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Mondrian Tri-Shutter Birthday Card

This birthday tri-shutter card features a Piet Mondrian inspired design of abstract rectangles in primary colors.

Mondrian style birthday card



With some assistance from CorelDRAW,  the Mondrian style design did not require that much manipulation to fit it on a tri-shutter pop up card.

Funny story about the inspiration for this card.  Last summer I happened to watch the pilot of The Partridge Family, where they decide to form a band, and they paint the school bus?  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, poor you, you have no idea of the fabulousness of the Friday night tv line-up of the early 1970s).

Some thoughts about tri-shutter cards:

A tri-shutter is divided vertically into 6 equal parts, with the center two pieces merged.
The horizontal divisions do not need to be equal.

This picture shows the cut and fold diagram (black cut lines; red fold lines).

tri shutter pop up card cut and fold lines

Here I have added (pink) guides to emphasize the six equal parts.


tri shutter pop up card design considerations






I cut the entire design from white card stock and left it adhered to the cutting mat, then removed and replaced with the various colors as needed.

You can see I had to divide some shapes where cuts or folds were running through them.  (The large blue and red squares, for example.)

Cutting Mondrian card with Silhouette cameo

Mondrian tri-shutter pop up card cut outs



Once the pattern was completed, I used painters' tape to hold the pieces in place. This is the front.


transferring pieces with tape

This is the back--removing the excess white card stock.

removing waste card stock from Mondrian card cut


Still the back, with the white card peeled away.


Mondrian tri-shutter card ready to glue


Gluing the pieces to the card.  Because of the folds, this can be done 1/3 of the card at a time.


adhering Mondrian tri-shutter card pop up


I waited for the adhesive to dry, then carefully cut along the cut lines, and scored and folded along the fold lines.


front view of Mondrian tri-shutter card with vinyl sentiment


The "Happy Birthday!" sentiment is cut from adhesive vinyl.


This is the card folded flat for mailing.

folded tri-shutter card


There is no downloadable file set for this.  Keeping it unique!

See some other birthday cards here.