I LOVE ROBOTS. I do. I made the illustration above last year, and it is no more than an honest confession.

I own a few little robots myself (as I mentioned on the Stylish post while back). I think I especially like that vintage feel, all the dials and buttons, representing the past notion of what “futuristic” was thought to be.

My great affection for robots is actually old news, the reason for this machine invasion today is ROBOT WEEK! I now declare next week to be the official robot week on the Little Green Box! So, what does that actually mean? Well, I had the honor of receiving a beautiful paper kit that is about to be launched, and I’m going to reveal the new kit with some awesome robot projects!

Stay tuned this week, it’s going to be electric!

Have a beautiful weekend,

ShirA

I’m probably the last one to hop on this trend-train, but that’s because I have issues with “CUTE”. I create sweet characters sometimes, and I’m not afraid of using any color or pattern. However – if the project becomes too cute, I can’t pull through. Can’t do it. Just ain’t my cup of tea.

And then came felt food. Felt fruit, felt hamburgers and the icing-on-the-cake (pardon the pun…) – felt pastries! I can try to play it cool, but these goodies are just darn irresistible!
Felt was super HOT this year, all I needed was a good excuse to tackle a nice little project. When my friend Avital celebrated (in a most fabulous way!) her son’s first birthday, I knew that was my chance to try it out. Little Evyatar received hand made felt goodies like doughnuts and cookies, wrapped in pretty doilies

I have to say I LOVED making them! If you never tried making felt doughnuts with little bead sprinkles, You have to try. These things can brighten any one’s day, guaranteed.

Love it.

I haven’t been around much, I know, but here’s a treat to win your hearts back – check out the Glue Gun Girl blog. The blog’s author is Lisa, a song writer from the UK, who writes almost every day (unlike lazy me…) about all things DIY, from super cool crafts to fun party cocktails.

She kindly asked me to answer a few questions, like a short interview for her blog. I gladly wrote back, adding this great tutorial for a last minute Valentine’s card – a winged heart pop up for the one who makes your heart fly!

Come on! Click the link and meet the Glue Gun Girl!

Have an awesome week, full of love and chocolate!
ShirA

As always, making a card for a man is not an easy task. Trying to give it a masculine feel (and avoid cuteness;)), I kept the colors muted and used a lot of neutral Craft Paper. I chose only two patterned papers for decoration and added a touch of gold with beautiful Washi tape.

I wanted every single page to be surprising, but still keeping the whole thing working as one, so there’s a simple structure to it all: every spread has a secret pop-up illustration on the right side, and a hearty wish-on-a-tag in the left side pocket. Each spread has a theme and the illustration and wishes to match.

I placed the wish-book in a little paper box (a tutorial for that is coming up soon!).

Dreams
In the first spread I made an accordion of cut-outs, representing some of Ari’s dreams, wishes and hopes (just a few, those I could actually illustrate…).

Success
The computer pop up represents the professional side of my husband’s success in life, the wishes I wrote on the tag spoke of other aspects of success as well

Adventure
This pop up is a fun tecnique I’ve used here for the first time. When you pull the ribbon, the 2D monochromatic illustration becomes a 3D one, and below a colorful reflection is revealed. The scene is inspired by a photo of Ari, standing proud on a snowy ridge during our hiking trip in New Zealand. On the tag I wished him lots of travelling, new adventures and exciting events.

Love
When you open the pop up tab on the right, a birthday cake pops right up! I love this pop up, sweet in character and masculine in color. As for the wishes, I think I’ve got the love department covered…

The back of the book is simple and clean. Just a little touch of gold.

Happy birthday Ari my love! You’re the best!

ShirA

Hi!
How’s 2012 so far?
First, allow me to apologize to my non-Hebrew speaking subscribers: this post contains information in Hebrew, it describes the upcoming workshop I’m hosting in Israel- basically telling everybody where to be and what to bring. Next post we will resume normal transmission…

Now, for the details:

Hope to see you there!

ShirA

Hi you, how’s the weekend?

First of all, I would like to wish all my readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope 2012 will be an exciting, creative and joyful year to you all.

Now – a story of a very pink card. About two weeks ago Nitzan celebrated her birthday. I’ve met Nitzan on a paper craft social gathering, and found out she lives about a block away from me! Then, when she celebrated her birthday with some other crafty friends, I was very glad to be invited.
Everyone made her a card and a little hand made gift. All the cards were gathered into a bundle and handed to her at the end of the evening, it was real nice to sit together and admire each other’s unique style and ideas.
I was in a VERY pink mood when I made this one! It’s SO girly… I made three felt flowers (one missing from the picture) – a large and a small pink brooches, and a small matching hair pin for her little baby girl. I placed them in a little green box (get it? Get it??…) and added the pop up card to match.

I wanted the card to have the sense of winter, only I didn’t want it to be gray and gloomy. Therefore – death by pink!

Happy new year and all the best!

ShirA

Happy Saturday everybody!

For those of you that celebrate Christmas, I wish you a wonderful holiday, I hope it’s really festive and exciting wherever you are!

I would like to introduce a very talented artist. Her name is Helen Musselwhite and she creates the most magical, gorgeous, delicate and moving scenes with paper. The layers of hand-cut paper are laid in box frames to create depth and drama. I love the woodland works, it makes you feel as if you’re peeking through a dense, mystical forest. You also HAVE TO check the Glass Domes! So beautiful.

Most recommended! Check out Helen’s site here.

Happy holidays!

ShirA

Hi!
Today I want to tell you about the gorgeous blog Cool & Bello. Cool & Bello, created by Nofar Ben-Dror Paecht, is an Israeli blog full of beautiful, thoughtful and cool stuff, all designed for children!
If you can’t read Hebrew I warmly recommand to turn on your Google Translate, cause the site is well worth it!

This week, Cool & Bello and myself are offering you to join a raffle and win a cool pop up card! I made this card for the upcoming Hanukkah, and you can have it! Just visit Cool & Bello and read all about it!

Good luck and a happy festival of lights!

ShirA

Hi everybody!
I’ve been back from an amazing vacation in Thailand for over two weeks now, and the sunny, warm beaches already seem like a faraway dream…
Now that I’m back, I think it’s time for a new and awesome tutorial! These lovely Royal Crown pop up cards are a great gift for a newborn (a little “prince” or “princess”), a nice way to tell a colleague “you rule!”, or a funny way to congratulate a friend on their new house (“king of the castle!”).
I’d like to thank my beautiful friend Tamar for being my hand super-model

There’s a Heart Crown -

And a Basic Crown -

The tutorial I’ve made is long and detailed, but trust me – it’s super easy to make. Just follow these steps to create a fun pop-up you can decorate and personalize as you please.

1. First thing’s first – PRINT. Choose the Basic Crown or the Heart Crown template. They are basically the same, only the Heart Crown in more elaborated and requires a bit more work (oh, and has a heart on it, too).

Press here to download the Basic Crown PDF

Press here to download the Heart Crown PDF

In this tutorial I used the Basic Crown, but the steps ahead apply to both.

2. Time to choose the paper you’re going to use. You will need paper for the inner card, for the outer card and for the crown. The patterned paper is optional, something to spice up the exterior of the card.
I chose pale green card-stock for the inside, olive green textured card-stock for the outside, warm yellow textured card-stock for the crown itself and some groovy patterned paper for the extras.

3. Cut the interior card 20×14 cm, and the exterior 21×15 cm. Use a bone folder or a stylus to score them both in the middle. Fold the cards in half, along the scored axis, to achieve a neat fold.
This would be the time to round the inner card’s corners, stamp it and so on.

4. Measure 4 cm from the center, and mark it with a pencil. It doesn’t matter if you mark it left or right from the fold.

5. Now, take a look at your printed template. You’ll notice that some of the lines are dashed. These lines will be scored, not cut. The little tabs act as gluing tabs.

6. Cut the extra paper around the crown, leaving just a narrow frame around it.

7. Secure the template to the chosen card-stock with some masking tape.

8. Score all the dashed lines with a bone folder or a stylus. Apply a little bit of force to make sure it gets across to your card stock. Now cut all the lines around (DO NOT cut the dashed lines!).

9. The circular part can be either cut with scissors or punched out with a circle punch (the template matches a 1 1/4″ circle punch perfectly).

10. Your cut-out crown should look like this:

11. At this point I would recommend you take your bone-folder or stylus and have another go at the scored lines in order to make them easier to fold.

12. Fold the scored lines, so that the crown is folded in half and the glue tabs are folded inwards.

13. Add glue to the tab at the side of the crown.

14. Close the crown down over the glued tab and press. Wait a little allowing the glue to set.

15. Add some glue to one of the tabs at the base of the crown.

16. Turn the crown over, glued tab facing down. Align the crown’s base with the line you’ve marked earlier. This is the time to make sure the crown is located nicely and symmetrically on the card.

17. Push down the glue tab so it’ll stick to the card. Allow to set.

18. Add glue to the second tab at the base of the card.

19. Close the card over the crown and press. Give it a few moments for the glue to set.

20. There you have it! A royal crown!

21. Glue the inner card to the outer card. Notice the outer card gives a nice frame to the inner one. You can embellish the exterior card as you please, and give it to a regal loved one!

Hope you liked it!

ShirA