Explosion Card

I have to say that I was very resistant to card-making for a long time, although I have always liked crafts.  I just preferred crafts I could keep to ones I would send away.  However, a very long time ago, I was watching Carol Duvall on tv, and she had this guy as a guest who was showing how to make a very interesting card - the inside opened out to be twice the size indicated by the outside.  He called it an "explosion card", and it had a tricky fold that forced the paper inside to open up when you opened the card.  I went through a lot of paper trying to master that fold, but once I did, I had no idea what to do with it, so I forgot about it - I wasn't going to make any cards anyway.

Fast forward to the present - the July challenge at the "Enjoy Michael Strong stamps" yahoogroup  is to make an exploding card.  Now, to remember the fold... a Google search of explosion cards did not produce the result I remembered.  Who was that guy?  Could it be... Michael Strong?   I decided to google "Michael Strong Carol Duvall"  and got this result: http://scrapbooking.com/article/74222 .

He doesn't even call it an explosion card in the tutorial, but that's what it is!  Here is my version:

This is the front, a standard card size.  It uses the Michael Strong mosaic frame  I wrote about yesterday (ha, you didn't think I bought it, but I did!); the interesting texture to it is the result of stamping on textured cardstock.  The sentiment is from Target - I have never liked the quality of the stamps I have bought there, but it was the perfect size for what I wanted.  now, here is the inside:

It's a full sheet of copy paper.  It has a lot of white space for signing - a great card for a group to give to a coach or a scout leader.  An explosion card is a great way for a little card to hold a lot of info - maybe even a Christmas letter!