Interactive thank you card with four-bar mechanism

Hello! Today I’m sharing an interactive thank you card, that I made for the new challenge at Create a Smile, which is all about giving thanks.

Instead of making a more appropiate autumn card with leaves or pumpkins, I used the fun little critters from the Glowing Seaside stamp set, to make an interactive water-themed thank you card. When the pull tab is pulled, four of the sea creatures move around the sentiment, thanks to a four-bar linkage mechanism.

Check out this video clip to just see the card in action…

Video clip of the thank you card in action

…or this step by step video tutorial, if you are feeling up for the challenge:

Step by step tutorial of the thank you card with a 4-bar mechanism

Even though you might think that the mechanism that I used is super complicated, it’s not. You just need four strips of cardstock and some brads to link them together. There are plenty of fun mechanisms out there that haven’t been used in card making before and that are quite easy to re-create in paper. The difficult thing is to make things move, while hiding said mechanisms. HERE’S  another interactive card with five moving elements, that you might like.

I used critters from the Glowing Seaside and Gull Gang stamp sets and colored them with Copic markers. I slightly altered the squid and the angler fish, so that they would be easier to fussy cut and accented some of their features with Glossy Accents.

For the sentiment I used one of the dies from the Tiny Sentiments Cool Cuts (I stacked three layers of the die cut) and one of the stamps from the Time to Say Thanks set. Finally, I used some clear enamel dots to decorate the card panel and an orange enamel arrow for the pull tab.

So that’s it for today! Head on over to the Create a Smile blog to check out Alexandra’s, Ashlee’s, Ellenor’s, Giada’s, Ksenija’s, Sindhu’s and Victoriya’s thank you cards. I hope you join us in this fun challenge! Have a great day! ^_^

Measurements

Water panel: 6 7/16” wide x 3 5/8” tall (16,3cm x 9,3cm)

Mechanism panel: 6 5/16” x 4 ¾” (16cm x 12cm)

Card base: 6 5/16” x 9 ½” (16cm x 24cm) for a top fold card

Strips for the mechanism:

1 strip that measures 6” x 3/4” (15cm x 2cm)

1 strip that measures 4 2/8” x 3/4” (10,7cm x 2cm)

2 strips that measure 3 1/8” x 3/4” (8cm x 2cm)

Create a Smile products:

• Glowing Seaside stamp set
• Gull Gang stamp set
• Time to Say Thanks stamp set
• Tiny Sentiments Cool Cuts
• Stacked Pierced Banners Cool Cuts
• Sending Sunshine Enamel Stickers

List of other products:

This post is also available in: Español