[Photo heavy] Crafty Diamond Shape Easel Card Tutorial

A few months ago one of my card was shown in Papercraft Inspirations Magazine letters section and I got a goody bag of craft items because of this so thought I would have a go at making some different shaped cards and made the below by mistake when another one went a bit wrong and transformed into a diamond shape easel card.

Topper from Polkadoodles Digistamp Heaven CD, coloured with Spectrum Noirs

Topper from Crafters Companion

To make this card you need:
Embellishments
A4 piece of card 
Paper trimmer
Tape
Glue/tape runner
Foam tape
Scoring tool and board/Ultimate Pro
Ruler
Pencil
Ruler
Toppers/embellishments

1. Start with your A4 piece of card and cut it in half so you have 2 pieces of card each 10.5cm by 25cm 

2. Take one of the pieces and cut it so you have two 10.5cm x 10cm. Put the the left over bit to one side for the moment.

3. Get the 10.5 x 29.5cm piece and score at 15cm and 26.5cm

4. Now mark in pencil at 7cm and 22cm 

5. Now mark half the width of the card (ie at 5.25cm)

6. Now join the points by scoring them so you end up with the below

7. Now chop off the bottom two triangles and trim off 1.5cm from the diamond.

8. Next fold all the lines, where all the points meet put a piece of normal sticky tape over it. This will help keep it strong and stop it breaking when folding.

9. Now cut the middle out of the side triangles leaving about a centimetre 

10. You should now have something which looks like the below

11. Now get those two identical squarish pieces we cut earlier and stick them to the bottom flap on each side (this will make the base bigger and make it look prettier)

12. Now cut out a rectangle for your stopper (decorate if you wish) and add two layers of foam tape to make it raise up higher and stick it on the bottom flap at the front.

13. Now decorate how you wish

Papercraft Inspirations Shrink Plastic Freebies

Yesterday I received my second copy of Papercraft Inspirations from my subscription. Free this time was a sheet of shrink plastic with printed images.


I've never used this medium before but have seen it on tv craft shows and always fancied a go but didn't really want to have to buy the heat guns but only recently found out (in Papercraft Inspirations) that you can also do them in the oven!


I used my Promarkers to colour the images in yesterday at my parents (while making Spaghetti Bolognese) then cut them out once I got home and shrunk them this afternoon. I want sure how much they would shrink and the magazine made them look like they wouldn't shrink much based on the card pictures in the magazine but holding my shrunk items up to the magazine they are true to life sizings (so they must be small cards).


I had my items on the tray ready to put in the oven when my husband said he could probably use his blowtorch which had a heat gun setting. I gave him one of the dodgy bits of plastic (a butterfly button that had gone a bit wrong) and he tried shrinking it which worked well but it went a bit to melty and bubbly (and oval?!). We put the rest in the oven and in a few seconds had finished shrunken pieces!


They are really cool but not really designs I would use but it was a great first insight that I purchased the special promo deal from Handy Hippo! Plain and decorated shrink plastic and pens.


It saves you over £5 on Handy Hippos price and their site says it saves £10!


I'm looking forward to making some keyrings and charms with these.


The photos below show the items before shrinking, after, the butterfly which is my favourite one, and the difference between using a blowtorch/heat gun and the oven.


Update: 04/07/12
Handy Hippo pack came yesterday and made my husband a cute little keyring of him and his fav sandwich filling hehe

Before shrinking

After shrinking (they aren't arranged in the same way as when they went in the oven as I removed them to flatten them)

Shrunken butterfly

Left one made by my husband with the heat gun, the one on the right was done in the oven.

Keyring I made for my husband with the pack from Handy Hippo and Papercraft Inspirations