A working clock card!

For the longest time I have wanted to incorporate a working clock into a card, don't ask me why ...........I just did! Well finally I have done it. These are the kind of quirky projects I love to work on.

My big sister asked me to make a card for her friend Nicola. Now my sister is a sweetheart and is so good to me so I wanted to make something really special. (my little sister who never got a 40th birthday card from me.............don't read this post!!!.....lol............it's coming, its coming!!!!)

I was walking around our local Euro Shop here in Bray and they had little alarm clocks for €1.00 so I took the chance and bought one. Hubby dismantled it for me and I built in into the card below. It is still working and so as not to be mean I dismantled the alarm so it wouldn't go off while it was sitting on her mantlepiece (there is no way to get at the back to turn the alarm off..........hehehe......she would not have been impressed).

When  I get an idea in my head I have to complete the project before the creative flow disappears so this was an all night project. I started at about 9pm and finished at about 9.15am. There was a lot of messing about with sizes, making something hating it, trying something else,  remaking, remaking and remaking. I have to say I love how it looks but at about 3.25am I was not feeling in such a loving mood towards it! Getting the vision of what I wanted and working out the dimensions to make it happen always tends to be my bug bear. So have a peak and see how it turned out. I would love to know what you all think.

This photo below shows the front of the card. I wanted to keep it quite simple as the inside of the card is the showpiece.

 In this photo you can see that the card had to be quite wide to be able to take the clock mechanism. To protect the clock the card has been reinforced with hard card so it it quite heavy and like a box. The side flap shown on the right is kept closed with 3 hidden magnets.

 Here you can see that the card has loads of concertina folds in it. These hold the clock in place and create a large gap for the clock mechanism to sit in. At this point it still hides the secret of what is inside.

Card opening.................oooooh............hehehe. See the bit of red tape on the side. That stuff is so static it sticks to everything. I obviously removed it before I gave it to my sister but I found it about an hour later stuck to my jumper!!!! I was so busy taking the photo that I missed seeing it in the picture!

 And voila..........the inside of the card. When my husband took the clock apart  I cut a piece of hard cardbord to the size I wanted and decorated it. I punched a hole in the middle and placed the section that holds the clock hands through the hole. Then I got Gary to reattach everything and get it working again.  The card needed to be strong enough to hold both the clock and the battery to make it work.. I then trapped this card between the front folds of the concertina fold frame I had made so that it was suspended and had space at the back for the mechanism. .

A card this big needs a box to hold it, thee photos below show the box I made for it to sit in.

As I type this I have just received a text from my sister saying her friend, the guests and the staff at the resturant loved the card  so that's Happy Days for me :)

Ok, time for me to go for a sleep as  I have just spell checkd this blog post and had to add in loads of words I missed out and change some very unusual spelling!!!

Happy Crafting everyone :)