Iris Folded Greetings Cards
By Michelle Powell

       Iris Folding has nothing to do with flowers; it is so called because the folds resemble the iris of a camera. In Holland, business envelopes have wonderful patterns printed inside them and these are split open and cut into strips ready for folding. If you live outside of Holland and yearn for a book that shows how iris folding can look with other types of papers then look no further. There is not an envelope interior in sight here, and instead of just an aperture cut into a sheet of plain card, imagination has run riot, in what I think to be one of the best titles to date in the Greeetings Cards series. Squares, eggs, fish, a richly caparisoned elephant, flowers, butterflies, and leaves to name a few come to vibrant life in here; this is iris folding Mark II

      Even if you are a total beginner, the large staged photographs take a lot of the guesswork out of this craft. My favorite thing about this book is that there are even templates for the gallery samples; not the whole thing (you need a bit of imagination and experience to work out the rest of the card in each case) but the actual iris folding diagram. There is even a way of doing this with photographs to add interest to memory albums (although only cards are shown), and on every page there is evidence that this particular papercraft has been taken a stage further. All sorts of papers have been used, and most of them are easily obtainable. It isn’t recycling as in the case of the envelopes, but some suggestions are made of papers you don’t have to actually buy specially. Another plus about this book is the list of items you need, as it isn’t very large and most people will be able to lay hands on them with ease, even if they are not keen card makers already. If you are looking for Christmas cards there is just one, as part of a gallery; something else for many people’s largest card-making festival might have been a good feature but most of the cards are not aimed at any particular event. This does have the bonus of making it accessible to a wide range of different religions and many of the more abstract templates can be adapted—you just need the imagination to do this. The overall verdict is a hands-on book that I can’t keep my hands off…definitely one of the best in this useful series to date.

If you cannot find materials locally try http://www.searchpress.com for a list of suppliers.

In the UK try:
Cardcraft Plus, Unit 1, Oxheys Industrial Estate, Greenbank Street, Preston, Lancashire PR1 7PH
Tel: (01772) 466157
Email: mailorder@cardcraftplus.co.uk
This company ships WORLDWIDE!

In the US http://www.stamporium.com sells templates and papers

http://www.thewinniefactor.com has some helpful diagrams