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Shadow box card in 10 min

Have you seen those awesome shadowbox cards that are 3 dimensional and look like an artist, graphic designer and engineer must have collaborated to make it? Also You can buy these cards for $2.99 and more but why would you when you can make your own?

If you have not see theses cards then you are in for a treat because not only will someone love getting one from you, I will give you the basic template and you can customize as you see fit.

Shadow Box Card

Ok now lets back up a little and give you some ideas of what I am talking about and then we will go into what you need to make these cards. Below is a Christmas Santa card that I made a few years ago. Notice that there are layers and this gives the 3D effect. These cards are called shadowbox or tunnel cards.

Christmas Shadowbox card
Christmas Santa delivering toys

This Santa Card what cut on a Silhouette Cameo Machine, so for those of you who own a machine like this, I will show you how to use my template to make any card you like.

For those of you who don’t own a machine, I will show you how you can still make beautiful tunnel cards, just will a little bit extra work like the one below. This will be a separate post that I will put up later. In the mean time, download the free template and use any pictures or embellishments ….for all you know, you may end up with some tricks to show me!

So, for those of you with machines like Silhouette Cameo and Cricut, the first thing you will need is my template for the card itself. You will need to open the SVG file in Silhouette Studio. see my post here.

If you can’t open SVG files let me know and I will send the studio files.

Now that you have the template, think about what you want the card to be about and spend a few minutes looking for free images on Google. I wanted a beach scene as summer is on the way. Here are some of the images I found. I used the trace feature to trace them and then resized for my card.

In my free template, I included 2 images that looked like “hills” or “clouds” I use these to create different heights for each layer and welded it to my frame. Remember to ungroup the fold lines (dashed lines) before you weld.

Next I arranged my images and welded to card pieces. Below are the pieces cut out and compared to the template with no images welded.

Assemble

  1. To assemble the card bend all the fold lines.
  2. Lay the back piece flat
  3. Glue the tab of inner card so that it is up against the fold line. The tabs of each card is great for spacing if you place them right up against each other.
the inner card is glued so that the tab is up against the fold line
the next layer is glued right up against the edge of the last.
you can see the layers here
This is the back. the tabs have glue on then and we close the large brown piece on top and press down.
Shadow card with beach scene
Shadow Box: summer at the beach

Carolyn

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10 minute craft Cards Greeting Cards Kids Can Do Naw-Ruz Ridvan Template Uncategorized

Shadow Box Template

For all of you card makers/ crafters who love shadow box cards AKA tunnel cards, here is a free template for you to use: Your card in 10 min

Ok so 10 minutes for those of you who own a Silhouette Cameo or Cricut. For those of you who do not own a machine then this will take about 20 to 30 minutes

Shadow card with beach scene
Shadow Box: summer at the beach

The photo above is the free template to download ( see below) with free images I found on public domain welded on to the card.I used different colour cardstock so that I could show the layers better. You can use one colour or many colours. You could add cut out pieces, for instance to the palm tree, add green leaves etc.

The Template has the following pieces:

Front and Back pieces of Shadow box card. Dashed lines are fold lines.
The inside parts that “slot in” to the main frame of the card.

Extra Back piece that can have a background scene

How to use the template:

To use this template with Silhouette or Cricut,

  1. Download and open the file.
  2. Gather the images you want to use in your card from files you have or free images on Google. If they are PNG images you need to trace and make them Studio or SVG
  3. Make sure each section is ungrouped from the dashed lines (the fold lines)
  4. Place your image on card and use Weld (Silhouette) /Attach (Cricut) to attach the image to the card so that it is one piece. The template has a few extra pieces that can be used in a merge and will form hills or clouds.
  5. Group dashed lines to card before you move around
  6. Send to cut.

To Use Without a cutting machine

  1. Download the PDF file.
  2. Print the images of the Shadow box onto cardstock.
  3. Cut out the pieces including the inside rectangles of the pieces.
  4. Use scrapbook embellishments or photos printed on cardstock and cut out. The template has a few extra pieces that can be used as hills or clouds.
  5. Glue images to the inside of the frame ( the cutout section rectangle section)

How to Assemble

  1. The front and back of card glue together to form a box that is open on top and bottom.
  2. The inner pieces slide in to this open frame box in the order that you like and the tabs glue to the sides.
  3. Note that the tabs should all be glued to one side first and bent in the same direction.

Enjoy

Download template in PDF and SVG format here