Scrapping by Design

I made these pop-up photo cubes and the holiday ornament ball using the Sizzix BIGZ Dies 3D Ball PopUp.

Its cut on the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine, and you need a Sizzix extended cutting pad to handle the Bigz die.

If you haven’t used the Big Shot, I have to tell you it has quickly become my favorite crafting tool, right after my Fiskars Paper Trimmer. There is a video demo of the Big Shot at this link.

These photo cubes will be Christmas gifts for two little boys, and the blue ball makes a neat Holiday ornament. Although the shape lends itself well to Christmas and the holidays, these balls would work well at any time of the year.  Using black and white images makes a truly elegant photo cube, based on some pictures I have seen.

I like these little pop-up balls quite a bit. You can flatten them in an envelope or between folded card stock and mail them. When the envelope is opened, the balls pop up. The high tech items that make them work are good old-fashioned elastic bands.

The balls are easy to make, once you know how. I am not particularly skilled at figuring things out, so I confess that I struggled with the instructions for quite some time.

I have made video demonstrating how to make these 3D pop-up balls.

As for the photo cube, I have to say that sizing the digital photographs and printing them out to the right size and shape was a time consuming project, at least the first time I did it. It was much easier the second time around when I made the second photo cube.

Don’t know how to resize or shape your digital images to use them in this photo cube? I have a post describing how to resize and shape your images using Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements.

In the meantime, how about these other great Bigz Dies at eBay? I need to win the lottery.