Book Card Tutorial & Steampunk Card

"Steampunk Book Card"

Marie-Louise left a comment on my blog asking for a book card tutorial, so here it is just for you. Now, I'm one of those English forty somethings who were supposed to grow up in metric times, but had to become bilingual in imperial to survive, so naturally I tend to use a mixture of imperial and metric measurements. I hope this doesn't confuse too much. It's just that half-inches work really nicely for the folds here, and are easy enough to work with if you have a Hougie board or similar device that has half-inch crease marks. If not, work in multiples of 1cm instead of half an inch to make life easy for yourself.

"Two pieces of A4 cut and folded"

To make the book part of the card, cut two pieces of A4 card to 8 inches wide. Next cut each into two pieces that will make two edges of the book. Measurements can be adjusted as desired to make book cards of different sizes. The measurements should be slightly smaller than those of the finished book. Here, the two pieces are cut to 14.8cm and 10.5cm. Looking at the picture above, the two bottom pieces are discarded, the top two pieces measure 8 inches along the top and 14.8cm down the side, and the middle pieces measure 8 inches across and 10.5cm down the side. Take each of the book pieces in turn and crease every half inch parallel to the shortest sides as in the picture above.

A scoring board is really essential for making accurate folds for this type of card.

"Four pieces that make up the book pages"

Next, discard the two bottom pieces and concertina-fold the remaining pieces with alternate mountain and valley folds as above.

"First corner"

Take one short and one long piece and interleave the corners.

"In place"

Wiggle the corners gently into place until the two edges sit at right-angles.

"Gluing into place"

Lift the top edge and place a little glue in the corner, then hold until it sticks. Glossy accents dries and holds quicker than PVA, but either will work. Turn over and glue the bottom edge. There is no need to glue any of the other pages, they will hold be held in place by the tight folds.

"Second corner"

Take the remaining short piece and wiggle into the other end of the long piece before gluing as above.

"Final piece"

Wiggle the last long piece into the two remaining corners at the same time and glue into place.

"Covers"

Cut one background piece for the book pages to fit (14.8 x 10.5cm = A5), and a second long piece of thick card from which to make the covers, 24cm x 15.3cm. Make a crease parallel to the shortest side of the long card, 11cm in from each end.

"Assembled book card"

More panels can be added to the outside and inside covers as desired. Pieces of lace, ribbon or twine can be glued between the panels and the covers to provide closures as in the following example:

"Happy Birthday"

For this card, I've left the outside cover plain to look like a real book and just added a couple of peeloffs to resemble gold-leaf.

"Steampunk Birthday"

The fun of the book card is in the dimension that can be added to the inside. The edges here have been made with 1" folds for a wider border, and the outer card folded in the other direction to provide a frame for a landscape-oriented decoupage scene from the Graphics Fairy.

"Decorative panel"

As well as the twine glued between the covers and decorative panels to provide a closure, a second length of twine has been added to tuck some tags into, providing a space for the sender to write a message.

"Tags"

The tags and decorative panel are decorated with inks and stamps to match, with masking and perfect pearls for added interest. Matching lenths of twine are added to the tags.

"Yeeha Mr. Steampunk Man!"

The decoupage panel is adhered behind the book pages with a border of hammered gold card covered with diecut gears.

Ingredients

cardstock: 2 x white A4 220gsm, 1 x brown A4 300gsm, 4 x cream A5 160gsm

distress inks

archival ink

Papermania Hampstead stamp set

Tim Holtz Cityscape stamp set

Creative Expressions Vintage Aviation & Vintage Treasures stamp sets

Spellbinders Sprightly Sockets

Graphics Fairy image printed out x 4 for decoupage

adhesives: PVA, glossy accents, Pinflair

twine

gold peeloffs: chain border & "Happy Birthday"

Hougie Board & creaser

Entered for the following challenge:
Dream Valley Challenges - Anything but Square
That Craft Place - Anything Goes
Here Come the Boys - Tag on a Card
Card Makin' Mamas - Rubber
Samuel Taylors - Die cuts
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Top Tip Tuesday - One for the Men