Here’s the pattern for the pop-up Christmas Card I made this year:
I used my Silhouette cutting machine to cut this pattern out, but if you’re cutting it by hand, I highly recommend you simplify the edges. Otherwise it will take you forever. Even my Silhouette took a long time, and I had to get a new blade and cutting mat by the time I was done with all of them. There are two cards worth of trees on one sheet.
How to put it together:
Step 1: Assemble
Slot four big trees in with each other. Make sure that two of them have tabs, and that these tabbed trees are next to each other instead of across in the ‘square’ you are creating. Next, add four small trees, one on each side, in their appropriate slots.
Step 2: Squish flat and apply glue to tabs. You may want to pre-fold them first.
Step 3: Place on inside of card at the angle shown. This takes a little practice, so try fixing it with removable tape first to make sure it opens properly. Also, make sure you place the card higher than you think you need to, as it will extend towards the bottom of the card when you open it. Note: The tree will never open fully all the way. This is my fault. I didn’t figure out how to fix the design until after I had made all my cards.
Step 4: Close card and pinch tightly where the glue is until you are absolutely sure it’s dry.
Step 5: Open the card to see what you’ve got!
Hope this worked out for you. 😀
This is a really cool idea. I am a little sad that I have to wait for the next holiday season to make this 🙂 Thank you!
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This is lovely! I’m curious to know what the “fix” was to make the tree open up all the way. I’d love to work on variations of the pop-up tree and understand the engineering behind it. Thanks!
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I’m sorry, this was so long ago that I don’t remember! I do remember it being simple enough, though. Hope you can figure it out!
Edit: After thinking about it more, I believe I had to move the tabs further towards the center of the trees. But that created another problem of having the corner closest to the fold of the card not be able to fit properly. So I had to trim that corner and then hope the person receiving the card didn’t turn it around and look too closely at the back.
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