Pop-Up Christmas Card Maker

How to make the pop-up card

1. Print at “Actual size” (not “Fit to page”) and check the 50 mm bar on the pop-up sheet with a ruler. Print the pop-up on card: 160 to 220 g/m² (60 to 80 lb cover) holds its shape. The card sheet and the cover can be the same card or 120 g/m² paper.
2. Cut out the pop-up along the solid lines with scissors. The short cuts between a figure and the two narrow arms beside it are what free the figure, so cut them right up to the line they stop at. A craft knife on a mat is easier for the inside of letters like A, B and O.
3. Score, then fold. Run a dry ballpoint pen along a ruler on every dashed line. Blue dashes are valley folds (the line ends up in a V, folding towards you); red dash-dots are mountain folds (the line ends up on a ridge, folding away). The legend is printed on the sheet.
4. Glue the tabs. Fold the card sheet in half with the picture inside. Open it to a right angle, put glue on the back of each tab of the pop-up and press it onto the grey shape with the same letter: the top tabs on the standing half, the bottom tab on the floor. Close the card on it while the glue sets, so it lines up by itself.
5. Add the cover (optional). Glue the cover sheet to the back of the card, printed side out, with its front picture behind the half that stands up. Fold again. Write your name under the message.

The Christmas tree is different: it is a V-fold, so the card opens flat like a book and the tree rises out of the middle. Fold the tree in half along its red centre line, fold the two tabs at its foot along the blue lines, and glue them on the two grey shapes that meet at the fold. Make it on card of 200 g/m² or more so it stands straight.

Questions

Is this pop-up Christmas card template really free and printable?

Yes. There is no sign-up and no watermark. The PDF is made in your browser and holds two or three pages: the card, the pop-up piece and the cover. The same pages save as a 300 dpi PNG if your phone prints pictures more easily than PDFs.

What is the easiest pop-up card to make?

The present: it is one box-fold step with a bow, so there is one outline to cut and five folds to make, and a child who can use scissors can make it with a little help with the glue. The star and the house are just as simple but have a longer outline to cut. The forest has two pieces that stand one behind the other, and the word takes the longest because every letter is cut round. Allow about 15 minutes for the present and 30 to 40 for the forest or a five-letter word.

How does a pop-up step work, and why does mine not close?

Each step is hinged to the card at the same distance either side of the centre fold (on A4, 45 mm for the present). Open at 90°, the step becomes a box that deep and that tall; closed, it folds flat inside the card. Because the hinges are mirrored about the centre fold, the piece always lies flat when you close the card. If yours sticks out or bunches, a tab is glued off its grey shape, so the two hinges are no longer the same distance from the fold. Lift it while the glue is wet and line it up again. This page checks every design: closed, every pop-up stays at least 3 mm inside the card's edges.

How big is the card and the pop-up?

A4 folds to an A5 card (21 × 14.85 cm), and US Letter to a half-letter card (8.5 × 5.5 in). On A4 the present is 10.5 cm wide and stands 7.7 cm tall with its bow; the star stands 11 cm tall; the house 9 cm; the forest's back row 11 cm; the tree 13.4 cm. On Letter each is about 6 % smaller, because a half-letter card is not as deep.

Can I make a 3D pop-up Christmas tree card?

Yes, choose Tree. It is a V-fold: a tree folded down its middle whose foot is glued at an angle either side of the card's fold. When the card opens flat, the two halves stand up at an angle to each other, so the tree has depth from every side, with a star on top. The layered forest is another 3D tree card: five small trees in front of three tall ones, on two steps of different depths.

Can I put a name on a pop-up card?

Choose Your word and type a name or a short word: JOY, NOEL, MIA, or 2026. The letters stand up in a row on a step, in red and green with snow on top. Short words stand tallest (on A4, three letters are 6.4 cm tall). The letters are a blocky alphabet of our own so that each one is a single sturdy piece; accents are dropped because a loose accent would fall off.

Can I cut it on a Cricut or Silhouette?

Yes. “SVG” saves the sheet you pick under the downloads at true size in millimetres, with the cut lines in a group called cut and the folds in a group called score (each fold marked valley or mountain). Silhouette Studio's free Basic Edition does not open SVG, so “DXF” saves the same lines with cut on layer CUT and both kinds of fold on layer SCORE; use the PDF to see which way each fold goes. For a coloured pop-up, print the PNG and use your machine's print-then-cut.

Want a flat card instead?

The folding card maker makes ordinary folded Christmas cards with a photo or a printed design, and the envelope maker prints an envelope that fits an A5 or half-letter card.