Book shaped card tutorial and template

Book Shaped Card

I guess like most people I am fascinated by shaped cards.This card was fun and fairly easy to make so I whipped up 2! Sharing how to make this book shaped card
Materials Required
Card stock - I used an A 4 size card you can use whatever size you fancy
Scoring tool or ball point pen [which has been used up and is without ink]
How to make a Book shaped card

Book Shaped Card

1. Fold the Card stock in half
2.Make the spine of the book: On the front half of your folded card, score a vertical line [from the backside] so as to give a raised border.My card front measures a little less than 15cm and I scored the spine border 3cm from the central fold crease.For a good looking book card make the spine 1/5 th the width of your book!

Book Shaped Card

3. On the front half, draw a curve from the top of the folded edge to meet the spine about 2 cm down from the top.I didn’t do any measuring and this “2 cm” is just a guide to help the more mathematically inclined folks out there!
4. Draw a horizontal from the point where the curve meets the spine to the edge of the card
5. Cut out this marked out portion of the front half of the card

Book Shaped Card

6. Use the curved part of your cut out to serve as a template to draw a curve at the top right corner of the back half of your card.

Book Shaped Card

7. Cut out this curved area from the back half
8. Use the same curved cutout as template to mark a curve along the lower left corner of your card. Cut this curved area from both the front and back panels
Your Book shaped card is ready!

Book Shaped Card

Embellish and add details as you wish highlighting the book shape of the card.
For crafters who love templates right click and save the Book Shaped Card template

Book Shaped Card Template

To make the "pages like" look
There are several ideas to make the pages like look at the top of your book card
1. Use border stickers:I used some gorgeous shiny border stickers from Pie Lane to create a “pages” look for the book card.

Book Shaped Card Tutorial

2.Score lines on card stock
3.Draw lines with a gel pen or pencil
Highlight the spine of your Book card :I Used Pie Lane border stickers on the spine and the cover of the book card to highlight the outline of the book.

Book Shaped Card

Embellish the Cover of your book
As the focal image I used an  embroidered flowers iron on fabric! Added some handmade punchcraft flowers all around it.

Book Shaped Card

I had fun using glitter balls [from Pie Lane]. Handling tiny glitter balls is tough and I had quite a few incidents of bouncing balls, runaway balls and “god knows where it is” balls!

Book Shaped Card

Sharing a clumsy person’s tips to handle tiny glitter balls/beads
1.To put a single glitter ball on your project -use a forceps to dip it into glue and then stick it ..I found this technique  faster and cleaner.
2.To make glitter ball flowers like I did on the punch craft flower centers I added a blob of glue at the flower center, counted out 7 glitter balls and let them all drop onto the glue.

Book Shaped Card

Maybe due to viscosity or some other magical “physics” the 7 balls would easily move into a flower pattern if you give it a nudge or two with a pin!
Using this crazy technique, making the glitter ball flowers was much quicker than making the golden glitter ball antennae for the butterflies in the red book!

Book Shaped Card

I used different sizes of Pie Lane borders, butterflies and glitter balls on the red card.The gorgeous golden rose plant was gifted by Khalindi to my daughter for winning her challenge[ Thank You Khalindi!]
Hope you liked my book cards .The possibilities with this type of card are endless...you can make the book into maybe a “Bible” , a Diary, a Fairy tale book or whatever suits the theme you have in mind
Do tell me how you liked this.
Edited: This card came top 4 at For Love of Crafting
Do pop over to my friend Avni's blog to see a beautiful card she made using this tutorial

Pancake shapes -Ocean theme Edible craft

Ha Ha I feel almost naughty posting this! As I said in my earlier post the ocean theme challenge at BGC is something that really "inspired me"...well inspired me so much that we had fish [well actually fish shaped  pancakes!]for breakfast !!

Pancake shapes

These are Pancakes made from milk and flour and shaped freehand while pouring batter on the pan---made an octopus and an angel fish
Pooja............hoping your DT get a laugh out of this! I guess no entry will be crazier than this.

Ocean theme Glass Painting

Ocean Theme Glass Painting

The Aquatic theme is something I find fascinating for craft projects sharing this ocean themed glass painting.

Ocean Theme Glass Painting

Here is a quick glass painting made with a pattern saved long ago [dont know the origin of the pattern ]
I love glass painting-- it is so soothing and relaxing!

Quilled Butterflies on Recycled Crafts

Quilled butterflies

Quilling butterflies is my current passion!And here I combined them with my passion for recycling crafts! 

Recycling craft

I recycled an old box,a tin can and backing paper from a stickers set to make a stationery set

Quilled Butterfly

I made my own version of a criss cross card inspired by Khushboo who makes awesome fancy fold cards.
Lots of beehive quilling on the butterfly[ Thank You Susan,Pritesh,Mihaela]

The pink flowers are made from tiny circles[Here is the tutorial link:Circle flower Tutorial] with Pie Lane glitter and a pearl at the center.I had fun challenging myself to use lots of tiny Pie Lane glitter balls .

Quilling

The is the top of the stationary box lid with punchcraft daisies and quilling.The tiny black flowers from Pie Lane are a gift from my blog friend Snehal and the polka dotted ribbon was gifted by blog friend Romina.

Recycling craft

This is how the inner panel of the lid stands up..again added lots of tiny black Pie Lane flowers.The lacey border was made using a Fiskars punch gift from Priya Sivaraj.

Glittery Butterfly

 I had fun  popping in glitter balls in the center of the flowers..they fit so perfectly[wonder if the Pie Lane designers meant it to be used that way!]

Quilled Butterfly

The dark pink velvet ribbon is part of a huge prize Kalindi sent to my daughter for winning her craft challenge

Quilled butterflies

Many of the stuff I have used in this project are gifts from generous wonderful blogger friends.I am so lucky to have such generous blogger pals!

Quilled butterflies

Hope you enjoyed the overdose of pink!

This pink stationary set was inspired by a color challenge set by the talented "color queen" Priya Sondhi for Indira's blogversary.My blogger friend Indira makes fantastic cards and 3 D projects and like me is fond of recycling all kinds of crazy stuff! 

Also linking to Pie Lane challenge,For the love of crafting
Edited:This Butterfly set was chosen winner at Indira's blogversary challenge by Priya...Thank You Priya , Indira what a morale boost for me!
This recycling project also came Top 4 at For love of crafting.

Sand Painting

Sand Painting

Sand painting is something my 6 year old enjoys doing and though we used to do this craft using pre-designed sand painting kits this particular ocean theme sand painting was done by my little one in her own unique way!

The base is the side of a cardboard box we cut up [we recycle in most of our crafting endeavors!].She used  stencils to draw the sea animals and then drew the sea weeds on her own.

She smeared white glue[fevicol] on each sea creature and put colored sand over it.It was fun to see her gently pat the sand in place and then tip the excess on to a large newspaper.

We were so proud of her work it occupies pride of place in our home.

Hope you guys enjoyed my little one's art!

Volcano & Tsunami School Project

Tsunami School Project

Nowadays with natural disasters such as Tsunamis hitting the headlines kids are taught about them in school too.Sharing my little one's school project which she designed and colored on her own!
She made this beach scene on the cover of an old toy package box[her bit of recycling !]

Volcano School Project

Her volcano is erupting in the sea and giving rise to the tsunami waves hitting the shore.

She made some cute houses along the beach.Through a little ones eyes even the volcano looks fun!She has painted the lava flowing with golden glitter glue!

Linking her project to BGC[sea theme]

Shell Crafts - Fish tank alteration

Shell Crafts

I hadn't been creating anything worthwhile since 2 weeks as adjusting to the timings in my daughters new school hardly left any time for crafting or visiting blogs. I have been missing all my blogger pals!

Craft challenges are sometimes just the thing to get you started when there is a lull in your creativity. 

The sea themed challenge at BGC inspired me to alter our rather sorry looking fish tank using sea shells.

Shell Crafts Altered Project

Here is my daughter sticking the shells to the fish tank lid. We spend quite some time this Sunday making this father's day  shell craft project!

Shell Crafts

We made the pattern using the shells and then stuck them on using white glue[ fevicol].I also added some pearls to enhance the glamour of our shell craft flowers.

Shell Crafts

I made the star fish using Amos playdough and glitter-- getting the starfish arms just right did test my patience!

Shell Crafts

I created a pattern of 2 shell flowers alternating with clay starfishes.Here is the completed lid of the altered fish tank with our shell craft.

Shell Crafts

I still was not happy after I put on the lid despite the added beauty  of the shells!

Shell Crafts

So used my glue gun to add a border to the fish tank  using more shells.

Shell Crafts

Finally I felt it hid some of the wear and tear of the old fish tank.

Shell Crafts

My camera is not good enough to take good indoor photos but in reality the transformation of the old tank with the shells was amazing! I think my hubby's little gold fish agrees !

Here are links to more shell craft ideas

Paper Flowers Party Decorations Tutorial

Paper flower decorations

These are giant Paper flowers we made as party decorations for my daughters birthday party.

Giant Paper flowers

Our Paper flowers are approximately 11 inches in diameter! These Paper flowers are so easy to make and look stunning  as party decorations!

Paper flower tutorial

Since my daughter had a Rapunzel[Tangled ] themed birthday party she wanted the decor in pink and purple.We cut purple crepe paper into strips and added them as streamers for our paper flowers!

Paper Decorations

For this one we layered 2 paper flowers atop each other and stuck a fringed flower in the center.

How to make Giant Paper Flowers

I accidentally made this flower by combining the paper snowflake technique with the paper star making!
Materials Required
Paper- I used chart paper as its easily available in abundance at the local stationary shops [plus its super cheap-- large sheet costing around 4rupees only].Use thin paper [ thicker than origami sheets though] as it helps when you have to cut through several layers]
Glue- I used white glue[fevicol] to make the flowers-- you can be generous in the amount of glue used!
To stick the flowers to the walls we tried double sided tape but the flowers kept falling off the tape so in the end I stuck the flowers to the double sided tape using the glue gun
Scissors or Paper cutter- Scissors are all that you need but if you have a paper cutter making these giant flowers is a breeze!

Paper flower tutorial

Take a square of paper.Fold it in half . Bring one end of the folded paper to meet the other end and lightly crease the central point at the folded edge.[Goldy my cocker spaniel got pretty sleepy helping me here!]

Paper flower tutorial

Now you have a rectangle shape with a small crease at the center[at the folded edge].
Bring the left top corner towards the other half of the rectangle to make an approximate 60 degree angle at the center [no need to go grab a compass!!].Dont crease yet.Bring the right top corner to overlap it completely by  teasing your folds --this way you will get a 60 degree pointed shape without using a compass![principle is to divide your 180degree folded edge into 3 equal parts of 60 degree each!]

Paper flower tutorial

Fold this shape in half. Use your scissors to cut a curve from the folded edge to meet the short paper edge seen as shown.

Paper flower tutorial

When you open up your flower the creases wont be in place.You can refold some of the creases  to make alternate valley and mountain folds to create a 3 Dimensional Paper flower.
Use these flowers as such if you are short of time or have more fun by layering these flowers in various ways to create gorgeous Paper flower designs.
Apply glue at the center and along the ridges of one flower and stick it firmly to the other flower.You can vary the positioning as you wish to make various designs of paper flowers.

Paper flower tutorial

All the Paper flowers are basically the same with a few changes. My 6 year old had her say in designing most of them! 

I used 2 large pink and 2 small white flowers for this paper flower.The central white star shape is just an inverted flower!

Paper flower tutorial

We scrunched up aluminium foil into a ball to make a glittery center for this flower

Paper flower decorations

How to make giant fringed flowers

Most of you may have seen fringed flowers in quilling,,,well I made giant versions of the quilled flowers here.

Paper flower Decorations

To make giant fringed flowers use a scissors or a paper cutter to make vertical cuts along a long paper strip. My paper strip is 22-24inches long and I folded it in half and used my new Dell Paper cutter[I am in love with this guillotine cutter] to cut the double thickness of paper leaving 1cm at the base.

Paper flower tutorial

Apply glue along the uncut base of the paper strips and roll firmly from one end using your fingers.

Paper flower tutorial

You can vary the length of paper used depending on how full a fringed flower you want.I used my fingers to bend the strips outwards to fluff up my fringed flower.

Fringed Paper flower tutorial

Apply glue to the base of the fringed flower and stick them to the 6 petal flowers or use them as stand alone party decorations.

Paper party decorations

These giant paper flowers made from thin chart paper and normal white glue[fevicol] are amazingly sturdy !

Paper flower tutorial

I stuck a punchcraft rose as the center of this Paper flower

Paper flower tutorial

I hope you will find this easy and economic party decoration tutorial useful!

Edited:This project came TOP 3 at For the love of crafting[anything goes]
This Paper flower tutorial was also featured on Paper mill