is a great Halloween mix with clear, yellow and orange sequins, as well as some little gems and even acetate ghosts. I loooove the ghosts, but of course I removed them from the part of the mix I used for this birthday card.
I die cut the word Gratulerer twice from white cardstock and once from Pure Poppy cardstock from Papertrey Ink using the Gratulerer 8 die from Papirdesign, stacked them and used liquid glue to add the die cut to the front of the window.
I stamped a sub sentiment from the Go’klem stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto a separate piece of Pure Poppy cardstock using VersaMark. I heat embossed it using super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger in white, cut the sub sentiment down to a strip and added a couple of additional cardstock layers behind it, before adhering it to the front of the shaker using score tape.
Simple, but fun color palette for this one.
Using a couple of dies in a set of nesting squares from Lifestyle Crafts, I created a frame to go around my image. I taped the two squares together, so I could run them through my die cutting machine several times and be sure that the size of the frame would be the same with each pass through the machine. I die cut 8 of these frames, I wanted a very dimensional shaker card. I stacked 7 of them, glued them to my colored piece, added lots of sequins from the Icicle sequin mix from Hero Arts and glued the last die cut frame on top.
That’s when I ran into trouble. I wasn’t able to glue the frame onto the acetate so that it lined up with the others. I’d adhered it with score tape, so there was no way to remove it without ruining it. My solution was to die cut a new, larger frame with a slightly smaller window. I went one die larger for the outside and one die smaller for the inside for this frame, and adhered it directly onto the ones that were already there. It was a happy accident, because I’m really happy with the chunkier frame.
I added the shaker to a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2″ card base I created from Wild Cherry cardstock from My Favorite Things, before stamping and white heat embossing a se23ntiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS to a separate piece of the same color cardstock, which I then die cut using a die from the Gemini Extra Deep Loving Tags die set from Crafter’s Companion. I adhered it directly to the inside top right corner of my shaker frame, and my card was finished.
Not a whole lot of colors for this card, in spite of all those stripes on the snowmen’s accessories.
Not a lot of colors for this one. 
My sister’s birthday’s in a few weeks, and I thought this was the perfect card for her. She used to have the nickname “musa” (the mouse) when we were kids. Our cousin, a few months younger, was also quite a bit bigger, earning her the nickname “rotta” (the rat). Of the two, I think my sister got the better nickname.
I die cut the frame five more times, cutting away the interior pieces and stacking the frames to form the walls of my shaker. The frame is quite thin, so I didn’t trust myself enough with a ruler and a craft knife to create five identical frames. Die cutting seemed safer and quicker. I’ve kept all the pieces and am planning on using them in the future for a card or two.
There’s quite a bit of dimension in this. Card base, five layers of walls for the shaker, a piece of acetate, die cut cover frame on top, then three layers of letters. Dimension is life!
Limited color palette with such a small image.
Papirmølla 