TEA TIME CUP AND SAUCER

This is another of Sharon's  { tea time} cards. Made from the ready made tea cup cards available at Regal Craft Cards. She has used pretty papers to decorate the cup  and plainer paper for the base. Accents are border stickers and a flower to lift the design. Sharon has then slit the base and folded the card so that it sits up. In this instance the card can'not be flattened for postage but what a great idea for a place setting at a party.

CELEBRATION BOX CARD

It is a bit hard to see in this photo, but there is a congratulations greeting on the back panel peeking through the flowers. The decorations are from a sparklelight  3d sheet and the flowers are suspended on strips of acetate. Again, hard to see but the theme is in green and white which gives it a fresh and delicate look. For those of you not familiar with box cards there are plenty of web sites with instructions on how to make them. They look a lot harder than they are to make.  The box squashes  up to fit into an envelope the same as a normal card.

SIMPLE ACCORDIAN CARD

CARD FRONT

This is a fun variation of a flag book.  I've basically scored and folded the central panel of a black three panel Regal craft card into an "accordian", and stuck simple die-cut flowers to either side of each fold.  It's important to remember that flowers on the front of the fold will tilt forward, whilst flowers on the back will tilt backwards so you have to position them so that they swing freely - a little practise run with removable tape is a good idea before you fix them more securely in place.

As there is so much going on inside the card, I've kept the front very simple - just some decorative paper that reflects the shape of the die, a couple of ribbons (the black one secured under the patterned panel to hide the ends) and a silver charm.

I guess you could use this card for a lot of different occasions, or you could just sit it on your shelf for a cheery decoration.

INSIDE THE CARD

3D PICTURE USING POSTCARDS

CARD FRONT

INSIDE THE CARD

Here's another card suitable for anyone really but probably timely with Fathers day just around the corner.  (You have no idea how long that paragraph took to complete as in the US, the apostrophe goes between the r and s, whereas in the UK it goes after the s, and in Tasmania I'm just confused.
I wimped out and didn't add one at all so put it where you want!)

Anyway, back to the card - Regal has a spectacular range of vintage postcards.  I've used one as the base and cut and shaped (just using my fingers and the palm of my hand) elements from another couple to stick on top with foam tape.

The 3d effect is much more pronounced in reality that it appears on screen - the bottle is nicely rounded, and the flag does look a bit fluttery.  This post is turning into a bit of a repository of random information, but just in case you are thinking "but the flag should be blue"............The red ensign was in use from 1901 to 1954 and was the civil flag i.e.blue was for government and red was used if you wanted to fly an Australian flag in your backyard.  Needless to say everyone got very confused and the red flag is now only used at sea.

Getting back to the card (again) I've made a simple pop up machanism for inside, and used a Regal photo slot card as an easy way to mount the postcard on the front.

EGYPTIAN PYRAMID CARD

EGYPTIAN CARD - FRONT

I made this card a while ago for a demo, so it includes a few tips techniques that you can use more widely in your other cardmaking.
- You can shape your 3Ds by gently rubbing the middle of the reverse side in the palm of your hand until the edges start to curl a little. This adds dimension but also hides any foam tape/silicone glue that is underneath.
-Use the colours in the card topper as a guide for what colours to use elsewhere in your card.
The colours do not have to be the most obvious ones.  In this case I've used the gold, green and red from the band on the hat and frame around the central motifs.
-Decoration doesn't always have to be stacked on top.  It can also go underneath - in this case I've punched four windows and lined up the paper underneath (It also means you don't have to measure the paper accurately, and you can chop out the mistakes made in other projects and still use your paper.
-Do remember that a single fold card has a front, a middle and a back, and all of these surfaces can be decorated.  In this case I've used colours from the front of the card, edging from the 3D sheet (available from Regal Craft Cards) and a few cut into a gold insert to convey the idea of a pyramid.(Actually this time of year, its looking a bit like a Christmas tree......but as I said, this was a card made to illustrate a few different techniques that you can use for all sorts of things, not necessarily to make "as is", although, really it does look a bit like a pyramid in reality!)

EGYPTIAN CARD - INSIDE

MAKE A BOX CARD FROM A SQUARE CARD

Here's an easy way to make a folding box card using a pre-existing square single fold card.

Cut a double-sided tape width of card of the front of your card, measure and score down the corresponding edge of the card back.

Measure the width of the back after the edge has been cut off, and score a line half way.  Do the same between the fold and the scored edge of the front (the four panels you've created should all be the same size).

Decide how big you'd like your flaps to be.
Cut down along the folds to this length and score along the edge you'll be folding down.  (You can fold all four down, or leave the one at the back sitting up.  Cut across to the edge of the back panel from the last cut so that you are left with a tab.  Score Put some doublesided tape on this tab and stick the panels into a box shape.  Make two or three little rectangles to fit the inside of the box, bend the edges into tabs and secure with the flat side facing the front.

Now all that remains to be done is to go wild with the decoration........in this case a Sparklelight 3d sheet from Regal Craft Cards, spread over the card, with elements attached to little "sticks" made of acetate so they appear to be floating above the main part of the card

POP UP BOX CARD

BOX GARDEN CARD

Trudy Meijer made this lovely foldable card.  Although its not on a Regal card base, she did make the point that Regal sells large pieces of cardboard in the printery, which are needed to make this style of card.

I'm doing the Regal Christmas card demo today (Thursday 23rd) between 10 and 3 so if you can pop in, that would be lovely.  I'd really like to make one of these, as it would make a terrific Christmas card for a special person,  but fear it would take most of the time.  I'm also fairly confident that it wouldn't turn out nearly as nicely as Trudy's example, which she has decorated with die-cuts, stickers, stamps and more in conjunction with some very pretty layered papers.

This style of card is very popular at the moment and you can find instructions on-line (look at the Splitcoast Stampers site or just search for "Pop up Box Card") but Trudy tells me that she worked this out for herself!  I am suitably impressed.