Be Mine
Idea
Mrs. Wardinkle created some Valentine’s Day decorations that were cone towers covered in felt hearts. When looking for ideas for the February card, I thought that would make a nice image.
Design
Compared to last month’s design, this one is a bit simpler.
An actual round cone is possible, but it would have a fold down the front and the back, and they never seem to open fully cone-shaped. Instead, I decided to use a nearly vertical V fold to make the tower with cut-outs along its fold to make it more interesting. Having just one tower would be boring, so I added one on either side. The main fold of the card lifts the center tower, but to lift the others, I need more folds.
To create the extra folds I needed, I used a “strap” mechanism, which is a V fold that lays flat on the card creating two new folds on the side of its folds. The large pink heart is the strap and you can see the two folds it adds to each side of the card. As the main fold and two side folds flatten out, they raise the three towers.
The cut-out at the bottom of the pink heart that creates a red heart isn’t just for decoration. If the pink heart were flat across the bottom of the card when opened, it would stick out when closed, so some of the center must be cut out.
As I’ve mentioned before, if a truly vertical mechanism (90°) rises away from the viewer when opening, it would tend to lean forward. These towers use a 75° angle at their base to make sure they stand up nicely. Since I used straps, they had to lean back a bit more than usual since the strap folds don’t open as much as the main fold.
To avoid having the towers look like a big triangles, I made four cuts across each tower’s fold to break it up visually. In the photo below, I have highlighted the four cuts in green and the tower’s fold in blue. The two green cuts curving left hang over the left of the fold. Likewise, the cuts curving right hang over the right.
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When using this technique, you have to plan ahead. If you just crease the fold (blue line) as you usually do for a V fold, then you’ve just creased the parts you want to hang over. You have to make the cuts, then only crease between them, which is why the blue line doesn’t go continuously from top to bottom.
It may seem like the towers are perhaps too small or too far back, but they are as tall as they can be. The two side towers fold towards the corner and barely fit inside the closed card. The center tower has to be able to clear the center of the large pink heart as it rises when the card is closed.
Cover
The cover comprises an extra layer of thin pink cardstock with a red heart cut by hand. The texture was created by sprinkling on some pastels, covering it with a sheet of paper, and rotating it to smear the color in an arc.
Build
- 9” x 6”
- The base is made of Strathmore 300 Bristol 100lb
- All of the mechanisms were cut on the Silhouette Cameo. I used the Print-and-cut feature to cut out the towers after printing them.