I love the Birthday Concertina Card design. It is a little tricky to make, but I will walk you through that step by step. It is very different though and everyone will love that you thought about them and made such a unique card.
This card fits together a little harder than most, but I will show you how. I hate making envelopes, so I wrote a tutorial on how to make a custom envelope, although it fits into a regular slimline envelope, but not well. There is nothing like teaching to make you an expert at making something.
You will need:
- Heavy cardstock for the base
- Scraps of cardstock
- Pen
- Glue (They aren’t shipping in Winter and it gets cheaper in the Spring)
- Download File
Paper Selection for the Birthday Concertina Card
I went with blue and pink for this card because I’m not sure it is for a girl or a boy. You can change the colors easily to suit your special birthday someone. It can either be patterned or solid just make sure the writing will show up if you use patterned paper for the pink parts. The paper doesn’t have to be two sided but it does have to be heavy enough to stand up (110 lb. wt. at least)
The gold foil really looks nice for the Celtic pattern and the oval overlays. The other overlays are silver foiled paper. It adds just a little bling to the card.
Cutting the Birthday Concertina Card
Cut the card out and the Cricut will do the writing. I used a gold gel pen. The card uses a great font I found called Alt Joli. It is free at the Dafont Free Fonts. I love this font because the multiple lines fill in nicely. I hated that fonts left an outline when drawn. If you want to know more about fill in fonts, go here.
If you are using the SVG file make sure you follow the directions in the document included in the zip file. Otherwise your card won’t be the right size and the score lines and writing won’t work right.
The Celtic pattern is very thin. Be careful when taking it off the mat. And there are a lot of little pieces to keep track of.
Assembling the Birthday Concertina Card
This is a little complicated. But first re crease all the folds. The folds on the large base card from the front are a mountain fold, then a valley fold and then another mountain. The folds on the center piece from the front are mountain, valley, mountain, valley, mountain. And make sure the 8 little slits on the base card cut all the way through.
Then you want to attach the embellishments to the center light blue piece. Believe me, I tried to attach them after I assembled the card and it is very difficult to get them lined up properly.
With the both cards facing front side down, take the small rectangular light blue piece and put each side of the center fold into the slots on the base card. This picture shows the card in light and regular green.
Then tuck the skinny tabs on the ends of the small light blue piece through the slots on the ends of the open space of the base card. Glue them to the front of the base card.
Now you are ready to assemble the rest of the embellishments. Crease the party horn border at the center. Glue them to the base card, lining up the center crease with the center fold on the card.
Next assemble the light pink pieces and glue them to the ends over the tabs. They will hang over the center hole a little. Make sure that you only put glue where they touch the big base card on the outside edge or your card won’t work right.
This card could really use a card band to keep it closed. You can find out more about card bands here.
And the Birthday Concertina card is done. Enjoy!