It's our Brother-in-Law's 70th Birthday today so I made him a special card. He's into photography so an interactive birthday camera card was the perfect choice.
I used a couple of Lawn Fawn's interactive dies for this card - the Magic Iris Die which creates the moving aperture mechanism you can't see behind the camera and the Magic Iris Camera Add-On Die to create the camera shape.
If you've never made a magic iris card (I hadn't used my die until this week I must admit!) then it's actually not as difficult it as it looks - my one big tip - do not use liquid glue - I have one very much non-interacting mechanism I created that way!!!!)
I'll give a quick run down of how to put it together, but the easiest thing to follow is Kelly's excellent video on the Lawn Fawn YouTube channel as that's what I followed to do mine (and ignored the bit where she used a glue dot!!!)
Essentially to create the mechanism - which can go behind a variety of shapes, you cut the following elements from the die 3 times - the circle with a hole in, the little banner shape and the sausage shape. Die cut the tab and arrow tap once (for the camera there is a longer tab piece included so it sticks out enough to move the mechanism beyond the camera so you don't need the one from the base die)
On one of the circles - you use the 3 legged shape, lining the centre with the hole in the circle to cut 3 slots and emboss 3 marks onto the circle.
You then feed the tabbed end of the sausages into the slots and adjust them so they create a circle on top of the circle - add small glue dots to the opposite ends (on the cross the die makes) [and do not use wet glue here or it will sink through and your mechanism won't move] and line up another circle die on top.
Flip the whole mechanism over and use a glue runner to add a straight line of glue from the centre out to the edge of the circle where the embossed marks are. Adhere a "banner" piece to each - these strengthen and hold the mechanism together.
Turn the mechanism back to the front and add your tab and arrow piece - this is placed just to the right of one of the banners which should be sticking out beyond your mechanism at this point.
Now place the 3rd circle on top, add glue runner to the sticking out parts of your banner elements and loosely fold them over the top of the new circle to hold all the elements together - don't pull them so tight that the curve is right to the inner edge of the circle or it won't be free enough to move. Test the mechanism at this point and it should open and close freely.
To create the card I just cut the camera from black card, cut the middle bit again from grey and trimmed it along the dotted lines to get the grey band. I added an extra ring in glitter from the Magic Iris Pull Tab Add On Die around the opening. I added glitter card for the flash (lining it up where the camera creates an embossed detail to help) and popped a bit of card behind the hole on the left to create an on light with stickles. I added the button behind. The sentiment was cut from gold paper with an alphabet die and applied from the center out to get it even-ish. Once complete I glued the mechanism behind the camera so the aperture was lined up (easier to do with an open mechanism to line up the holes)
To create the image in the middle - I used the camera die over a photo I printed on copy paper to get the face in the right place and popped it onto the circle of card left over when I cut the black camera. [Top Tip - if you want to get the image the right size, create a 4cm circle with no colour on your computer and place it over the photo image so you can size it until it fits the circle]
I added some patterned paper to a 5 x 7 card and then glued the camera down centrally. With the aperture open on the camera you can then glue the image to the base card as it fits perfectly.
The recipient really loved it, I do think an interactive card is worth the effort for a special birthday.
Do you like an interactive card? Share yours with us on socials.
Happy Crafting!
Tara
