A gift!
Idea
This idea came from the comics. I’ve seen a couple of versions of cats getting gifts and either the box itself being the gift or the cat likes the box better than the contents.
Design
The basic mechanism is pretty simple. Just two nested V-folds, one for the box and one for the cat. My small sketch in paper worked fine with the cat’s arm hanging over the box, but in the final version they collided so I had to cut down the front of the box. That gave me the idea that the cat partially destroyed the box and I used the scraps to fill the open areas around the box.
To add some interest, I added a spiral on either side of the box. These took longer to do than the entire rest of the card. As the card closes, the spiral on each side must lay flat, so it was tricky to get the ribbon to go where I wanted it to go and still close properly.
Spirals on either side
A final detail is the cat’s claws
The claw!
There is no drawing on this card. It is completely made of paper. I’ve made a few like this in the past, and I enjoy the clean look it gives the card, but does make it less personal since there are no marks from the artiste. Everything on this card is cut by hand with my big scissors or a hobby knife – even the multiple iterations of the spirals. (I did use a punch for the circle that holds on the claws.)
Cover
The text was printed on the card and different pieces of cardstock make up the imagery.
Build
- 9” x 6”
- The base was Strathmore 300 Bristol 270gsm
- The mechanism was index paper, all cut by hand