Long-Case Clock Card

It’s my dad’s birthday on Wednesday 15th June, so I’ve made him a card. He is very interested in clocks and repairs them as a hobby, and he also has quite a collection of his own. The card I have made him is in the shape of a long-case clock (commonly called a grandfather clock, probably after the famous Victorian song).

The clock face was cut from an image that I re-sized in Serif DrawPlus and printed out, and lightly coloured the edges with Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress Ink.

I designed all the pieces for the clock in Serif DrawPlus and exported them as a .svg cut file (now uploaded to my SkyDrive – see link on the right side of my blog). These pieces were lightly distressed with Black Soot Distress ink. The top piece which frames the clock face, and the panel on the main, long, central body of the clock both have pieces cut out, which are not kept; the door piece is sized between the outer and inner outline of the door panel, if that makes sense - when you make it up, it becomes clear.

The door is attached on the inside by a narrow strip of card which is scored down the middle to form a hinge. There is no cut file for this piece; it can be cut from the piece removed from the centre of the main body panel. To close the door, I cut a small piece of self-adhesive Velcro and attached it onto the main body frame and the inside of the door. The pendulum bob, hinges and door catch were cut from gold card, and the catch was attached with a gold-coloured brad.

In order for the pendulum to swing, I attached it at the top with a brad, hidden by the main body panel. I had to build up this panel with two layers of double-sided adhesive foam tape in order to give the pendulum room to move, but unfortunately, even though I cut this foam tape in half length-wise, it did make the space inside the panel rather narrow, so the pendulum doesn’t have a very big swing – this would be enough to stop a real clock! To remedy this, I have reduced the size of the pendulum bob in the cut file slightly.

I coloured the visible edge of the foam tape with Black Soot Distress Ink, which I applied by rubbing the ink pad on my craft mat and spritzing it with water, and applying it with a small brush.

I cut a large shadow piece in Make The Cut (not included in the cut file), copied and pasted it, and welded the two pieces together to form the actual card; this was cut in black cardstock, scored and folded down the centre, and the whole of the rest of the clock was glued onto this, building up the layers.

I lined the right-hand side of the inside of the card with white cardstock, cut from a shadow piece created in Make The Cut, slightly smaller than the main card piece, and distressed it with Pumice Stone Distress Ink. I hand-wrote the sentiment, and added a bit of decoration in the form of some gold peel-offs. I don’t use these very often but they come in handy sometimes.

I think the whole thing has a nice antique feel, and I hope my dad, expert horologist that he is, will appreciate it!

This is the last of a long string of projects I’ve made during the first part of the year, all of which have had quite tight deadlines – I’ve had to work out a timetable to get each one done in sequence, and I don’t think I’ve ever had such a productive time! Apart from our nephew’s wedding present that has to be made by August, I haven’t got any more deadlines until I have to start thinking about Christmas… In the meantime there are plenty of other things I want to do, with no pressure, so I’m looking forward to having some real FUN in my ARTHaven!