Monday, 10 September 2007

Spring Cards


At the moment these are all the rage in the UK with many people still unsure of how to make them. Most people are unaware that the original templates were produced by Marianne Designs in Holland. There are 6 plastic folding templates, 3 square, 2 flowers & 1 c6 size. Each has a co-ordinating brass embossing/embroidery stencils and 3d sheets which fit within the designs perfectly.

To make the card you will need a sheet of A4 medium weight card, small ball embossing tool, ruler, craft knife, cutting mat, strong double sided sticky tape/glue and your choice of pretty papers & embellishments.


I’m using my own folding & cutting guide, feel free to copy it and pass on to your friends. I took the idea from the original templates but I wanted something tall to fit into a C6 envelope. If placed carefully you can cut 2 from one sheet of A4. By making the paper 14.8cm wide instead of a5 you will get a square card. Feel free to pass on the template to your friends, just dont include it on any cd or print to sell.



Template:

Using an embossing tool score all the lines including the broken ones.



Cut along the green lines.


so you end up with a tall "House" shape.

Fold along one of the blue lines, use the back of the ruler or a bone folder to sharpen the crease then flatten. Repeat along the other line.











Flip the card over and using the ruler/bone scorer create nice



folds along the 2 scored and uncreased lines at the middle of the



cross and at the bottom.






Bring the folds together to create the spring shape. You might want to “anchor” the top to the base with a piece of strong double sided sticky tape or glue. If you're using a pretty paper along the base make sure you use strong sticky otherwise in a few days the tension in the folds will pull it off.

I've got several spring cards in my photo bucket if you want a few decoration ideas. I'll also be adding fancy templates here once I've uploaded all of the tutorials from my yahoo site.
Be great to see any cards you make.