Description
Looking for a unique DIY Valentines card idea in 2018? Today you'll see how to make a simple homemade card out of paper craft that will warm a nerd's heart.Numberphile video that inspired this: https://youtu.be/wKV0GYvR2X8
Last year’s Valentine’s Day video: https://youtu.be/9X152YxYugc
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For a written transcript, go to DIY Valentines card idea 2018 - Magic hearts
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Transcript
Whether you're a math nerd, or your significant other's a math nerd, or you just enjoy making off-the-wall cool stuff, today at the House of Hacks we're going to make a Valentine's Day card out of a piece of paper and a couple simple materials.[Intro]
Hi! Harley here.
If you're new here, welcome!
I'm glad you're here and would love to have you subscribe if you're interested in a variety of things related to making things.
Things usually made out of wood, metal, electronics. Today we're going to be doing a little bit of paper crafts because it's Valentine's Day.
I got this idea off a Numberphile video talking about topology. I'll leave a link to the original video down in the description below.
This is real simple to do and easy to make.
All we need is a piece of paper. I chose red because it's Valentine's Day.
A pair of scissors. You could use a knife too I guess if you want.
Something to mark with. I've got a fine tipped Sharpie.
Something to measure with. This is just a blade out of a t-square.
And some tape.
OK. I'm starting here with an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper. It can really be any size, but we do need it to be square.
So, the first thing I'm going to do is take my ruler and on the long edge measure out 8-1/2 inches and then cut off the extra.
Now you can use a knife or scissors if you want a nice straight edge. Or if you want something a little decorative, you can just rip it like that.
The next step is to fold it into quarters so we're going to fold it once this way and crease it well.
We're going to be using the crease in a future step so fold it back on itself just to make it easy to see the crease.
And then turn it 90 degrees and fold it again.
And again, fold it back on itself.
And now on each of the points on the creases, we want to measure out 1/2 an inch. It can really be anything you want, but I found 1/2 an inch works well for 8-1/2 by 8-1/2 squares. Larger tends to not work so well.
So just pick tick marks on each one of these at 1/2 inch from the fold.
And now we're going to make squares on each of the corners. So, just draw some lines like so.
They guide you in cutting with the scissors so they just need to be as accurate as you need them to be for cutting.
The next step is we're going to cut out each of the four corners with the scissors.
You could use a knife if you wanted to use a knife on this also.
This is all preparatory steps. So you want to have this done before you actually want to present the card.
I don't know if it's a card or a gift. It kind of could be either one or both, but it's something you need to do kind of in person and talking to them probably.
It's something more of a demonstration.
So you could actually take this to dinner or something like this as long as you take along the materials you need in addition to the paper.
OK. So we're done with the ruler and the marker. This is all the preparation steps are done. We have the little cross looking thing.
We'll need scissors and tape now for the rest of it.
Now at this point you could make up a story.
I'm more of a teacher than a storyteller, so I don't know if I have any good stories to necessarily recommend but you could start something like maybe talking about how you met and your paths crossed or something like that.
I don't know. Maybe sounds a little corny.
But anyway, you want to proceed by making a loop and putting half a twist in one of them. This will make a mobius strip.
Now when you do this, you want to make sure which way you're doing your twist.
So I'm going to be twisting with my right hand overhand and then these get taped together.
So we're kind of making a mobius strip type of thing out of two of these.
And we want to tape the ends together but we also want to tape the backside so it has a little bit more support because we will be cutting this here shortly and it's much more stable if both sides are taped.
Now we want to do the same thing with this one.
Only now instead of... previously we twisted forward, now we need to twist in the reverse direction.
So I'm going to twist this underhand on the right hand side and this gets taped.
And maybe in your storytelling you could talk about how after your paths' crossed at some point you came to embrace life with each other.
Or something like that. Like I said, that sounds a little corny, but I'm not a good storyteller, so don't follow my advice.
So now we have this.
And the next stage is we want to cut along the fold lines. So we're basically cutting each one of these in half lengthwise.
Don't cut through the center piece though where they cross. Just cut the edges first.
And so we take the scissors and just cut along those lines.
The paper ripped a little bit so I'm going to do a quick repair here with a piece of tape on that center piece. The center part ripped where it wasn't supposed to rip.
So, I don't know, maybe you could talk about how you get busy after embracing the relationship and school and work and life circumstances make things crazy and you feel like you're getting torn apart.
And then you go to the other side and cut this edge also along the fold that we started out making.
Everything's cut apart except where we made the cross. Now we want to go ahead and cut the cross apart.
And this is where the actually the magic starts happening. So you want to be winding up your story pretty quickly now because once we snip these last two pieces you can tell them that through everything you've been through your hearts are now entwined together.
OK. That might be a little corny.
But you know, it's Valentine's Day.
So there's the entwined hearts for you to give to your beloved and show her how much you care.
Thanks for joining me on this creative journey that we're on.
And until next time, go make something.
Perfection's not required.
Fun is!
