How to Make an Accordion Tunnel Card

I've been calling these zig zag 3D cards but I've recently seen them on the internet called 'accordion tunnel cards'. You can look them up online by that name and pull up some more examples of these type of cards and how to make them. I've run across several sources as far back as six years ago. Every time I see a new card type introduced, I go do some research and see what I can find online because honestly, it's probably been done before with a previous generation of crafters. So this is my take on this technique.

I was recently asked for a tutorial on how to make one of these so I will attempt to make it simple. I don't have the setup for videos or a good speaking voice and my hands look like I scrub pots for a living. I do know how to take pictures and type. So here goes. 

First you will need two cards printed in any pattern you want and you want them a good weight, not flimsy. And you will need a 5" x 7" card back or you can just cut another card in half and use that as a backing. I used an Anna Griffin kirigami card from a pack I had and two leftover cards from an album kit. I'm really trying hard to use up all my leftover cards and pieces on making new stuff.

You want to put together 5 panels but first you need to cut out the centers of both folded cards in any shape with an X-Acto knife with a sharp blade. Using a pencil and a ruler on the back of the cards, mark and cut out a 3-1/2" X 5-1/2" rectangle in the centers of the cards. So that leaves you 3/4" frame all around each card. 

Make the corners any way you want. I just rounded these. Cut out the first one and just use it as a template for the rest.

Put the  card together with 1/2" x 5" strips of plain paper folded in half. Glue them to the front of the panel, and the fronts of the cards. They will be hidden when the card is folded together. It should look like this all put together with all the front sides showing. Make sure your card fronts are upright and that the pattern is going in the right direction so that nothing is upside down.

And you want to mark the center of the tops and bottoms of each card. After you cut the centers out of each panel, you will need to cut up to the middle of each top and bottom frame so the cards will overlap and interlock for your zig zag. I marked and cut them on the backs just like this.

Cut the lines as shown only half way through the frames. I'm using a pen so you can see where they are here but if you use a pencil, your lines won't show on the card. (I'm going to paint over mine on my finished card).

Turn your card to the front. Since we have marked and cut the slits a certain way, we will need to curve and put the two right side cutout panels into and through the left cutout closest to the back panel first as shown. You will have to bend your card a little, but that's O.K. Keep going until the cut marks line up for the two panels closest to the back. Slide the cut marks together and fold it down.

Of the two panels that you want to match up, just remember that the panel with the outer cuts has to go into the panel with the inner cuts to match up right. It should now look like this:

Now you will bend the panel on the right side and push it through the left cutout once more. Outer cuts go into inner cuts. Match up the slits and fit them together. 

Now you have a card that you can see the layers through, and it will fold flat. So just decorate it! You can put a writing card panel on the back if you want space to write a greeting. It's just that easy.

Now I will just add some flowers etc. and finish my card. This is not so mysterious now. You could make up a bunch of them pretty easy and use any decorative punches for the corners that you want.

Enjoy your card making. Zig Zag cards are nothing new, they've been around for years in various forms and various names. To learn more about zig zag cards just search YouTube or Pinterest for them. There are all different kinds of zig zag / tunnel cards. ENJOY!

Improving the Vintage and Damaged with GIMP - pt 2

So this is where we left off. We brightened up the card, filled in a background color on our torn card and cleaned up the torn edges. Now we're ready to replace some missing flags.

If you look close at the postcard you will notice there are six bunnies and six flags on the front row and nine bunnies with only seven flags on the back row. And that one flag needs a corner too so we'll replace it. In all we need to put three flags back in there. We will take one from the back row and put them where I think they belong. So first let's open our bunnymarch.xcf (or whatever you named your) file in GIMP and duplicate the layer. Now that you know how, I don't have to show you. Selecting and working on the top layer only, we will use the square selection tool to encompass a flag so we can copy it:

Then we will select a flag to use. Once we have it selected with the pole attached to it, we will cut it out of the layer using 'Layer | crop to selection' from the drop down menu. This will cut away everything from the top layer except the flag.

 

So put your cursor over the flag we just cut out and move it to the missing section, lining it up with the top of the pole as shown. Since there is not a separate pole for this flag we will just extend the one that's already there or you could make another pole if you wanted. I hit 'Select | none' and then I select the bottom layer to remove all the dotted lines so I can take a good look at the flag. It looks like this now.

OK. So we need another flag that already has a pole. We don't have to cut out another flag since we already have one we can duplicate. So just make sure the flag layer is selected and duplicate it. Then drag it over to the line up with the pole that doesn't have a flag. And while you're at it I will show you how to resize them so they don't look so 'cookie cutter' perfect. 

Now we have nine bunnies on the back row and nine flags. but as things get further away they should look a little smaller so we are going to resize the last three flags a little and drag that farther one behind the one in front of it. 

On the layers, grab and drag the top layer underneath the middle layer so the last flag will be behind it. This is where you duplicate another flag and move it over the top of the flag that needs a corner since you already know how. Now it should look like this:

Now we're going to resize them so they look better. So from the icon menu select the Scale tool or use 'Shift + S' to bring it up.

Just touch the dotted selection on that layer and it will let you grab and resize each flag. To only resize one side instead of resizing proportionally, just unlock the lock on the sub-menu that pops up with that tool.. 

Once you get all the flags where you want them just merge the visible layers 'Ctrl + M'. Now you can use the smudge tool to refine it a little.

You might want to fill in a point on a flag or extend the flag poles a little. The smudge tool lets you drag out a color into another area, smooth out imperfections and refines the picture. You can adjust the size of the smudge brush just like other brushes. Experiment with it a little and you will see a difference. Don't forget to save over your original editable file with all your hard worked improvements. You can also export this in other formats. If you want to put it on the internet you can export it as a separate .jpg or .png without overwriting your original file. 

And now you should have something similar to this. I would guess that it's pretty close to the original before it was damaged but if not, then it's pretty good enough. You would not guess that it's the same card unless you fixed it with your own two little hands. Now you know some secrets so you won't be the one who says, "How'd they do that?" because now you know how. It's not that hard and you can do it too.

But I'm not going to reinvent the wheel by doing a bunch of tutorials for the GIMP since there are plenty of them out there if you want to really learn the power of this program beyond fixing a few little boo boos.

And there you have it. All it takes is a little practice to get good at it. We saved and restored a postcard! YAY! Now you have skills you can use for all your graphics. And it costs you nothing but a little time to get it. 

OK so now I'm just showing off but by using no more than the skills you just learned (plus the eraser tool), you can even make yourself a bigger bunny army (to infinity) or just like this one and you know what that means, right? More chickens, more eggs!

I skipped right over St. Patrick's day (well there's still time for that) but Happy Easter card making!

Improving the Vintage and Damaged with GIMP - pt 1

If you've gone to some public domain sites and thought the free stuff was too old, dark or unusable for you then I'll tell you a little secret. It is. It probably was saved by someone who works at the library and doesn't know graphic formats or how to save them with the right specs. But, you can fix them if you have a graphic program and are willing to learn. I got this one from the public domain at the New York Public Library digital collections, but you can just right click on it and save it to your desktop if you want to. 

This is how it was stored in the public domain. This is what most of them look like when you download them. So they need a lot of work. It is a little 'fixer upper' alright. Part of it is missing. But I love a good graphic challenge so... the first thing I would do is brighten it up a little. GIMP is free so go get it if you want to follow along. GIMP is the PhotoShop of the Linux world and the program is open source so it's free. It's not just for Linux OS, there are Windows download versions of it too. I haven't used PhotoShop since 2006 but they are very similar in what they can do with graphics. 

***Remember, If you make a mistake in any program and you want to get it back, just hit 'Ctrl + Z' on your keyboard and it will take you back a step each time you hit it. So be careful with that or you could wipe out the good work right along with the mistakes.***

I'm assuming you have basic skills and can download a free postcard and find it again. So once you have installed GIMP you need to open the postcard from the 'File' menu so we can jump right in.

Once you have the graphic open, expand the top menu to then select 'Colors  | Levels' and drag the Input Levels window scrubs with your mouse. Drag the far right one toward the center until it looks good (usually close to the high point on the graph chart) and you may have to drag the center scrub a little to the left too. Then if it needs a little contrast just drag the far left scrub toward the center. Play around with it until you get what you want. And when you're done, it should look like this:

So that little bit made such a big difference. It looks a hundred times better now and that may be all you need to do to most of the public domain graphics you want to use. But... this one is damaged and missing a couple of flags that we need to put back in. It looks like somebody took a bite out of our postcard.

So, the first thing I do to fix that is go to the far right column in the program and find the layers box where it shows you all the layers. On the bottom of that window it has an icon that looks like 2 little tv screens. click it. 

Now you have two layers that look the same. Select the top layer in the window with your cursor because we'll be working on that layer first. 

Next, set the background color. so we can fill in that missing piece. So first, (1) select the foreground color then (2) select the color picker and then (3) click anywhere on the yellow background of our postcard. Now your paintbrush and bucket are filled with the background yellow color of the postcard.

The easy way to fill in that missing chunk is to flood the background bottom layer with the paint bucket. So select the bucket on the tool window. 

Then making sure the bottom layer is selected in the layers window, click anywhere on the bottom layer of the postcard to fill it with yellow. 

You can turn off the view of any layer just by clicking on the eyeball for that layer. So click on the eyeball for the top layer to see the all yellow bottom layer. All yellow? Good. Now select the eyeball again on the top layer to turn it back on. And make sure the top layer is selected in our window.

So most of the public domain graphics are saved in .jpg format. This is a lossy format and will degrade with each save. The idea graphic to have is a .png, not only because it is 'lossless' and doesn't degrade in quality (meaning more data doesn't get stripped off) with each save but you can have transparent areas. So we will need to give the non-transparent .jpg a transparency layer so we can select and remove just the white part. We can do this with each layer we select. But we just need to do the top layer. So from the menu, go to 'Layer | Transparency | Add Alpha Channel'. 

Then select the magic wand tool and the settings shown here to select the white part of the postcard by just clicking on it. It will show marching ants around the selection. Just hit the delete key on your keyboard to remove it.

Now we have an all yellow background we can work on. But we need to clean up the edges and debris. So go to the paintbrush and paint over any dark edges carefully. You can also remove any spots or discolorations on the postcard too. You can paint over the lettering or any part of the card so be careful. 'Ctrl + Z' is your friend if you make a mistake.

Once you are satisfied with the looks so far, hit 'Ctrl + M' to merge the two layers into one. You can also find this command on the drop down menu under 'Image | merge visible layers'. This is what you should now have. So if you've come this far, congratulations! You just learned a lot of fixes in the GIMP and are well on your way to making your own usable graphics for free.

You just got a taste of what it's like to be a graphic artist and now you know how to fix a lot of mistakes in most photos and postcards for your own use. Even though it's perfectly acceptable to use the card in your projects just the way it is, you might be a bit of a perfectionist like me and want to fix it even further but this post has gotten so long I will break it into two. The next post will show you how to add the flags back in for a completed finished card so...

Save this file in an editable format so we can pick up where we left off tomorrow with it and re-open it in GIMP again. I'm saving mine on my desktop where I can find it as bunnymarch.xcf. The .xcf extension is the GIMP format for editable files like the .psd is the editable format for PhotoShop. 

Of course the GIMP also gives you the option of saving it in the PhotoShop format too so you could go either way with 'save as' for your original editable file. It will also save with many other format extensions with the export function. The GIMP will even create a multi page .pdf for you using each layer as a page if you want. And it will also open .pdf files too.

You can get the GIMP from this link here: The GIMP . I've been using it for many, many years until now I'm more familiar with it than I am PhotoShop. You can learn it if you really want to. Or you can buy your graphics from other artists on Etsy or get them already printed if you prefer. And don't forget the free resources. There are sites that show you how to do just about everything for free and even give away good graphics you can use.

So tomorrow's post is part 2 and I will show you how to put those flags in the background and restore that postcard so those bunnies can march off to squeeze those eggs out of all those chickens and so that all the Moms can sweep those rotten eggs out from under all those beds the week after Easter! Well maybe not this year. It might be plastic egg time. 

Happy Valentine's Day + more graphic resources

I'm so in love with these fat little cherubs and baby angels! I've been doing research into these types of vintage trade cards and artists that made them to add to my archive. I sometimes make journals and cards. You can right click the ones in this page and save for your own personal use. I've already cleaned them up for you.

My latest find is the Raphael Tuck & Sons "Art" cards. There is a fascinating history there about this company to discover. If not archived, these types of cards and their artists would be lost to history forever so why not keep them going? 

They are free to use in the public domain. But you need to make your own copy and not take them from someone else (unless they give you permission to use them). Some people spend a lot of time cleaning them up, resizing them and formatting them to sell online so you either pay for that or go get your own.

I will share my resources with you because I do not sell them nor do I have a download site. I am retired and just enjoy playing with my graphics and sharing a few with friends. You can get these and much more from a free public domain site of the works of Raphael Tuck & Sons called tuckdbpostcards.org . When you run across other Tuck cards you can pull them up by their number on the cards... more detective work for you.

I also have a few new resources to share for public domain graphics and free for personal use sites. You can also download postcard backs to these, print them off separately and just glue them on the backs for a nice weighted card for all your projects.

Like most of the Tuck cards, these are from a set of six but one of them is duplicated (and written on) so I didn't include it here. 

I will include the full sheet for you to print out. I've done all the cleanup work so these four postcards are print ready.

The backs do not line up with the front so you can't just flip it over and print on both sides of your cardstock paper but you can print two sheets, cut them out and glue them together if you want postcard backs on them..

                                                                                                                                                                              

And that will keep you busy for a while but I'm not done yet. Here's another Valentine's gift to help you build your own graphic archive:

Picryl Vintage American trade cards

Magic Moonlight Studio

New York Public Library digital collections

Internet Archive Newberry postcards

You can admit it now... these are better for you than a stupid old box of chocolates, right?

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Graphics for Free + Resource Links

YOU CAN GET THIS:  

FROM THIS:

OR THIS: 

for free - but... it's not as easy as it looks. First in my favorite graphics program the GIMP (you can use any graphics editor like PhotoShop, GIMP, Elements, Canva etc...) I can cut out, flip it, recolor it, re-size it, duplicate it, add a bird wing and generally clean up the image. Now the cupid image above is copyrighted by me. It's my version. I can use it, give it away, sell it or whatever I want. I can print it off and use it as many times as I want. I can even print multiples on cardstock, cut them out and use foam tape to stick them together to make as many dimensional stickers as I want for my paper projects.
.

RESOURCES

Most all graphic artists have a collection or private "archive" of vintage graphics they use that are pulled from the public domain (and other resources) along with maybe some they've paid for the rights to use from different sources. All graphics in the public domain are royalty and copyright free for use by the general public. You can download them for free and print them out at will. You can keep them digital but if you want to use them on card projects you will need a printer. 

It helps greatly if you know what term to search for like Godey's Ladies Books, World of Fashion, Vintage Trade Cards, or just the term 'vintage ephemera' is sometimes enough. You can search on particular artist's names like Ellen Clapsaddle or A. Dreissen and pull up many wonderful postcards, calendars, greeting and trade cards by them. You can learn the history of some of these wonderful artists while you're at it, like the tragic ending of Ellen Clapsaddle's life. She was one of the best card and postcard artists there ever was! You can find out what trade cards were and discover a whole collection of these precursors to modern advertising before television was invented which was simply 'word of mouth' by a simple printed card that you shared and showed to others. 

You can get these wonderful vintage works of art by doing research online but I've already done a lot of the work for you below by listing a few good resources. Some resources also offer access to their larger (or re-worked) collection for a fee but all of these provide many graphic sources for free. Your search should include a search of the archives of libraries and museums. Here are a few of my favorite resources:

Newberry Library     

The Metropolitan Museum of Art   

Get Archive Public Domain   

The Graphics Fairy   

Far Far Hill    

The Public Domain Review

Dover Publications

University of Pennsylvania online library 

Hathi Trust 

The University of Pennsylvania online library and the Hathi Trust are a list of resources of online collections including Godey's Ladies book illustrations and World of Fashion where you can get vintage women's fashion prints for making your own paper dolls among other graphic resources. You can search for other collections through their search boxes and download copies like this one to work with for free.

and make your own finished paper dolls from them:

Dover publications have sets of books and cd's full of royalty free graphics you can get if you can find them. The best ones I have are not still in print but you might be able to get a good copy on Amazon or Ebay. Make sure the cd is included. You may also be able to find dover clip art books at your local library where they won't cost you anything to copy or use from the prints or included cd.

BUYING PRINT GRAPHICS

You can also buy and pay royalty/usage fees or graphics from other artists who re-do them from the public domain, re-size, re-color, cut out and clean them up for you to add to your own archive. You can print out other paper ephemera including scrapbooking papers online. All you need to know is how to work with graphics, a printer and some hard drive or external disk space for storage. Graphics and graphic formats can get quite large. Most digital artists will have at least one external hard drive where they back up their collection and routinely pull them off on disk storage to save and archive them and to keep them from getting lost during hardware failure. To consider, there are also cloud storage, terabyte and zip drives.

Some people still do search for actual antique postcards and ephemera from other sources (collectors) and collect them from other countries. But the modern world and use of the internet greatly levels the playing field for anyone who wishes to build a digital vintage library or their own archive if they choose to do so.

Do a search on Etsy for vintage printable postcards or other keywords for what you are looking for. You can sometimes find them or links to them on Pinterest. You can see it takes a lot of time to research, collect, organize and re-work these graphics. That's what you are paying for when you buy them from other sellers online or companies where they are already printed.

I've built my own archive of graphic images, patterns and papers from the public domain. I use them a lot in my projects because they make me happy. And they're free so why not?

More freebies. SNOW PEOPLE!!!