The theme for the Instagram hop this Sunday was Butterfly or Bee and Symmetry. I took the chance to use the recent Flowering Tree Box Die Set from Spellbinders. It creates a fantastic four-tiered card that folds flat into a regular A2 format. It’s a real stunner and not too hard to pull off.

Creating the pop-up base

I followed the instructions on the back of the packaging, but next time I think I will switch up the order of steps. The instructions tell you to die cut the pop-up parts first. You need one large backer, one left side, one right and three tiers. The tiers are a single die that you die cut three times. There are two score marks across the width of the tiers. Use your trimmer to cut horizontally across the front tier at the lowest score mark and the middle tier at the other score mark. This way you create three tiers of varying heights.

The instructions tell you to assemble the base first. Fold the sides along the score marks and glue the flaps to the back of the back panel. Make sure the sides and back panel are all bottom aligned, so the card stands up straight. The three tiers have vertical score marks. Bend the flaps back and glue them to the side panels in descending height. Again, make sure that everything is bottom aligned, so that the card can stand up.

Tree, flowers and butterflies

Next you cut out the tree and the flowers. Double up the tree or use really sturdy cardstock. It’s going to carry a lot of weight and it’s not going to look good if it bows under it. I cut the tree trunk twice. Once in plain Kraft cardstock, and once from Kraft cardstock sprayed with brown mica spray.

Some of the flower dies need to be cut out two or three times. Of course you can add even more leaves and flowers, if you want a fuller tree. I ink blended Saltwater Taffy and Kitsch Flamingo for the flowers and the sentiment. For the leaves I blended Twisted Citron on cardstock.

I only cut out the number of flowers and leaves that the instructions said, because I was going to add butterflies. For that I used Bibi Cameron’s So Many Butterflies die set. It’s a nesting butterfly set with both wings and bodies in five sizes. If you’re into butterflies, you’ll find lots of uses for this die set. You can even use the largest butterfly to create a shaped A2 butterfly card. But for this card I used the very smallest butterfly to cut out 5-6 butterflies out of gold foil cardstock.

Tiny die cuts tip

The easiest way of handling tiny die cuts is to add glue in the intended placement. Then you place the die cuts with a wax-tipped jewel picker. Gently twist the jewel picker to let go of the die cut. Then use the other end of the tool to push the die cut into the glue. If you’re using quality glue, this will create a super strong bond. Add the cross-shaped die cuts to the largest flowers. Add the tiny center disks to the smaller, four-petalled flowers.

Spellbinders make it easy to place the flowers and leaves because there are leaf or flower-shaped parts sticking out from the tree trunk die. This is the advantage of buying dies from a company run by people who craft themselves. Experience shows.

The Happy Birthday sentiment is included in the die set. I cut it from the same Saltwater Taffy and Kitsch Flamingo blended cardstock as the flowers, to tie the card together. I’ve already ordered the other sentiments that go with the set, to make it more versatile. These sentiments all have tabs at the bottom, to make it easy to glue them to the back of the tiers.

Putting it all together

The instructions tell you to assemble the tree and all the flowers and leaves before gluing the tree onto the back of the highest tier. Then you glue Happy on the back of the middle tier and Birthday on the back of the front tier.

While the tree and sentiment dies have tabs for gluing them in place, it was actually not that easy. The hard part is getting things straight and centered when you’re gluing them onto the already-assembled base. I did it by strategically employing a couple of reverse tweezers. But it was a bit nerve wracking. I was worried that the tree or the sentiments were going to end up crooked and I’d have to start over.

I think that next time I’m going to only assemble the back and sides first. Then I glue the bits onto the back of the tiers flat on my desk. That way I can use a ruler to make sure everything is straight and centered. Finally I glue the tiers in place on the base. I’ll still need a couple of reverse tweezers to hold the tiers in place while the glue dries, but at least the tree and sentiments will be straight.

When everything else was in place, I added the gold butterflies. I think they add a bit of extra movement that this tree needs.