Photo Tutorial: Easiest Waterfall Card Ever

Continuing the celebration here this morning with a FREE photo tutorial project for you! Of course, my photo tutorials are ALWAYS free, but I hope you'll consider it a little present from me, anyway! This is for a super-easy version of the waterfall card, which is an oldie but a goodie. I promise you, if you've tried them before and felt they were hard–this one is so simple, you'll just love making them. The picture above shows the card closed, and when you pull on the tab…

… the little pictures flop back on themselves one after the other and the message appears on the pull-out. I know, I know–looks complicated! But it's really not, when you break it down.I took lots of photos for you, so you can see every single step along the way.

To begin, you'll need a card base (with DSP cut for the top if you want, I used the Festival of Prints stack from the 2012 Holiday Catalog), a, 8.5×1.5 inch strip and four 1.5 inch squares of coordinating cardstock. For tools, you'll need stamps and ink, Sticky Strip, the Word Window punch, the 1 and 3/8 inch square punch, and a little bit of ribbon and a brad for the pull. I used the four cute Scentsational Season stamps with Not Quite Navy, Riding Hood Red, Always Artichoke and Chocolate Chip for inks.

Start by centering your Word Window punch on the card's front, pushed ALL the way in from the right hand edge as far as it will go. Punch once, then pull the punch back towards you, still centered on the right hand edge, and punch again. You should have two punches with a half-inch or so of space between them.

Next, take your 8.5×1.5 inch strip and use your Simply Scored to score at 1.75, 2.75 and 3.75, as shown by the place markers below. This piece is going to be the mechanism by which the whole thing works.

Thread the long unscored end of the strip through the punches you made in the cardfront. See how the scored side is on the left in the photo above?Then put a little piece of Sticky Strip on the left hand edge of that strip–you can just see the shiny red liner tape in this photo (sorry, I guess I should have used a different color of cardstock to illustrate, when using Sticky Strip!)

Pull the backing off the Sticky Strip and fold the piece on the last score, bending the strip over so that the Sticky Strip lands on that little bridge part between the two punches we made.

Make sure no Sticky Strip is touching anything else except that bridge part, or the mechanism won't slide freely. When you pull on the long tab, as shown below, the scored part of the strip should fold itself along the scores, which is going to make your image pieces flip and fold on themselves.

Whew! That's the only tricky part on this card! And it's over! Eat some chocolate and let's get to the fun part!

Now, add a little piece of Sticky Strip just to the RIGHT of each of those score marks, as shown above. ONLY the left hand edges of your three image punches will be adhere to the mechanism strip.

Start with the image on the right, laying it onto the exposed Sticky Strip right next to but not covering the score line.

Then add the middle image, and finally the left-hand image, in the same manner. The images will overlap slightly, like fish scales (shown below).

That's it! Give it a try… isn't that fun??! Have fun pulling on the tab and watching your waterfall work, but don't get too distracted! Here's how I finished off the inside of mine, with a saying from More Merry Messages and my fourth image punch piece…

…and don't forget to stamp the exterior sentiment on the pull-out tab, too. The little bit of ribbon and brad will give your recipient the message that they are supposed to pull on the tab. Another cute tip to clue the recipient in to "moving parts" cards is to use the little "to open" directional arrow stamps from the Got Treats? stamp set on page 51 of the 2012-13 Catalog. It goes with the Milk Carton die for the Big Shot, but it comes in really handy for those of us who like cards that do stuff!

So there we have it–the easiest waterfall card ever! What do you think? Are you game to try it? Let me know if you need any of the punches or supplies used to make this project, and I'll hook you up! Have a great day, and don't forget to go register for the blog candy!