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Diagonal Card in a Box


After jumping into the Card-in-a-box craze a few weeks ago, I recalled I had seen another variation, commercially available.

Inspired by cards by Second Nature, I drew up a diagonal fold Card in a Box, with a V-fold pop up flower.




How to make the card

Download templates: PDF, Silhouette Studio, DXF, SVG.

Cut box pieces (left and right) from card stock. Crease score lines. Glue the left and right pieces together with the tab at the center front.  (Green arrow, first picture below.)

Cut liner pieces and flower from decorative paper.

It's a little confusing to figure out which liner pieces will be visible when the card is open, or closed.

Take a moment and notice that it's only the 4 flaps you need to worry about. The "good" sides of the flaps are actually on the inside of the box when it is closed.

These (striped) flaps are the side you'll see when the card is open. They are glued to the inside ("wrong" side) of the base card.



Now look at the flaps from the other side (two blue ones on the top left, two red ones on the top right)--they are only visible when the card is closed. You may choose to leave these undecorated if you prefer.

The bottom four panels (pink,butterfly, pink) will form the base of the box and will be visible when the box is open and closed.

(See that green dot above the butterfly?  Remember that.  You're going to need it in a minute.)


Go ahead and adhere the liner pieces to the corresponding panels and flaps.


Adding the flower

The flower is attached to the front flaps before the box is constructed.

This is what it's going to look like.



Crease the flower down the center and along the two V folds. Uncrease.

On the back of the flower stick two glue dots to the flower, positioning them on the petals as shown.


Leave the plastic covers on the glue dots! (Not shown in this picture).





















If the back of your flower is white you may want to color it. It's not incredibly visible when you're finished, but I find the bright white distracting.

Now here's the fun part. You need to align the center fold line of the flower with the (imaginary) diagonal center line of the (eventual) box. Ha ha, yeah, I know you're shaking your head at this and muttering "She's a nutter. Imaginary lines, eventual box indeed."















Look back at that picture showing the placement of the liners. Up there ^. Remember that green dot right above the butterfly? That spot is important. Identify it on your card. It's going to be at the front of the card box when the card is assembled.  (Right above the butterfly.  Under the front of the flower. See where it's going to end up?)


Here, I'm showing you the picture first of what you're about to do.  This picture was taken with the box upside down and tilted a bit toward you. You are seeing the inside (wrong side) of the box and the underside of the flaps. Read on to get yourself to this point.
















Pick up your card and sit it up on its bottom edge, right side up, by pinching the card along the center line where you glued the two card pieces together. (My finger tip in the picture just above is on that center fold, on the bottom edge.) The two halves will fan out from the center fold to make a large V. Pull the four flaps down. Now flip the entire thing upside down--flaps out to the sides, card sides still forming a large V.  It should look like the picture above, except you haven't added the flower yet.

That (imaginary) green dot is now touching the table, right where the green arrow is pointing.

With the center fold of the flower running vertically in front of you, slide the flower under the card until the petal edges are just barely covered (pink arrows). The green dot should be sitting on the center fold line of the flower. Your glue dots are under where the green arrows are pointing.



Lift one flap, remove plastic cover from one glue dot and adhere. Do NOT adhere the second one yet! You'll do that later.

This is what it looks like from the front.



Collapse the flower by pushing the V folds toward the center of the flower, like an origami square base or my shamrock card, and then collapse the entire card box by folding at the center front.





Construct the back

Curl the left back panel clockwise, into the center back. Hook the scalloped leaf section through the cut between the back and front flap of the left side.


The card should still fold flat easily.



Do the same on the right.






Adhere the two back panel together where they touch, avoiding the collapsed flower.




















Now adhere the second side of the flower. With everything collapsed, slightly lift the flap to gain access to the second glue dot. Remove the plastic covering on the glue dot being careful not to pull the flower out of position. Flatten the card to adhere.

Finally, send me a picture of your creation!



Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.