I chose this beautiful ‘Gatefold sliding shutter’ design to make a Thank You card, after watching a video tutorial found in YouTube (embedded below). This one instantly caught my attention, since it had a cute little mechanism associated with it. Once assembled the center inside the card opens like a camera shutter, and hence the name.
The making process is not really cumbersome, but it requires proper placement of the attachments.
Materials Required:
Scoring Board/Ruler
Scoring tool
Card Base 8.5″ x 5.5″ – ( Score at 2 1/8″ and 6 3/8″) (very vanilla card stock)
Belly band -1″ x 11″ (orange card stock)
Stamping dimensionals
Outer pieces
DSP for the outer gatefold shutters (2 nos.) – 5-1/4″ by 1-7/8″ (floral design)
Middle Pieces:
Center plain card stock (Middle piece 1 no.) – 3″ x 5.5 ” (orange card stock)
Designer Series Paper (DSP) (1 no.) – 2 3/4″ by 5-1/4″ (floral design)
Sliding Shutter pieces
Inner sliding shutter DSP (2 nos.) – 3 1/2″ x 4 ” (orange card stock)
Method:
Outer Gatefold
Score the card base on the 8.5″ side at 2 1/8″ and 6 3/8″ from one end.
Fold the card base at the scores with care to create a perfect gate fold.
Decorate the front side of your card by pasting the two DSP pieces (outer pieces – 5 1/4″ x 1-7/8″).
The outside part is done now and we are going to move on to the inner portion.
Inner Shutter Part
Take the two sliding shutter pieces now. Mark the center point. You can also do this by drawing diagonals and marking the intersection point. From one end of the 4″ part, to the center point make a cut diagonally. Do this from the other end too.Now cut it to create a fish tail shape.
Score at 1/2″ on the cut side of both the pieces and fold. This fold is to attach the shutter pieces on the inner part of the card.
Now find the mid point of the card and place the sliding shutter pieces on either side. Ensure that both the pieces align perfectly with the center of the card. To achieve perfect alignment, fold the shutter piece along the score line and align it along a little before the score line of the gate fold. Apply glue on both orange shutter pieces on the half inch score line. (Refer the embedded video below for better understandng.)
Close your flaps or gatefold so that the shutter pieces adhere to the flap. This achieves the shutter space design.
Making the middle piece with the circle.
Paste the DSP (2 3/4″ by 5-1/4″) on the orange middle piece (3″ x 5.5 “).
With the help of a circle frame or a circle punch, make a hole on the center of the middle piece. Using stamping dimensionals, paste the middle piece right in the middle of the card in such a way that the shutter opening perfectly aligns inside the circle. Stamping dimensionals are used here just to provide a slight lift to the middle piece. If these are unavailable, use regular glue.Open and close the card to check whether the mechanism works smoothly.
Stamp it up or write a special message to your loved one in the blank space of the shutter space.
Belly Band:
Fold the card. Place the 1″ x 11″ piece above the front portion of the card, fold it nicely at the back and apply glue to lock the band. while locking ensure that it is not too tight. The band has to slide smoothly. Paste embellishment on the center of the front portion of the belly band.
The card is complete!
With due credits to the uploader “maria russelldesigns”, I have embedded this video for more clarification. I found this one to be more easy and elaborate than the other tutoral videos for Gatefold shutter card.
Thanks for visiting! 🙂
