Cut along the fold, eight half
sheets. You only need seven. All of the folding, cutting, drawing and glueing for the seven flowers can be
done quite rapidly.
Fold in half again.
Fold the half-sheets into fourths, being mindful of the closed corner which would be the center of the sheet if
it were opened, and the loose corners that will be the separate petals
of a flower.
Fold up a corner.
This creates a triangle of four layers. These will
be four petals of a flower.
Fold up the opposite side the
same way. Now there are eight layers within the triangle all
connected at the point.
Fold
one edge in half. This will allow you to cut half the top of
a
petal, flipping it back provides a symmetrical template for the other
half of the petal, in reality, a whole stack of eight petals all at
once.
Snip a curve from the outer
edge to the point. The flap become a template for the other half.
See what I mean? Now
that flap guarantees symmetry. You can make whatever shape of a petal
you wish.
Ta daaaaaaa. Take a
bow. You've cut eight petals all at once!
Unfold.
Wasn't that easy? This is where it starts to get
fun.
A disc can be pasted onto a card and it will lay flat.
It
will fold flat when the card is folded. If you remove one
petal
and attach the ends, it will become a cone, which is a close imitation
of a flower shape. A six-sided cone will also fold flat, although it
will not lay flat when the card is opened. This is good for
pop-ups. Removing two petals will result in a
tighter cone,
but we're going to keep one to use as a tab to glue the ends.
We'll cut out one petal, and leave the one next to the space
blank for a glue tab.
Draw
in the sexy bits, the pistils and stamens, anthers and stigma, whatever
the hell they are. It's your flower, call them whatever you wish.
Here we go with the cone
formation and the petal as glue tab.
You can actually do all seven
petals at the same time.
There's no point in lagging
behind like this.
Press the petal to the right
of the gap on top of the blank petal for a solid tab. Double
petals are doubly sturdy.
In'nit purdy?
Prearrange them and pre-glue
dot them for stacking. Here's how they're stacked. ↓
This
is what the glued stack looks like. It will be glued inside a
card tucked against the central fold. Tuck and fit first, then glue one
side at a time.
This
is a specific background that has meaning to a specific person.
Chose whatever background you wish. I do not
recommend a
road map for an ordinary card.
Tuck into the crease and glue
one petal on one side. Close the card on top of the glue.
Flip the card, open it, to the
unglued side. Glue the unglued side, close the card again.
After
it dries, when the card is opened, the glued together petals drag each
other open and force the flowers that are not attached to the card
upward and outward. It's awesome and it's
delightful.
It's an idea that can be elaborated ridiculously.
For the
record, it's actually easier and faster to fold the paper, cut the
petals, draw the flower inside bits, and glue them together, than it
was to get my printers to cooperate to print the background.
This
card is actually quite fast to make. It was much more difficult to
photograph it and to write this page then it was to make the pop-up
portion of the card. Because this was so simple, I decided to make
something of a project of the cover.