Coming Soon - Get Lucky Slot Machine Valentine Card!

Within a couple of days I'll be posting the new valentine card for 2011 in both the shops!

See, every year I get really excited about rolling out a valentine pop up card that tops last years valentine cards. This 2011 card has been in the works since summer of last year - and it kicks last years cards BUTT. YAH!

This working slot machine pop up card has a level that one pulls. If you hit jackpot with a winning combination, a personal custom message appears in the prize slot! Play to WIN baby!

Below are some pics of the card!





Sadly, this card will be made-to-order so it will not be able to rush.

Summer Loving

It's officially summer folks! That means sun, fun, and Fathers Day! (Which is June 20th!)

Father's day gifts can be a bit tricky - especially when it comes to greeting cards. Luckily there are a bunch of Crankbunny pop up cards that will surely keep dad's whimsy captured and entertained. Make sure to note the important shipping dates for Fathers day below! (you gotta scroll baby.)

The Secret Decoder Card with custom secret message!


Crack the secret code with a decoder ring pop up greeting card! Personalized it with your own message from the various message options available or come up with your own. This card is 5 by 5 inches square & has a matching square semi-transparent vellum envelope.
Purchase Now! - click here


The Golden Ticket scratch off card with custom winning message


Someone may be a truly lucky winner with this card! The Golden Ticket is a lucky scratch off card that reveals a secret customizable message. Personalized it with your own message or with the message options available. The message is hidden underneath the golden magical scratch off layer inside the card.
Get the card! - click here


Key to Ones Heart Pop Up Card


When you open this pop up 3D card - a large sacred heart rises up alight with a passionate fire. The heart has a removable paper key that slots perfectly into the card's keyhole. This standard greeting size (A7 5x7) popup card is handmade and has a vellum semi translucent envelope.
Take a better look! - click here


Brian Ewing Tell-Tale Heart scratch off card with custom message

As part of the Crankbunny artist series - this pop up Valentine scratch off card reveals a secret customizable message. It is a collaboration with poster artist Brian Ewing. Brian Ewing is a well known artist and illustrator. Personalized it with your own message or with the message options available. The message is hidden underneath the golden magical scratch off layer inside the card.
Buy the card! - click here


And... the new & fabulous everyman loves bacon Piggy Bank Gift card.


This new paper piggy bank is a perfect way to dress up that plain store gift card, cash or greeting card message. Slot in as many giftcards as you can (especially the included bacon note card) and let that special person break open the piggy bank for a neat gifty surprise!
Get more info - click here


**Special Offer for June!
Because summer is here (fingers crossed for no Hurricanes this season!) - its time to celebrate will a cool deal. Buy any 3 cards from the Crankbunny shop & get one free Piggy Bank card. This will happen automatically with purchase - no replacements!

Important Summer Shop Dates!
Summer around here gets a little different - especially with the holiday travel, additional work slams, and trying to set aside a little creative 'me' time. The following dates should be kept in mind when ordering this summer.

Suggested CUT OFF DATES - Get your Father's Day orders in time!
June 1st to June 5th - All orders ship from NYC, USA
June 5th to June 14th - All orders ship from Miami, Florida USA
If you live in the United States - all orders paid for by June 14th will go out in the mail June 14th and arrive in time. All orders are shipped USPS 1st Class Domestic with delivery confirmation. All customers get automatically sent an email with details on their shipping to the email account they checked out with - please use that email to track your package. Please check your spam folder or trash folder if you have not received that email.

If you live outside the United States - all orders paid for by June 5th will go out in the mail June 6th and SHOULD arrive in time. Customs can hold packages up to 2 or 3 weeks sometimes depending on the country. Please keep this in mind when ordering a gift that is time sensitive. There is no way currently to track international packages without playing up 45dollars+ in shipping fees.. and even then it is not a guarantee.

Fathers Day?! Gift Cards? Now with more BACON

Ok - it is a well known fact that most all dad's love bacon (or any sort of fatty pork by-product - mine loves chicharones // aka Pork Cracklings). This is based off a little well-known poll conducted by the Fathers Municipal Alliance of Greater North America and Boat Lovers USA. Which is why the new Piggy Bank Bacon Gift Card Holder would be a super father's day card addition to that store bought gift certificate you had planned to give.


More oink and bacon for your gift card buck!

This paper piggy bank is a perfect way to dress up that plain old store gift card, cash or check into a fun surprise.


Easily slip in the gifty booty (gift card / cash / check / treasury bond / coupon / etc) through the slot in the back.


The person receiving the card merely has to pull the front ribbon tab to break the piggy bank open!

** A blank bacon note card is included as a substitution if a gift card / or cash will not be used with the card.

Perfect for fathers day, bacon lovers, rainy days, graduations and foregoing those store-bought money holder cards that are BORRRINNNG.

Each Piggy Bank money holder card comes with an A7 standard greeting card sparkle gold envelope - perfect for mailing.

Available in the Crankbunny store - click here for more information!

Also now available in the Crankbunny Etsy shop - click here for more information!

Shops closed from May 2 to May 18ish!

Both the Etsy Crankbunny Shop and the regular Crankbunny store will be closed from May 3rd to May 18-20sh. Read more below the '18-20sh' part! (All orders placed before May 3rd have gone out in the mail by Monday May 3rd 2010 - they should all get there in time for Mom's day!)

The Etsy Crankbunny shop will be closed from May 3 to May 20th.
The regular Crankbunny store will be closed from May 3 to May 18th!

Both shops when back open will not carry the full line of pop-up cards and paper puppets (--- some of the cards and puppets materials will not be in stock till late June--- ). If there is a particular card / puppet you need - please so contact the shop to make arrangements beforehand.

BUT

Just in time for Father's Day and the reopening of the shops May 18-20sh -- the shop will carry a new card that is perfect for 98%* of all dads! (** Based on a 2008 Fathers Municipal Alliance Poll of Greater North America -- "All Dads Love Bacon" -3%/+2%)

Below is a sneak peek at the new card - NOW WITH MORE BACON!


Look out in the next week for a lovely post featuring the new card and all its bacon loving -gift giving possibilities.

Feb 2010 Pushing Up Daisies

It's that time of month again to post the donations made for the Pushing Up Daisies card! February was not that bad considering the shop was closed most of the month.

French Bulldog Pop Up Card raised 63 dollars.
Boston Terrier Pop Up Card raised 77 dollars.

Remember that the sales of this card go directly accordingly to the FBRN (French Bulldog Rescue Network) and the BTRN (Boston Terrier Rescue Network).



And because all of us are basically just waiting for summer (winter sucks!)... here's a French Bulldog in a kiddie pool with a basketball.

Le Return of the Gift Set!

Once in awhile I like to bring back the Crankbunny Pop Up Card Gift Set Pack and release it into the stream of shop things. Can you say SUMMER SAVINGS? Yes you can after unlodging that corn on the cob well jammed into your mouth (the BBQ stained cheeks look lovely BTW).



The gift sets are great for someone who loves stationary sets AND pop up cards. Also, it is a perfect way to keep cards handy for any unplanned, slightly forgotten (whoops!) or surprise personal occasions. Let's face it, something always comes up and you always look awesome when showing up with an amazing non-gas station card.



The packs are 18.50 and when you do the math that's $6.XX somethingish per card! Cards are usually 8 dollars when sold individually.



I always try to switch up the packs every time they are introduced back into the shop. There are now four different sets that cover anything from congratulations - get well soon - happy birthday - weddings - and woo baby! This is also the first time I'll be including the Butterfly Pop Up Card into the sets.



Here are the following combinations:

Special Delivery Stork Card,
Fishhead Pop Up Card,
Sacred Heart Pop Up Card

Red Flowery Pop Up Card,
Peacocky Card,
Sacred Heart Pop Up Card

Butterfly Pop Up Card,
Peacocky Card,
Fish Head Pop Up Card

White Flowery Pop Up Card,
Peacocky Card,
Butterfly Pop Up Card

The Pop Up Card Gift Sets are only available in the Etsy store - http://crankbunny.etsy.com

Pop Up Imagination

Consider this the post where I talk a little about pop up cards.

I love pop up anything and collect alot of pop up books. Not only as reference for my own Crankbunny work but mainly just to enjoy! I've never being formally trained in paper engineering, I look up to Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. Each of them are pop up gods and they've brought back the art form in many fresh new ways. I love love love how all their enthusiasm for the 'pop up arts' spills out with each page turn. Each book seems to get bigger and more complicated and amazing. They sometimes teach classes at Pratt Institute and run their business in NYC with a gazillion little paper cutter gnomes running about (ok, its a small staff of gnomes).

Here is a wonderful movie I recently found of both of them going through a recently finished Fairies pop up book (it's awesome - see I'm loving fairies now!) and also holding one of my favorite books that they did with Tomie DePaola called "Brava, Strega Nona!".

Inside the Pop-Up Studio from paul b on Vimeo.
The fairy book is called "Encyclopedia Mythologica: Fairies and Magical Creatures"

There's also a wonderful interview / article that Babble did on them.
Excerpt from Robert: "....that's why pop-ups I think have survived and are really being embraced because it's magic without electricity. You know what I mean? When you turn the page of one of our books, you think, "Oh my god. How is that even possible?" and it's between two boards that make a book and that's a rare thing in our lives today to feel, very rare...."
Here's a link to it -- click here --! I highly recommend reading it.

Also here are some pictures from : Brava, Strega Nona!: A Heartwarming Pop-Up Book







Their studio also has a blog which is fun to read - http://popupstudionyc.blogspot.com/
Most of their staff write the blog posts, so its interesting to see their work as it progresses on projects and also their outside interests too! It's not all about pop up people - it's about imagination!



In this video both of them describe their process and how their work has evolved. What I love most is when they start talking about the interactive experience behind the pop up book. How again, its almost magical yet so simple, and there's no electronics involved.

Featured : Butterfly Flying Flapping Pop Up Card

The Featured post is meant to review and take a good look- in fact!- a better look at some of the products sold in the Crankbunny shop using private incite (oooo saucy!),photos, videos or any technology I can get my grubby hands on.


Flapping Butterfly Popup card
This earthy brown 3D card is of a garden with a beautiful butterfly that flaps and flies when you pull the tab back and forth. The tab is a small hinged leaf which turns out. One of the larger leafs also folds out to a white area where you can write something special.



Incite! This is one of the more tedious cards to put together. Time and all those little pieces to cut out and NOT LOOSE - but I do like making this card because it comes out so pretty. It's also uses a delicate paper mechanism to make the wings move so it should not be mailed by itself through USPS.



Did you know.. There is a supersize me version of this card? There's the regular Butterfly popup card and then there's the super sexy fancy SPARKLE Butterfly popup card! The Sparkle version is alot like the regular except there's alot more glam to it. The envelope and backing is iridescent. Each card is detailed by hand with subtle glitter in different matching colors.



Video! Describing how some of the Crankbunny cards work is sometimes difficult... Flapping? Does it fly off the card... I don't get it?! Hey sometimes my flapping isn't so butterfly-ie!? I'm confused! Video makes it so much easier...



Here's also a little tip on getting your butterfly to flap and fluttery at its most optimum levels!


Perfect for... People like to send this card to relatives and friends as a general 'thinking of you', 'get well soon', or a simple thoughtful gift (aunt's bdays, coworkers, etc). People write back how happy and delighted was because of how unexpected the card is - which is so awesome! (Honestly, no one ever comes up to me and tells me how that diet commercial I happen to animate moved them so much... seriously, TMI).

Flying Monkeys before Fairies

There is something painfully wonderful about starting your day before the rest of the world wakes up. I, for one, get a bunch more work done and have somehow an amazing amount of energy to run around like a wacked headless chicken in my office all day (but those spanish genes summon up a small siesta around noon or so...). Was that chicken metaphor too grotesque? Alright, my Russell Brand knob gets turn back down to the usual 2.4!

I'm not particularly fond or hateful of fairies. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but more likely its a case of "haven't gotten around to it -- I'm still noseying around with vovelles". BUT - in the bookstore a month back or so, I ran into this amazing popup book about Fairies and was blown away! (Apparently the publisher has a few out! Woo!)



How to Find Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker

It's so detailed and intensely illustrated that I had to STOP working on my top secret flying monkey puppet to take a few pictures! They went to town with this series. Love the hidden little areas and use of paper depth.





Looking forward to sitting down with this book and getting all the juicy popup bits in also.

Feel free to also view the amazon.com pictures for the book - which show some of the other pages. I listed the other books in this Cicely Mary Barker series too which all seem to have the "Look Inside" feature to wet your appetite.

How to Find Flower Fairies
Flower Fairies Magical Moonlight Feast
Return to Fairyopolis (Flower Fairies)
Fairyopolis: A Flower Fairies Journal
Flower Fairies Paper Dolls - Paper dolls!

sneak peak!

I thought it might be fun to give a sneak peak of the next card.



Let Them Eat Cake!
No more trying to shove icing, cake batter, and sprinkles into an envelope!

Its a birthday card! This zanny idea found it's way into my head about wanting to do a birthday card that turned into a piece of cake and I've been giggling to myself ever since.





The card arrives flat inside a fun 6 1/2 inch square envelope. Once the card is taken out - a pulled tab "pops" and transforms the card into a paper 3D slice of cake. The tab get tucked away and keeps the card expanded in its "cake-shape".

The cake card is decorated with traditional icing, a lit birthday candle, lots of sprinkles, and chocolate-vanilla-raspberry filling!

Stuck in this fat-free cake is a fork which when pulled out reveals a smaller note card wedged into some icing. This note card can be removed from the cake, personalized with a special message for that amazing birthday person and placed then back into its fork/icing holder.

Update! This card is now available in both the Etsy shop or the Crankbunny store!

The Crankbunny Shop (or store)

I will now also be selling novelty paper goods through my official super snazzy Crankbunny Online store. That's right... this new years 2009 resolution was to get a little organized and frantic with all the neat 3D pop up greeting cards and paper puppets being sold.

So here is the official introduction! Tada - The store! The shop!


Website - http://shop.crankbunny.com
Things to know:
-Unlike my Etsy shop, this store will be open all year. I frequently shut down my Etsy shop at random times of the year unexpectedly and mainly because of my fulltime job as an animator. This official shop won't get shut down ever.
-Popup Cards and Paper Puppets don't sell out on this site too.
-Prices are cheaper because this shop is easier to maintain and use for both of us.
-I can sell less "handmade" things like my new book on making paper puppets.

secret decoder valentine greeting card

Crack the secret code of love with a decoder ring pop up greeting card! Just for valentine's day - which is the holiday I'm the biggest sucker for - I've designed and made a new popup 3D interactive doodad card!

The card also allows for a personalized message that gets coded up numerically and gets held inside. This message gets deciphered using the decoder dials within the card. This popup card is 5 by 5 inches square. It comes with a matching square semi-transparent vellum envelope. Each card is designed, cut, coded, and handmade with my marshmallow fingers.


Ideal for any greeting gift card instance where sneaky agents or secret admirers are involved.

*Update: This card caught me by surprise with its demand. Sadly I had to cut off orders for the card Jan 26th and decided only to make 200 of them for the valentine holiday. Each one of my cards get cut, glued and assembled by one set of hands (*those hands being mine*) and by the 150th card.. those hands were in alot of pain.

**A big thank you to everyone that was so patient getting their decoder card too. It's alot to ask folks and adds to meeting any sort of big holiday deadline which always seems to stress me out a bit.

***UPDATE: The card is back on sale in the Crankbunny Store now**