Altenew Blog

Have you tried the Painter's Tape Technique yet? Chances are you may already have Painter's Tape at home and this is a quick, simple, no mess way to create a colourful background. If you

This little tute is for the simple minded like me. For the people who don't like Numbers. :/ And... For those who would like to make a simple 3 color card trick block. There are only TWO numbers to remember 5 and 4 1/4. Those are the numbers I CHOSE. 5 for the 5" squares you'll cut to begin. 4 1/4" for the 4 1/4" inch squares you'll end up with after trimming. You can choose others. ;) I cut 9 squares 5"x5" 3 of each color. Take two background squares and ONE of each of the other colors. Draw diagonal line. Sew and Cut. Here are the Four corners of your card trick block. Now take one of each color. Stack. Cut TWO diagonal lines. Four pieces each. Four tiny triangles from each color. Make your center piece. Set other tiny triangles aside for a minute. Here are your LAST two 5" squares. Cut once on the diagonal. Using the LAST of your cut pieces. Lay them out like this. And sew together. It might help to fill in your other pieces... so there's no "mix up" :) You should have NINE squares ready to be a CARD TRICK block. PLEASE do not SEW them together YET! You may have noticed..... They're ALL different sizes. :/ This should be the smallest one. Trim. I trimmed mine to 4 1/4". SOooooo... You need to trim everything else to 4 1/4". When you trim this one... Make sure that diagonal line on your ruler goes RIGHT through the BOTTOM two triangles. and the 4 1/4" sits RIGHT on the two outside corners. Now. You can sew the squares together. And this..... Is what you'll get. A block that measures..... Almost 12". Mine's 12"....but there's something wrong somewhere. Am I worried? NO. I think it should be 11 3/4" IF... I did my math right. And You know me.... I don't like math. I DO like quilt blocks though. Soooo.... I'm going to KEEP on SEWING! NOTE: IF you do want a 12 1/2" block... just begin with squares that are 5 1/2" and trim them to 4 1/2". I think that'll do it.

Time for the promised TARDIS card tutorial! As an added bonus this tutorial shows you my method of making standard card blanks. This is the first tutorial I have made, so if you have any feedback do let me know so future tutorials might be improved... In order to avoid sounding like a broken record I'll let you know right here that you need to be quite precise here. It'll really show in the results. On with the tutorial - Allons-y! These are the tools used. With one exception - the glue marker. How I could forget such a useful object is beyond me. Tools and materials: TARDIS blue cardstock - A4 or 12" square Black cardstock - scrap is OK White cardstock - scrap is OK White printer paper Self-healing cutting mat Clear quilting ruler Metal ruler Rotary cutter Craft knife Bone folder Glue stick Glue marker Glue tape Fine silver paint or gel pen Black fineliner - 0.1 Pencil The first step is to make the card blank. Start by cutting an 8"x6" piece of TARDIS blue card. Keep the scraps, you'll need them later. The best way to make the larger cuts is with a quilting ruler and rotary cutter. The cuts are kept straight and it's very easy to line things up precisely (don't use a craft knife with a quilting ruler, you'll kill the ruler). Using the bone folder, score a line at the 4" mark on the long side. If the paper is textured, score on the side that will be the inside. Fold along the line and, with the card folded, run the flat of the folder along the crease to sharpen it. Cut the top inch from the side that will become the front cover, and prepare for one of the trickier sections. Keeping in mind you will need to erase later, rule a pencil line one inch from the top in line with the previous cut(not shown in the picture). Measuring up from here rule a line at 3/8", 1/8" and 1/8". This should leave 3/8" at the top. As per the lower left section of the picture above, n the lowest ruled section draw vertical lines 1/4" from each side. In the next section draw lines 1/2" from each side. In the top section draw lines around a 1/4" section at the centre. Join this to the tier below with a diagonal line. Cut around this outline using a metal ruler and craft knife. You may find it easiest to cut small sections away. Erase the remaining pencil lines. Cut a section of black cardboard 1/4"x3.5", or slightly shorter if you prefer (see right side pictures). Write on the card with a silver paint or gel pen as shown. Stick in place with glue stick or marker. Cut a 1/4" square of white card. Stick to form the light at the top of the card. That's the top section complete! Next, on to the front. Cut four 1.5" squares, four in blue, two in white. Cut a blue strip 1/8" wide and at least 4.5" long. Don't worry if it curves a bit, that's fairly unavoidable. Cut it into three 1.5" sections. Using a glue marker, stick the strips on to form a window pattern. On the front flap of the card, stick the blue and white squares. They should be 1/4" from the edge of the card and 1/8" from the top, bottom and other squares. You can use any kind of paper glue here, but glue tape doesn't have a drying time so you can continue on without fear of shifting things. Repeat for the other side. Cut a piece of white card or printer paper 1"x3/4" and write on it with a fineliner as shown. Glue it to the centre left panel. While you're at it, why not add a silver doorknob? Congratulations! The front is complete. The rest should, by comparison, be very easy. The pop-up that will form the inside is a map fold. There's a great tutorial for it on this website (link replaced Feb 2015) which I doubt I can improve on. Use an 8"x8" square. The tutorial uses a rectangle, but squares are fine. If you put it in your card you'll likely find it's marginally large. No worries! Cut off 1/8" and get the added bonus of an extremely tidy visible end. Use glue tape on one side and stick the folded paper in with the centre line 2.5" from the bottom. Be sure to get the point right into the fold of the paper. Put glue tape onto the other side, press the card firmly shut, then re-open... Ta-da! It's bigger on the inside! With Adelaide's famous Christmas Pageant on tomorrow and as I'm also preparing a lot of work for a stall I'll have at St John's Anglican Church Christmas Fair (Friday 16th November, 6p.m., Church Gardens at 379 Halifax Street, Adelaide) I'm in a very Christmassy frame of mind. I twisted together sparkly pipe cleaners and made a wreath to make a Christmas TARDIS. That concludes my first tutorial! I hope you liked it - I expect I'll make more in future. If you use this tutorial, either as-is or with modifications, I'd love to see what you do! Please do not use this to produce items for sale. Do, however, feel free to share the tutorial further. By all means use the first or last image as a link, but please link to this blog for the rest of the tutorial. P.S. The link marked as replaced in 2015 was changed as the original site was now just throwing particularly dubious looking ads. Sorry about that, and hopefully the replacement will stay... if it should fail again, search 'map fold tutorial', there are quite a few about - Heather

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