Boring Greeting Cards? Make Yours Unique With a Tri-Fold

Last Saturday, my friend had a birthday party. Plans were set, the gift was set — but I forgot to buy a birthday card! It is tradition to accompany that gift with a birthday card. With the few hours I had left before I had to leave, I quickly whipped up a birthday card which wasn’t your original bi-fold or quadruple fold. No, mine folded three times, and it had Super Mario.

I got the idea of creating a card which folded three times from this Badtz-Maru stationary my sister kept from a friend of hers.

However, it was already bad that I was ripping the concept. I didn’t want it to be completely unoriginal. So I sat down and thought about how I could change the imagery instead. I looked to my desk and right there was Super Mario standing on top of a coin block.

Inspired by this, I thought up a scenario where Mario could fit the form of the card. Have him on top of a coin block? Wait, have him pop out of the green warp tube! Even better. Eventually the result came to be a Paper Mario tri-fold birthday card.

Now for those who are looking to make your own, I have created a kit of PSD files which you can use to create your own tri-fold card! Don’t like Paper Mario? I have guides set where you can replace the elements appropriately.

Here’s a few notes about creating this:

• Be sure your printer is aligned properly and feed the paper flush into your printer for best results
• I’ve placed fold marks where you should make your folds
• Where I say to make the slice, measure how wide you will need to make the slice in the middle of the hole of the green warp tube. You should be able to find the width you need to slice if you measure up Paper Mario at the top from the tip of his bottom hand to the end of his foot
• When cutting, use the front (the image you printed from front-kit.psd) to guide your cuts. If you use the other side to guide your cuts, you will clip out some parts of the front