3D+ 50th birthday card part 1

Because this was the year of Covid, I wanted to make sure my brother and partner got special cards for their 50th birthdays.

I originally came up with the idea of a shaped card just for my brother and had a separate idea for my partner (which I won’t mention here as I may still use it later). But when I was looking at creating a card for my nephew, I realised there was the perfect opportunity to make something special for my partner using the same basic idea.

This means that I’ve split this post in two. This one will talk about the basic card, the next the fancier version.

That’s not to say there is anything basic or simple about this build—and build it is, as you will see. Oh, and I mention a load of products, I’m not being sponsored by any of them.

To begin with, I had decided to make the card two pieces—a 5 and 0. They were to be 3D, as large as I could make them, and standalone. I was going to put glitter confetti in them at first and make it a shaker card, but realised that not only would I have to post it (my brother is not local), but it would eat glitter because of the size it was going to be. In the end I went with angel hair lametta—that stringy glitter you use at Halloween or Christmas. It gets everywhere, but would not be as disastrous as glitter should the card break (I’m looking at you, mum, and the glitter paper from hell), but would also mean sealing the shape it would not need to be as vigorous.

I cut out the 0 and 5 using my Brother ScanNCut 1200. This caused a few issues at first as I made the mistake of making the “0” hollow centred. I had to design the centre as I couldn’t work out how to create it (I had only had it a couple of weeks). I did a black version, and a metallic effect mirror card (from Sizzix). I cut a piece of clear plastic to act as the window so you could see the angel hair. And glued it all together. That was a HUGE mistake as we’ll find out.

I then created several long strips of card using my Cutterpillar Crop and Crease. I love these things, honestly, they make life so much easier. Each card had a jagged edge that I could use to attach to the front (or back) of each number. This meant that as I flexed the card, they didn’t interfere with each other too much, although there were times I had to cut them in half to make the card flex enough. This went ok, but I was sure the card was warping the shape of the “0” as I went. I also kept putting sticky glue fingers on everything, no matter how careful I was. I realised I should have just attached the sides of the card to the black card front. I made sure I gave a little bit of room on all edges for the mirror card to fit on top of the black, and complete the look. Honestly, it was easy to see how much the whole thing was distorting itself. Even with all the measuring and accuracy I had tried to put into the card, it went awry, and there were some deep dips in the sides.

The centre of the “0” was the worst. This was a small space restricted by the outer layer, and also hampered by the clear plastic I had already attached. I had to clean the stupid thing time and time again to make sure there was nothing visible. I also added large washers to the base, and covered them with black card (I did this to the “5” too), so it would hopefully stay upright.

Finally, it was time to stuff the card. I had decided on black and rose gold, so it had something extra in there to give it interest. The metallic card has a purplish sheen, so I thought rose gold would work well without crossing into Halloween. Mixing the colours was surprisingly difficult, I put them both into a box but still ended up with too much of one or the other. It took four black and two rose gold to fill the “0” alone, so I had to order more for when I finished the “5”.

Once I was happy with the result, I tried the top on. It fitted, sort of, but I could see that in place the side mirror card would be showing the edge (which is white). You can see in one of the photos where the side is budging, it had to be held in place in lots of places to keep it aligned.

The “5” was actually slightly easier in many ways as I had had the experience of doing the “0”. There was nothing I could do about the mirror board, black card and transparency already being attached, I just had to forge on. Again, it was the same issues as before, although this time the issues were with angles, the top of the “5” had to be done precisely done. However, there are areas you can hide joins, something the “0” seriously needed.

Finally I was ready to do the outside edge. This was an honest nightmare. The glue I used could strip off lesser mirror board coating in a heartbeat—thankfully the Sixxix card was much more resilient. There were issues with finding place to end the card, as I only had A4 I couldn’t do it seamlessly. Some seams kept popping, I had to check the card was OK before sending it, and the glue also showed through the card. Where I had large dips, I managed to add foam to fill in the worst of it to make it as smooth as possible. I did also try joining A$ pieces together—it was a disaster. There were too many inconsistencies around the edge, and I ended up ripping all the card off and replacing it.

But as I feared, the edge of the card around the outside was visible. As was some of the black underneath. So I gritted my teeth and did what none of us want to do—I cut new fronts. Applying them made all the difference in the world—they’re not perfect, but they are so much better.

Another issue I had was that the glue shows up through the mirror card. You can actually see the waving lines I created when I was gluing it down—so I think I’m done with mirror card for now. But it doesn’t look too bad, and I’m not sure many people will notice. The only way I can think of to stop that is to use tape or another glue—but I’m not sure the tape would hold given the stresses cause by bending the car around these shapes.

I created a tag for the “5” (to cover a mistake, but don’t tell my brother), and finally the thrice-dammed thing was done.

It was honestly traumatising this card—but in the end I love the result. They are almost A4 in size, and I had to buy a cake box to fit them in.