Never-Ending Card Tutorial

I’m always on the lookout for unique cards! I love cards with flaps, pop-ups, interaction, and fun themes. So when I saw the never-ending Card, I knew I had to figure out how to make one and share it with you! You’ll be amazed at how easy and fun it is!

Supplies used:
Cardstock for printing
Scissors
Scoring tool (or spoon)
Tape gun or glue
Embellishments
Ruler
Ink Pad
2 pieces of solid colored paper, cut 8×8 inches (2 different colors)
8 squares of patterned paper, 3.75×3.75 inches, mixing and matching patterns
4 rectangles of patterned paper, 1.75×3.75 inches
8 squares of patterned paper, 1.75×1.75 inches

Let’s get started! The first thing I did was print out two solid colored coordinating papers. I printed the same color on both sides. Then I cut them down to 8X8 inch squares. I took those squares and cut them in half, so I had 2 pieces, each 4X8 inches. Next, I scored each rectangle at 2 inches and 6 inches on the front of the paper and the back of the paper. It may seem a little excessive to score on the same marks, but these cards are going to be doing a lot of folding, so I want to make sure the folds are well worn.

Next we attach the four pieces together. Place the two matching pieces together with the cut horizontal between the two pieces. Place tape or glue in the top left corner of the left paper and the top right corner of the right side paper, between the edge of the paper and the score line. Do not go over the score line or your card will not fold correctly. Also, do not glue or tape more than 2 inches down from the top of the page. There will be a score line at the 2 inch mark on the other paper. Repeat this for the bottom piece, gluing or taping on the bottom left and right corners. The red tape in the photo below is the location to tape or glue.

Next, take your other pieces of paper and line them up vertically. Tape the corners to the corners on the paper below. The cut line should run up and down instead of left to right. Make sure you line up the edges of the papers with the bottom papers so there isn’t any overlap. If you find that there is overlap, just trim it off.

Once your glue is dried (if that’s what you used), work through folding the card each way. You will have to work the score lines a few times to get it going through each page smoothly. See below for the pages:

Now comes the fun part…Decorating! To create my patterned squares and rectangles, I opened a new document in Photoshop for each size square and rectangle I would need. I filled in each document in a shade of grey, and dragged it over to a letter sized document. I then duplicated the shape as many times as I needed it and spread them out. This creates the size and shape I need and I can clip the papers to each shape! I can scale down the size of the patterned paper when I clip to the shape so I can control the size of the patterns.

Once I have clipped all my patterned papers to the masks, I printed them out on cardstock and cut them out. I inked all the edges with coordinating colored ink to hide all those white edges! Deciding where to place the papers was a challenge. Mixing patterns is hard for me, so it took a little time. For the first page, I needed two of the larger squares and four of the rectangles of patterned paper. I taped them to each panel created by the score lines on the paper.

Flip the card to the next page, and choose 4 small squares and 2 large squares. There is a place for 2 rectangles, but when you turn to the third page, you’ll see that those rectangles are actually large squares! So keep that in mind as you are planning your patterns.

Flipping to the next page, we’ll need 2 large squares and 4 small squares of patterned paper.

Flipping to the last page, you’ll need the remaining 2 large squares and 4 rectangles. Tape those down and now you are ready for embellishments.

I opened a new letter sized document and dragged in word art and embellishments I wanted to print, cut and embellish my card with. I resized them to fit in the spaces I have so that the embellishments or word art doesn’t cross over any score lines. You can add buttons, ribbon, and anything you can imagine, but try to keep your embellishments thin. Bulky embellishments may interfere with the turning of your card. Adding glitter with glitter pens is a great way to embellish!

I made another card for my niece’s sweet 16th birthday and used photos in stead of the large squares.

See how easy it is to create this fun card that will keep your family and friends turning the pages! I hope you give it a go and share a photo of it with us in the Hybrid Gallery at Scrap Girls! We’d love to see it!

Digital supplies used:
Signs Of Spring Collection Biggie
Bunny Baskets Collection Biggie
Watercolor Wonderland Paper Mini