Are you inspired by other crafters? I know I am. One that many of us follow is the supremely talented Jennifer McGuire. I decided to try a fancy fold she featured on her channel on Sept. 22nd. She is such an inspiration and I hope to inspire you today with this seemingly complex, but totally doable card fold. It’s called a Split Window Card. The side to the left of the window does not open. Only the right side flips open and this is where you write your message.
I made a slightly different card due to the size of my sentiment die. The score lines are in a different place than in her tutorial as well. You can use virtually any window die shape for this card. Just make sure it’s large enough for the sentiment or embellishment you pick for the window. Once you have picked the window die you’ll use, determine where the window will be and plan to score the card in approximately the middle of it.
I chose to make my card base out of Basis Blue cardstock. It’s a solid 80# cardstock and one of my favorites for making card bases. Because of the sentiment size, I chose to score the 4 1/4″ x 11″ cardstock in half at 4 1/4″ but also at 2 1/4.” This gives me the real estate needed on the left side to handle the window I needed. At this time, I also cut a 1/8″ x 5 1/2″ sliver of CCS Gold Glitter Cardstock. This will be used as an accent on the card front.
I picked a double-stitched hexagon die from Art Impressions. This type of die creates stitch marks around the window which is a nice feature. The hexagon die size was based on the sentiment size which is a little on the large size. It’s a sentiment from the August 2022 Spellbinders Small Die of the Month called Outlined Sentiments. After folding the score lines, I placed the Hexagon die as shown in order to give me the widest measurement for my sentiment. I also cut a matching hexagon shape out of Basis White Cardstock.
Next I stamped the word Thanks all the way on the left edge of the card with Hero Arts Unicorn White Ink. It comes from a Hero Arts/Lawn Fawn Collab set called Big Thanks. The white ink shows up nicely on the dark blue cardstock. You can keep this aligned by using your Misti markings. My sentiment was 1/2″ tall so I set up my stamp and then moved the cardstock up and down by 2 squares before stamping each word. This helped a lot to make sure the sentiment was straight and spaced pretty evenly. I think this would look really nice in rainbow colors on a white cardstock too. But that’s for another day and another card!
I chose a Graphic 45 paper pad called Ephemera Queen Collection. I really like the pattern I chose. I cut it approximately 5 3/4″ by 2 1/2″. I will trim the overhang on the edges once the die cuts the half-window out. To do this, I lined paper edge to the upper and lower points of the window. I laid the die into the hole, using the stitch marks in the blue cardstock to “lock in” the die. You can feel the die dropping into the stitch marks and that’s when you know it’s properly placed. I secured it with washi and then ran only the patterned paper and the die through my die cutter. I glued the patterned paper in place and trimmed the edges to line up with the card flap edges with my scissor.
Now for the sentiment! I first cut out the thin Thanks word out of 3mm thick white foam. I cut a second word out of Pop Tones Black Licorice cardstock. I glued the black letters to the foam word to give it extra dimension and height. You can see the foam s and the black s below. This die has a shadow die as well and I cut that out of 5″ x 7″ Curious Metallic Rose Gold cardstock from the Overstocks section. I also stamped “for all you do” toward the bottom of the white hexagon shape I cut earlier. The stamp is also from the Big Thanks set. I made sure to test the placement of the Thanks sentiment before I decided where to position the stamp.
I glued the white stamped hexagon shape into the window area, making sure the card flap could still open. Then I glued the finished Thanks sentiment. It hangs out a bit to the left of the hexagon shape. I like this look. Now you see why I needed a 2″ width of cardstock on the left. To add additional shine, I chose some gold glitter enamel dots. These look great with the narrow glitter cardstock strip I glued on the card front.
Here is the finished card again. You can see I added the enamel dots. This card will stand like traditional side fold cards and when the right flips open, there’s plenty of room to write a hidden message. I really like this card fold. It looks more complicated than it is and there are many possible options with it.
I hope I inspired you to give this fun fold a try. Do watch Jennifer’s video to get more ideas and tips on the fold. Most of all, have fun with it!
