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xx Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog - your comments are all greatly appreciated xx

Sunday 26 February 2012

Napkin Fold Tutorial


Good morning crafters (said in true Robin Williams, Good Morning Vietnam style :-)

As usual on the weekend I couldn't sleep so I decided to pull together this tutorial for you as promised in my last post for the napkin fold card.  It's not an easy one to put into diagrams, but here goes and hopefully you will be able to make something of them, if not I apologise now ;-)  One word of advise though (learnt from experience of course), the better you score your folds the easier it is to form the shape!

Materials needed:

A4 sheet of card
Scoring board (one with cm's on)
A bit of patience :-)

Instructions:

1)  Take your A4 sheet of card and cut to a 20cm square

2)  Score around each of the four sides at 5cm (see diagram 1 below).  Turn the card over and repeat on the other side.

Diagram 1 
3)  Fold/score along the 5cm score line on the left hand side towards the centre of the card (see diagram 2 below)

 Diagram 2

4)  Keeping this folded section on your left, take the top right corner and fold/score it over into the centre of the page using the folded straight edge to butt up against (see diagram 3 below)
 Diagram 3

5)  Repeat with the bottom right hand corner (see diagram 3 above)

6)  Unfold the left hand edge (see diagram 4 below)
 Diagram 4

7)  Fold/score both the top left corner and the bottom left corner in towards the centre mirroring the right hand side (see diagram 5 below)

 Diagram 5

8)  Take the corners at the centre and fold/score them back towards the outer edge of the card (see diagram 6 below)

 Diagram 6

9)  Unfold and lay the card flat (see diagram 7 below).  This also shows all of the folded/scored lines you have (hopefully) made.

 Diagram 7

10)  Now comes the more difficult part of trying to explain how to form the fold!  Hold onto your seat, we may be in for a bumpy ride

11)  Working on the left hand side first, take the point at the middle of that side and push it towards the centre of the card (see diagram 8 below).  Repeat for the right hand side.

Diagram 8

12) This will automatically lift up your next fold/score lines (see diagram 9 below)

Diagram 9

13)  Repeat step 11 for the other two sides

14)  Finally take the corners in the centre and fold/score back towards the outside (see diagram 10 below)

 Diagram 10

15)  Your finished fold should look like this (see picture below).  Obviously mine has been mounted onto a card, but you can see the folds clearly from this picture


16)  To complete, cut a piece of card (approx 9.5cm square) to fit inside the fold and decorate.  Please note that once it is inside the fold only the centre of the insert is visible (see pictures below)



 Once you have mastered this technique you can play around with the sizings and make it larger or smaller.  I have made this to fit onto a 6" x 6" card, but you could make it larger and tie a ribbon around the centre (this was how it was demo'd to me).  You can add different coloured card to sections to highlight them or use double sided card - the ideas are endless.

I hope that these instructions, diagrams and pictures have been easy enough to follow and that you enjoy making your own napkin fold cards.  I would love to hear your comments.

I am not claiming to have invented this fold, just adapted it for my own use and hopefully assisting others.  Please feel free to reference this tutorial, along with your project, on your blog and any craft sites but PLEASE spare a thought for the time and effort that has gone into producing this and a link to this tutorial would be very much appreciated :-) 


xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx





Friday 24 February 2012

Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today


It's challenge time again over at Fussy and Fancy and this fortnights challenge is "more than words".  We want you to use your long sentiments or verses for your projects this time so no "happy birthdays", "get well soons" or "good lucks"!

I've used a sentiment from the talented Barbara Gray's collection at Clarity Stamp and a new fold (tutorial in seperate post) that I learnt at a recent craft retreat, from a demo held by Nat.



Materials used:
Distress ink - antique linen
Ribbon from my stash

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Do You Stack Up - distress
Southern Girls - distress
City Crafter - it's all natural
Crazy Challenge - die or punch
Allsorts - anything goes



xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx






Friday 10 February 2012

With All My Heart...


Well it's nearly Valentines Day girls!!!!!  Have you got your cards ready for your husbands, fiancees, boyfriends or just someone you wish was, tee hee :-)

Over at Fussy and Fancy our challenge for the next 2 weeks is "With All My Heart".  I hope you'll join us and share your cards and projects with us and show us some love.  I wonder how many hearts we'll see?

Here's the card that I've made my Valentine (Mark) and I've also made a box for it to go into as well, hope he likes it :-)  It's been a real struggle trying to hide it from him as he loves looking at my work and when I had a friend over to help her make one for her husband he was banned from the room, bless him!!  Hope it's all worth it in the end!!



For more inspiration pop over to the Fussy and Fancy challenge blog and check out what the talented girls on the design team have done.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

I Love Promarkers - love is in the air
Crafters Companion - anything goes
Papertake Weekly - anything goes
Whimsy Stamps - love themed
Little Miss Muffet - valentines and love
Bling It On - love is all around
My Mum's Craft Shop - love is in the air
Outlawz - love - drawn end of February
Joanna Sheen - love is in the air
Dream Valley - valentine


xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx