Accordion Card - How To

We have received many requests on how we did the card base for our 90 Candles Birthday cards.  We decided to do a little picture tutorial for you.  This tutorial is for a 6"x6" finished card, but you can adapt it to any size that you need. 

First start by cutting 12"x12" paper in half to get two 12"x6" sheets.  Score each sheet at the half at 6 inches.  If you are using textured paper, be sure to score and fold your sheets so that you have some that are folded with valley folds and some with mountain folds (see below).  If your paper doesn't have texture, you can just fold them in half.  For our candle cards, we needed nine 12"x6" sheets.

Once you have your sheets cut, you are now ready to start assembling the base.  You want your first sheet to be a valley fold card (sheet 1-2) so that when it is folded shut, the fold is on the left and the opening is on the right.  This way, when your card is all assembled, the first page opens like a regular card.  We wanted the textured side to be visible on the inside of the card so we put the textured side up.  Next you want to take a mountain fold card (sheet 3-4) with the textured side up and attach it to sheet 1-2.  You will adhere side 3 over top of side 2.  Make sure everything is lined up evenly and that each piece can fold properly.

Your next sheet will be a valley fold card (sheet 5-6).  We put the smooth side up on this one because you will not see this sheet when the card is open. (Be consistent: we made sure the textured side was face down on all the sheets that were covered so that when you flipped the card over, it was uniform in appearance.) Adhere side 5 behind side 4. 

Your next sheet will be a mountain fold card with textured side up and would be adhered on top of side 6.  Alternate between valley fold and mountain fold cards until you have the length of card you want.  Make sure you end with a valley fold card (textured side will be up on this one).

(illustration of card assembly)

  

The above picture shows the first few pages of the card we did for our uncle when it is assembled.  When it is open, you cannot see the front cover of the card.

 

This picture shows the last page of the other 90-candle card we did.

Some other information:  On our first candle card, we cut the brown pieces 3"x6" and adhered to each sheet.  This will leave the card base color showing at each of the folds.  When we did our second card, we cut the brown 3"x12".  This way, you only see the card base color on the mountain folds.  Either way you do it, make sure that your card is open so that you can line each piece up evenly with the next.

The candles were cut 3"x7/16".  We used a mix of patterned paper and solid card stock and assembled them in the same order on each of the pages.  The flame is the wing of the SU! Bird Punch.  On one card, we used a yellow patterned paper which gave it a bit of a flame look. On the second card, we used solid yellow cardstock and then sponged a darker yellow around the edges of the flame.

This card is too thick to put into a regular 6x6 envelope.  We used a clear plastic box that Papertrey Ink packs their stamps sets in.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Carol and Cheryl