Deb's Rotating Wheel Card

This is a card that I designed myself after seeing other similar types of rotating wheel cards that are mostly made using dies. I love making interactive cards for my grandson, and he loves receiving them in the mail. Space is one of his favorite things, so I used digital paper to design this fun rotating wheel card. This was cut using svg files that I designed on my Sizzix Eclips electronic cutting machine.

After seeing numerous tutorials of card makers crafting these cards, I came up with a digital method that cuts out many of the steps. I made three different window versions for these cards, and each has its own template.  The one I'm using in this post is the trapezoid.

The first template is the front of the card. I like a bit larger card than the A2 (4.24" x 5.5"), preferring the A6 or A7. For this card I made an A6 card (4.5" x 6.25"), just enough larger to give a bit more space for creating.

The second template is the corresponding wheel. I laminated some cardstock before cutting out the template so it would last longer and it would be easier to remove the tape. All four windows are cut from the template. When you're ready to put your images on the wheel, you tape the template onto the wheel you'll be using in the card. At this point, you can stamp or draw anything that you want into the windows, and they will all be placed perfectly on the rotating wheel. Then just remove the template and use again on the next card.

The rest of the assembly will be as you see in the numerous tutorials on Youtube. This template systems eliminates having to place the wheel behind the front piece, draw an outline of window, mark four sides of the wheel, turning the wheel to align each window, doing your stamping, and then erasing all of the lines you drew to outline each window. I used Photoshop and ECAL2  to design the images and make the cut files.

The paper and images used on this project are from Carta Bella's Space Academy. I purchased the digital paper and elements, and sized/altered the images as needed. For example, I superimposed my grandson's face into the astronaut's helmet, and put the "E" on the rocket ship with red/blue stripes/stars. I also used lots of Wink of Stella, which doesn't show up well in the photos, but all of the stars and the planets sparkle.

Thanks for taking a look. In the future, I'm hoping to make tutorials for some of my projects.

A Wheel within a Wheel...
Whirling Silently in Space