Making your own Christmas cards can be a great fun activity to do alone or with the family. You may choose to make ones for those special people in your life and feel that making one will give a more personal touch. It doesn’t have to be hard or extremely time consuming. Pop up cards are a creative way of making an impressive looking card but are not actually that difficult to do. Christmas trees have been a huge part of decorating people’s houses over the Christmas period, so why not make a card that has one as the centre point?
Read these instruction to learn how to make your very own pop up Christmas card.
What you will need
- A piece of green card (A4 sized) it can be any kind of green, bearing in mind this is the main part of the tree that will be seen so you could just use green card or a shiny piece of green card.
- A piece of white card that is 1cm shorter and 1cm thinner than the green piece (this it so that the green piece can be the border to the white piece).
- Felt tip pens or Christmas themed stickers to decorate
- A ruler, scissors and a pencil
How to make
- First of all, cut the white piece of card 1cm shorter and thinner than the green piece. Take the white piece of card and using a rule, make a mark half way along the top and bottom of the long edge so you know where the centre is. Have your card landscape then fold the card in half using the marks to guide you. Open the card up and fold the edges in to the centre crease, ensuring you fold into the inward crease. Now, keeping those pieces folded, fold the centre line the opposite way so that all four parts form a concertina. Unfold, and then fold in half with the centre fold the opposite way again, then fold this in half again to reinforce the crease. You should now have four equal parts. Unfold the final fold so that your card is just folded in half once.
- Next we need to make the tier parts of the tree. Where the card has been folded, mark 1 1/2cm from the bottom (ensure the folded part of the card is on the right, and that you make this mark from the bottom right). Make the same mark of 1 1/2cm from the bottom of the centre line, and join those lines together with a ruler. From the middle fold (not the edge where it has been folded in half), measure 2cm and mark it. Using your ruler, from the 2cm mark to the top right hand corner, join them by drawing a diagonal line with your ruler. From the fold to the diagonal line, draw horizontal lines roughly 1cm apart.
- Where the diagonal is, score down each side to make folding along that line easier. Fold each slot against the previous fold. Fold them back the opposite way to reinforce the creases then open out the card. Stand it up and push every other slot through so that it bends the opposite way. This will create the gaps allowing the green card to be seen through the gaps.
- Now take the green piece of card and have it in the landscape position. Unfold the white piece of card and adhere it to the green by the first ¼ and last ¼ only, leaving the part with the tree on unstuck. Remember to not glue straight on the edge of the green card, but allow for a ½cm border all the way round. Fold the green card in half so that when you open it back out you can stand the card up with the tree.
- Place the card open and flat. You can now decorate your tree with special Christmas stickers which can be bought especially, or you can use good quality felt tip pens. Use the pens or stickers to draw baubles on the tiers of the tree, including the tiers that are pushed back the other way. Don’t forget your star at the top of the tree! Once you have decorated the tree, you can decorate the rest of the card.
The great thing about this pop up card is that it will stand up and hold itself. You can use paper instead of card, but card makes it more ridged, and it will stand up better. The card makes a great decoration for a mantel piece or shelf, as well as a special card to give someone.
