Double-fold Halloween Card

Make this Halloween extra-spooky-special with this double-fold Creepy Castle gate card printed to the edge after trimming. The finished size of this card is 7" X 4 3/4" - a perfect fit in a Print-to-the-Edge envelope! The front of the card is a gate that opens up to the entrance to the spookiest castle on the block! And the sign on the front of the gate says "Enter at Your Own Risk!" The gate is easily constructed from rectangles filled with brown, the gate hardware is triangles and rectangles filled with black. Add your own creepy clipart and text to personalize this ghoulish greeting!

MATERIALS NEEDED

110 lb. cardstock (or the heaviest your printer will handle)

Clipart

Paper trimmer or scissors

Print-to-the-Edge envelopes (see Products>Envelopes)

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Open a blank page in your graphics program in landscape orientation.

2) Place a rectangle on the page that measures 7" X 9 3/4", no fill and a light grey 1-point outline. This outline will make it easier to see where you are placing your designs and will aid in the final trimming of the card. Center this rectangle on the page.

3) Draw another rectangle 3/4" wide and 7" high and fill it with brown with a hairline black outline. Move this rectangle all the way over to the left edge of your grey-outlined rectangle. Duplicate the brown rectangle four times and place them next to the first, leaving a tiny white space between each. When you have the five brown rectangles side-by-side, the group should not be any wider than 2 3/8".

4) Draw another rectangle 1/8" wide and fill it with black. Stretch this rectangle across the five brown rectangles about a third of the way down from the top to make the gate support.

5) Draw a small black triangle about 3/4" high, filled with black. Duplicate this triangle and flip it so that when you move the two together you have a diamond shape. Group this diamond and duplicate it once more.

6) Place the diamond shapes on the black rectangle on either end of the gate, as shown in the image above. Group the 2 diamonds and the black rectangle and duplicate once.

7) Move the second set of gate hardware (black rectangle with two black diamonds) to the bottom third of the gate.

8) Now group the entire gate and duplicate once. Move this duplicate to the other end of your grey-outlined rectangle so that you have one gate side on each end.

9) Add additional clipart, keeping in mind that the gate sides will be reversed when the card is finished.

10) Print on plain paper to check for alignment.

11) Open a second page in your software, also in landscape orientation. Make another rectangle measuring 7" X 9 3/4" and fill it with a dark blue with no outline. Center this rectangle on the page.

12) Add clipart of a creepy castle and center it horizontally on the page. Try to keep the width of the castle clipart to about 4 3/4". Add your text and any other clipart you choose.

13) Print out the inside of the card on the back of the first page you printed (the gate side on the plain paper) and hold the page up to the light to check for necessary adjustments. Don't worry if the differences are minor, because you will be trimming all white edges off the card after it is printed.

14) Now it's time to print the outside and the inside on the cardstock, following your printer manufacturer's instructions.

15) Once the card is printed on both sides, it's time to trim off all the white edges. This is where a paper trimmer comes in really handy, but you can also use a scissors. (If you're going to be making several of these cards you might want to invest in a paper trimmer, we use a Fiskar's trimmer that's available in most craft stores for under $20.)

16) Once you have trimmed the white edges, turn the card over to make certain there are no additional white edges that need to be trimmed.

17) Place the card on the table with the inside facing you and fold the right and left edges over to the center to form the two sides of the front gate. Once you have the gate "closed" you can cut the top of the card front as shown above to give some shape to your gate.

That's it! Your creepy card is done and recipients of this special Halloween greeting are sure to smile!

Double-Fold Halloween Card Instructions

For a print friendly version, click on this link.