I started by using Eileen’s Romance Flower die with two different papers.

The papers I used were from DCWV‘s new paper stack, “Cranberry Christmas.”

The individual flower section diecuts looked like clouds, so I attached them to the front of the card with removable glue dots. It’s important that they are removable! You’ll see why soon. I love how this paper I chose looks like rain. Well, a very stylish and colorful rain.

And then when you open the card, this is what the inside looks like. Notice the left side. These are the directions for putting a tree together — using the cloud die cuts from the front.

So, following those directions, the recipient of this card would remove the clouds from the front of the card (thus the removable glue dots), and assemble the tree like this, with a 1/8″ diameter stick that would come with the card.

I didn’t forget the tree stand. This card would also include the large flower from Eileen’s Pansy die. (And who are you calling a pansy?) If you look again at the picture of the front of the card, you’ll notice this pansy diecut attached there with a removable glue dot, but it blends in so well you probably didn’t see it.

Fold the petals, and you have a tree stand.

And the finished tree looks like this. (The star is made with a star punch, and it would be attached to the star on the instruction diagram with, you got it, a removable glue dot.)

It would make a nice tree for someone’s desk at work. Or look cute on a fireplace mantel. So there’s my convertible Christmas card. I think I’ll send it to a few people this holiday and see if they can figure it out.

Disclosure: I was given product to write this post, but all opinions are my own. Obviously.

First I created the pop up mechanism. But before running paper through the die cutter, I printed a photo of clouds I bought on bigstockphoto.com onto Scrapbooking Attitude film, and adhered it onto embossed card stock with a heat laminator. I love how the clouds look on the wavy embossed paper.

Then I die cut the paper with the Pop ‘N Cuts Die Set to make the Circle Label pop up mechanism.

Next, I ran two different decorative papers through the die cutter again, but only cutting out the circle label. These will be the hot air balloon. Then I cut a curve out of one of the pieces, so that when the two are layered, there is some dimension to the shape. (Actually, the piece that has orange and yellow squares was a custom design I adhered to gold foil paper with Scrapbooking Attitude. I like to use Scrapbooking Attitude to get the exact design I want.)

I attached 5 small pieces of wire to the hot air balloon using glue dots, putting some in between the two paper pieces and some in front.

I made a basket with grasscloth, decorating it with Scrapbooking Attitude to add the fleur de lis. I adhered the film to the grasscloth with a heat laminator, and the design just soaks into. Love how that works. Then I covered up the ends of the wire with some decorative trim.

Now, we need an outer card to hide the pop up mechanism, so I made my own custom card stock by printing an image of a vintage map on some Scrapbooking Attitude, and then adhering it to some copper foil card stock by running it through a heat laminator.

On the other side, I glued a sheet of embossed, beaded paper. This will be the inside of the card. Then I trimmed the card stock to 10″ x 7″, and scored and folded it into a 5″ x 7″ card.

The pop up mechanism sits right in the folded card, and I glued the hot air balloon to the circle label.

Oh, one last detail. On the cover of the card, I created a vintage suitcase. I printed a custom design that said “Let Your Dreams Soar” onto Scrapbooking Attitude and adhered it to a sheet of vinyl using a glue stick. Then I die cut it with the Sizzix Scoreboards Suitcase die designed by my friend Eileen Hull. I didn’t need the  whole 3-dimensional suitcase, just the shape of the front and the handle. And I added some trim to the suitcase as well. And for the inside, I printed the words “And  your imagination take flight” on Scrapbooking Attitude and adhered it to more of the copper foil card stock. Scrapbooking Attitude is a great way to get images and words onto papers like copper foil; these difficult papers can’t go through a desktop printer, and even if they could, the ink would smudge.

So there you have it. A pop up hot air balloon card. With the help of my Sizzix Pop ‘N Cuts die and Scrapbooking Attitude, my creativity was able to go up, up and away. Now if only I weren’t afraid of heights.