Morning everyone, how are you all?

This was a recent customers order. My brief was bright, colourful, very special, she likes bike rides on the Tarka Trail, knitting and line dancing. What do you think?

I snapped some photos as I was making it, so that I could share the process with you all, so if you wanted to make your own you could give it a go 🙂

Making the card:

The first thing I did was get all my materials together (ingredients list at the bottom). I then cut out all of my shapes and layers. I use a mixture of hand cutting and my Silhouette cameo to do the cutting.

Grass strips

Elements that match the theme/brief.

My layers, which are the base and the 3 cake sections.

The panels for your side flaps.

I then crease all of the sections on their perforated lines

And then stick all edges together with a strong glue.

For thinner elements, where there isn’t alot of card either side of the perforated strip, I use a metal ruler against the perforated line, to crease against. This is because you may end up twisting or tearing the smaller pieces otherwise.

I then build up my cake tiers, starting with the top (smallest tier) you work your way down. You need to start at the top, or the flaps you need to secure will not be accessible as you work your way through. In this case I was also adding a pop up ’80’ onto the top tier so this was the first thing i had to do.

To do this I cut a slit in the top.

I creased the 80 flap over, but tried to create a deeper slightly rounded fold rather than a crisp neat fold, as i need it to wrap around the layer when poked in through the slit.

I then poked this carefully through the top tier and adhered securely using glue and tape.

I then continued to carefully put together the rest of the tiers.

Again, I used glue and tape to secure the flaps. The flaps from each section are literally poked through and then folded down.

Below is how it will look once you get to the very bottom and have secured it to the base.

Then pop on the bottom section, making sure its round the right way so that the colours match the rest of the outside of the box, make sure you’ve added any ‘handmade by’ etc stamps to the bottom panel before sticking it on, as you risk damaging the box or not getting a clear stamp impression if you try and do it once it is on.

Once the tiers are all built and secured to the bottom section, you can start to add your elements. The fist element I added was the grass, remember it has a little lip that you folded, this adheres to the base.

I then mounted the cyclists to the grass. To make it stronger, in some areas I used little squares of sticky pads, stacked on top of each other and then stuck between the element (in this case the cyclists) and the cake.

For the sign post, which was already printed with a wood effect, I added some Vintage photo distress ink around the edges, just to enhance it and add to the wooden look. The font i used was matched to the actual sign (if you look up the route online) that is on the trail.

I added this and the other elements to different parts of the cake. (Although the sign post looks like its touching the lady cyclists head, its not and in real, you can see a clear gap/space).

I then added double sided tape to all of the flap panels. I don’t use glue on these, this is because I don’t want to risk them getting even slightly warped from wet glue.

Plus I like them not to be completely stuck down flat, I like to see the layers as such. To finish the cake, I used some Avocado liquid pearls to add an ‘icing effect’ around the base of each tier (not the very bottom).

For your tag you can either pop a hole in it, so you can add it to your ribbon, or you can pop a pearl or embellishment where the hole would be and adhere the top to the lid, I would recommend writing on the tag first or leaving it loose to write on, with a little bit of double sided tape on the back, ready for popping on after its written. I like sticking mine to the top as its always there then and won’t get lost if it slides off the ribbon. This one has a little silver brad as it went with the clean and fresh feel of the card.

Attach some appropriate coloured ribbon to the box outer, i use extra strong double sided (red) tape at the bottom and a bit on each side, this holds the ribbon flat and in place and when the flaps are lifted and the lid popped on, you can tie your ribbon to hold everything in place and to leave you with a beautiful looking box.

And that’s it all finished 🙂 You can make the card in any colours and you can add any elements/quotes etc that you would like.

Ingriedients

Cardstock – Double sided for base box section / varying weights 300gsm for box. Elements and cake range from 160gsm – 300gsm

Card template, for drawing – Coming soon

Card template, Silhouette cutting file – Coming soon

Glue

Double sided tape – Available HERE

Sticky pads – Available HERE

Ribbon – Available HERE

Liquid pearls – colour to match your theme/colours, I used Avocado

Small silver brad

Distress Ink – Vintage Photo

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hugs,

Sam

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