I've been struggling to get an accordion fold card to work with these scherenschnitte Victorian houses from paper cutters. I tried different sizes and arrangements of stair step folds, but none of them worked right. Either the pieces tilted toward the back, or leaned on each other, or just plain fell over backwards. Bleh.
I finally came up with an accordion fold card that works pretty well, with some strategic gluing together of folds to hold the pieces upright.
The nitty gritty
The house is from paper cutters. The house size is 3.25" wide and 3.5" high. The postcard is from a Flickr set of old postcards. I re sized the postcard to 7" wide by 3.75" high. I got the frame from UKScrappers and re sized it to 7/5" x 4.25".
The base card started out 12" by 8.5". After I was done I trimmed all around the edges a little.
How to make the accordion pop up card
With the card base in landscape position, measure the center line of the card (6" from either edge). Score.
Measure out and score three lines on either side of the center line. Mine are at 1 cm, 2 cm, 3 cm away from the center line in both directions. You will have seven lines scored on the paper.
Mountain and valley fold into an accordion shape with the center line bumped up into a mountain fold.
You will have three "humps", one of which is on the center of the base card. Glue the two side humps closed. Leave the center hump unglued.
Glue the postcard to the inside face of the left hump, with the picture side of the postcard facing the right.
Glue house to the inside face of the right hump, with the "good" side facing the right.
Front view
Let dry. Stand the card upright. If the postcard flops over toward the back, cut a strip of card stock about 1" high and as wide as the postcard. Reinforce the postcard from the back by gluing the strip to the back of the hump, across the top of the hump and onto the back of the postcard.
If your house flops forward you can anchor the front hump to the center hump. I started with just two glue dots, one on each outer edge (red arrows), to attach the front hump to the center hump. My house still tilted too much so I added another pair of glue dots (blue arrows) closer to the house.
Close the card and trim the edges.
