Making Tri-Fold Cards
Scissors, Cardstock and a little imagination.
I love making tri-fold cards because I love working with antique images and I love working with a theme. Of course, you don’t have to use either, the decoration is completely up to you.
That said, aesthetically, I think a cohesive theme is the way to go.
I used some 18th century prints to feature on the card above - very whimsical, they almost have a confectionary feel with their colors and the hair looking like the cotton candy you get on a tube or a stick at the state fair.
You can choose to use a background, in this case a toile pattern from the same time approximate time period, or you could have your image take up the whole space.
You can also have your tri-fold be horizontal in orientation (see below) but the one thing I dislike about that is that it won’t stand up by itself like a vertical will.
If I’m giving this card, I’m hoping the receiver will keep it and display it on their desk or shelf, at least for a while
Making the Tri-Fold Card
Size:
The card above with the hairstyles is 10.5”wide by 4.75”high, with each individual folded cell being 3.5”wide by 4.75”high.
This will print landscape on an 8.5x11 sheet, and then you would need to cut it down.
If you want to utilize a full 11” wide sheet, you would have your individual cells at 3.66” wide.
The reason that I don’t use the 11” width is because I’m printing a background.
My printer will do a full bleed but sometimes the edges get inky, so I usually don’t.
Your Design:
Totally up to you, you can find antique images, you can use your own illustrations - if you’re an artist, using your own work would be fantastic. Block prints, architectural sketches, watercolors…
And you can either do a one-off, or set it up for multiple printings.
If you’re doing a one of kind, then you don’t need to worry about printing, you’ll just paint or draw or collage right on the base card paper.
Print and Cutting Out
If you are going the printed route, you would design the layout and imagery as preferred; one thing that I do that’s helpful is to also print fold guide marks.
Because my overall card image will fit on an 8.5x11 paper (landscape oriented), I will add a border around my final overall image (10.5x4.75h) and use it as a cut line. I’m working in Photoshop but you can use whatever graphics program you have - if you don’t have one, then you’ll be doing it the old fashioned way and measuring each card to find where you need to fold.
I mark a little tick line where my fold lines will be in Photoshop and then print.
Paper stock
I prefer to use a light weight card stock - 80lb. The paper will fold easier and won’t get too bulky with 3 panels.
You can also use a lighter paper but something like text weight will probably show writing through if you’re writing on the back of it, which you should, it is a letter or greeting card, after all.
It will also not really stand up by itself if the paper is too light.
Envelope Size
If you use the size that I did, this card, folded up will fit in a 4 Bar envelope, which is the smallest size you can send through the mail.
If you use a different size, make sure you have an envelope that it will fit into before you start designing.
Alternately, you can make your own envelope.
A Few Last Thoughts
I didn’t do this with my examples but something I might do in the future is print a lighter version of the front background pattern on the backside. Just light enough so that you can see the pattern but still faint enough that you can easily read written words over it.
Photographs
Tri-fold cards offer a nice surface for your creativity…and here’s one more idea.
Use photographs. If it’s for your mom, pictures of the two of you throughout the years, or for your sister, or a friend, in the same.
Tri-folds are perfect for photographs that show a passage of time :)