Explosion Card

An important aspect of Extravaganza, I believe, is showing other consultants how to do something.  Not tell them how something was done.  Since I was one of the lucky 28 teachers, I wanted to show them how to make an explosion card.  And I thought I'd share that here too.  :)  This was also my swap card at convention.

You are going to start with a square piece of paper.  For my card which is 3"x3", I used a 5 1/2"x 5 1/2" piece of paper.  You are going to want to stamp and distress your paper before you start folding it.

Step 1 completed

Step 1:  Fold the paper corner to corner.  Crease the seam.  Unfold the paper.  Fold the paper corner to corner the opposite way you just folded the paper.  Crease that seam and unfold the paper.  Your paper should look similar to this (without the lines). :}






Step 2: Turn your paper over and fold the paper in half.  The fold should be in the same orientation as the fold on your card.  So if your card opens toward the left, your fold line should be to the vertical (up and down).  Now here's the thing, though -- if you stamped something already on the paper, make sure the words are in the correct orientation as the card fold too.  You are going to glue on either side of the fold you are creating here.

I've probably confused the whazoo out of you, but you'll understand once you finish the folding -- or after you fold your paper the wrong way once.  :)

Step 2 completed.  I folded on the blue line

Now, I turn my paper over to fold this because it sets me up nicely for the next step.  It isn't necessary however.  Anyway, your paper should now look like this:

Pushing down on center to create the triangle

 Step 3: Now you want to fold the square into a triangle.  How you do this is by pushing on the center of the  paper (where the three folds intersect).  Since you flipped the paper over for the last fold, when you poke the center, the sides should "naturally" start folding.  This is how the paper should look from above:

Step 3 from above

Continue folding the paper until it looks like this:

Step 3 completed

first corner folded into center

Step 4:  Now that we're safely here, let's move on.  Take one corner and fold that corner into the center -- keep the top edges flush.  Crease this fold really well. Repeat this step for the other three corners.  I referred this "picture" as a dog with his ears flapping.  If you've only done two corners on one side, then you'll have a reindeer.

Step 4 completed

 










Step 5: This next step is the "trickiest" I think.  What you are going to do is reverse fold the fold you just created in step 4.  I hold just below the crease with one hand and open up the fold with the other hand. 

Once you open the fold up, you're going to push the center fold inward. 

Opened fold on it's way to be reversed

Reverse fold almost complete

First corner reverse fold complete

And when you're done pushing and reverse folding that corner you should have this:





That was so much fun, you are now going to repeat the reverse fold on the other three corners.

Step 5 completed.

 If everything has gone to plan, you should have a shape of a top or, if you are a baseball/softball fan, home plate:  









Step 6:This last step is to apply glue to the surface and glue it into the card.  I prefer the Bonding Memory Glue for this step.  The glue allows for great adhesion without lumps/waves Liquid Glass would.  And the Tombow just isn't strong enough to withstand the opening and closing of the card.  So, apply Bonding Memory Glue here on one side:

Glue goes all over this flat side.

Put this into the card, point toward the seam of the card. Close the card to glue the explosion piece into the card.  Open the card to the non-glued side and add glue to that side.  Close the card once more to adhere the explosion piece to the card.

My "Big thanks" card opens to the side

Step 7: Open and close the card and marvel at your work!  You did a great job!


Notice my center fold is in the same orientation as my card opens?  If your center fold goes the other way, you have a top opening card.