Up, Up, and Away Graduation Surprise

Hi, friends! Today I want to share a card I made for a wonderful former piano student of mine who graduated this year. Because this young woman is extra special, she needed an extra special card! I have been wanting to do a tunnel card for a long time, so I set out to find a tutorial on YouTube. Why reinvent the wheel after all? I found a great tutorial from Heidi Smith which details the construction of this card. Heidi presents the dimensions in centimeters, so read on for the conversion to inches!

I used my Up, Up and Away stamp set from Papertrey Ink, along with some scraps of Stampin' Up paper I had left over from Sale-a-Bration in 2017. These cute hot air balloons fit the theme of this card so well! (Stampin' Up also has a great hot air balloon set called Lift Me Up, which could be used to create a similar effect.)

I used a standard A2 card base cut from Night of Navy cardstock (4 1/4" x 11" scored at 5 1/2" on the 11" side). The interior "tunnel" is created by scoring a second piece of Night of Navy cardstock cut to 4 1/4" x 11" and scored every 2 3/4". I die cut an oval "tunnel" by centering my die on the center score line, and then folded the paper in a mountain configuration ( _/\_ ) and adhered the far left and far right panels to the outer card base. Be sure to decorate the interior of your tunnel before assembly; I used a 5 1/2" piece of patterned paper scored at 2 3/4". The side panels were cut to 2 1/2" x 4" (coral layer) and 2 1/4" x 3 3/4" (clouds).

By adhering balloons both inside and outside this card interior, I created a dimensional effect. Some vellum clouds are fun additions too! 

I hope you'll check out Heidi's tutorial and try this fun card fold for yourself. A variety of scenes would be amazing: gardens, houses, critters, ocean scenes … the possibilities are endless!