Polkadoodle Challenge 39 - Fancy Folding

Welcome to another Friday and another Polkadoodle Challenge! This week Dee has set the challenge to be:

Fancy or Interesting Folding

Which can mean a lot of different things! If you are struggling for inspiration, have a look and see what the Polkadoodle Design Team came up with!

I've used fancy folding to make this gift card holder and because it is so quick and easy to make, I've turned it into a tutorial! I was asked by quite a few people to make a tutorial after last time I made and blogged one of these gift card holders.


I must point out that I am not the creator of this tutorial - it was originally published in Papercraft Inspirations magazine a few years ago and was written by the very talented Enfys - I've just adapted it slightly.

You will need:
An image to add to the front of the gift card
Length of ribbon
One 12x12 sheet of thin card or good quality paper
Bone folder

To start with, I printed the Santa A6 layered shape from Paper Boutique Vol 2 - Creative Christmas (a wonderful cd if you love Christmas!) and cut out all the elements.

I then layered them up - basically you can layer them however you want as it is not a traditional decoupage shape. Add glitter glue and other embellishments if you wish at this point or you can save it until you add Santa to the front of the gift card.

Next, I've used a 12x12 sheet of Bazzil Swiss Dots red card and folded it into quarters - use a bone folder to make sure you get nice crisp edges!

Cut to the centre point of the card (as shown) by using the fold as a guide.

Turn the card around (as shown) and fold the top left corner down to create a smaller fold

Next, turn the whole sheet over and on the opposite side of the first folded corner, fold the whole quarter so that the corner touches the centre fold as shown below.

Bring the top left corner across to cover the right hand side. This creates the first 'pocket' on the card.

By bringing up the fold underneath to sit on top of the first 'pocket', this now creates the second 'pocket' on the card.

Simply fold the remaining panel around the back to form an actual card. The hard work is now complete!

Add ribbon decoration to the front - this looks pretty and also adds as a natural closure to the sides of the pockets so any items placed in them will remain there.

I glued the Santa on the main front panel, taking care not to glue where the pockets are otherwise you can't add anything to them!

I've used a 12x12 sheet of card stock but you can use smaller if you wish - just remember that the finished size will be half of what you started with. For instance, 12x12 becomes 6x6 when completed, so cutting a sheet of A4 card up (8x8 square) will turn into a 4x4 pocket card.

If the instructions seem a little daunting, try practicing on a sheet of paper - once you've done it once you'll soon get the hang of it!

Hope you found this useful!

Now back to the challenge - good luck if you enter and you have until Sunday 10 October at 12noon GMT to link your blog post to the Challenge blog. Please remember to follow the brief and not to enter your Polkadoodle creation into more than 9 other challenges.

• Card stock: My stash
• Image: A6 Santa from Paper Boutique Vol 2 - Creative Christmas
• Ribbon: My stash