For dog lovers everywhere!
My God-daughter Shelby asked me to helped her make a Father’s Day Card that looked like their new dog Molly.
The Doodlecharms cartridge for my Cricut Expression has a dog feature and we gave it a try.
Molly is a Golden Retriever, so I searched through my paper supply for just the right tones of gold.
I discovered one sheet of paper called Honey Bear that was just perfect! I don’t recall where I got it, but it was probably Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. It is from a collection called Honey Cottage from Paper Adventures.
We cut the dog at 4″ and it’s perfect!
Using Doodlecharm’s features we cut out a black nose, and 2 shadows (brown and green) to put behind the dog.
We also cut an extra green shadow for the inside. We put the dog together, and all he needed was a mouth. We used a black Sharpie marker to make the mouth.
Our base card was a tan 8.5×11″ cardstock. We folded it in half and placed the dog at the top — with the fold on the left.
The card seemed much to large for the dog, so we decided to place the words we wanted to use and then cut off any extra card. Using Plantin Schoolbook, we cut all the letters at 3/4″, lowercase, in dark brown.
Using my favorite Making Memories tweezers and Sakura Quickie glue pen we attached the letters for the front. Instead of 8.5″, we were able to cut the card to the size of 7″ x 5.5″.
Shelby thought the front looked a little boring, so we created a little pattern of 3 dots that mimicked the dots from the dog’s whiskers and scattered it randomly around the front of the card. We thought it added just the right touch.
For the inside of the card we used the extra dog-shaped shadow. We added our sentiment to the shadow, still leaving plenty of space to add a personal message. And Shelby is pleased with her dog-inspired Father’s Day card!
If You Don’t Have A Cricut Machine…
If you would like to make a card like this and don’t have a Cricut, there are many other options.
The dog for the card could actually be cut from a photograph of a real dog, or it could be a photo from the Internet, a catalog, a dog book, postcard, etc.
My favorite place to look for whimsical animals is greeting paper — many stores have very cheap wrapping paper with cute animals or other figures on them.
Once you have your primary character, use stickers, stencils, markers, letters cut out of magazines or your own handwriting for the written parts of the card. Be creative!
And when working with a child, be sure to let the child’s ideas make it onto the card. Often, those are the parts that inspire the most sentiment!
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!
I don't buy greeting cards or holiday cards anymore — I make my own! I also do some rubber stamping and scrapbooking. But mostly I enjoy creating handmade, one-of-a-kind cards. I’ve been an avid crafter for most of my adult life. My crafting addiction started with cross-stitching, then moved on to wearable art, projects with painted wood, fabric crafts, and then paper crafts — which has transformed primarily into card making. I also make the occasional wreath, snowglobe, and other holiday crafts.
