Easy Paper Christmas Tree Tutorial

Christmas Pop Up card

This Pop up Christmas card is part of my Guest DT post for For Fun challenges.

My coloring skills are atrocious-I find I neither have the patience nor the skill to tackle coloring! I can spend hours designing an interactive pop up card but pull my hair in despair when I have to color!

[My brain didn't function at all for the coloring and I had to take help from my 5 year old to choose color schemes!]So to compensate for poor coloring of the sponsor Digital image [from Michelle Perkett Studios] ,I am again bombarding my readers with yet another pop up card!
In this pop up card mechanism the fairy rises up from the pedestal as you can see here from the top view of the Christmas pop up card.

Christmas Pop Up card

I made a pop up standing card by slightly tweaking the tutorial by Dawn . I wanted a scene for the fairy so I stuck it on a folded A 4 card and created a Christmas scene with Christmas trees.

Christmas Pop Up card

Added some punchcraft flowers I had made and some doilies[a gift from bloggerpal Sudha ] pus thermocol balls.
I had quite a few requests on instructions to make the Origami tree I used in the house pop up card so sharing a mini tutorial
How to make a flat folding 3 Dimensional Paper Christmas tree

Materials Required
Colored Paper- Use thin paper so that it is easy to  fold.Cut 3-4 squares which can be of same size or different sizes.[Mine vary from 1.5 inch to 2.5 inch]
Glue-white glue
Embellishments/Glitter-Optional

Paper Christmas tree

Fold the square of paper diagonally as shown above.Fold corner to corner.Open and fold the other corner to get the square as shown above.

Paper Christmas tree tutorial

Hold in the middle of your creased square as shown and bring towards the center.

Paper Christmas tree

This will give you a triangular shape as shown below.It is ok if it is not perfect as you can always snip off unsightly edges at the end.

Origami Christmas tree

Bring one corner of the upper triangular flap towards the center as shown.

Paper folding Christmas tree

Fold the other corner towards the center too to get your tree part as shown below.

Tea bag folding tutorial

Stick 3-4 such parts into each other and you have your quick and easy Paper Christmas tree.

Paper Christmas Tree Tutorial

You can make quick cards with your Paper Christmas tree or add  a string and hang as a Christmas decoration.

Christmas Pop Up card

Interactive Slider Sidestep Card Instructions

Slider Card

Interactive Cards are fun to make and receive.They are fairly simple to make too!Here is Santa Claus  sliding across the card.

Interactive Slider Card

I added a slider mechanism to a side step card to make Santa slide across a Christmas themed landscape.

Interactive Slider Card

I handcut a snowman and a house for my Christmas theme.Since I love a bit of texture layered corrugated paper for the chimney and the door of the house.The snowman's hat is also cut from a scrap of corrugated paper.

Slider Card

Here is the template of the house I made.

House Template

The berries and holly are homemade embellishments from lightweight play-dough [Amos company] to which I added a bit of glitter!I also added glitter to all the punched snowflakes.

Slider Card

Interactive Slider Sidestep Card Instructions
I made the side step card following the instructions here

Cut a slot on any one of the side steps of a Side step Card as shown. You need to use a craft knife to cut a slot as long as you like and wide enough to hold your slider mechanism.

Slider Card

Decide on the position of you sliding image. 

Take a small piece of double sided foam tape [should be big enough to get a good adhesion but not too big as to hinder your sliding movement on the slot]  

Stick your double sided foam tape to the back of your sliding image and place it on the slot of your side step card.Stick a piece of card stock on the other side and your slider is ready!

More Pictures of this mechanism can be found here : Spinning Slider Card Tutorial

You can use a Coin instead of the card on the back of your slider. If you are using a coin Santa will slide back and forth on tilting your card due to the coin sliding. I somehow dont like using a "Penny" slider as it adds so much unnecessary weight to a card and your adhesive has to be really strong too if you are using a coin.
Here is a link to an awesome slider card tutorial by my blogger pal Lisa:Lisa's Side step Slider

Interactive Slider Card

Interactive cards are very popular with kids and they have so much fun playing with the sliding mechanism!
Do tell me how you like this simple idea.

Whales School Project -Collage and Neverending card

 Origami whales

My daughter has the theme "Whales" in school. So we have been doing a lot of " whale" related activities.She learnt on her own how to draw a whale and then wanted to make a 3D collage to take to school.

Her collage is fairly simple as conquering the origami whale itself was quite a challenge for my kiddo!

She made a mama whale with a pink flower on her head [Do you know any little girl whose favorite color is not pink?!!]

Origami Whale

And of course my daughter wanted the baby whale to be a "girl" too!

Origami Whale

We cut "sand" out of yellow moonstone paper and my daughter cut out the "blue waves" from corrugated paper.The coconuts are thermocol balls.

Collage Art

In her school they go in-depth on their theme topic and so I had to research quite a bit about whales too to help my kiddo to grasp the "whale" theme.

There were so many tit bits of information and we stuck the pictures in a "Never ending Card" 

This is one type of card which you have to make to realize the charm!! Pictures just dont do justice to it-- you have to get it in your hand and play with it-- you just cant stop!!

The pictures are in the sequence of what happens when each fold of the card is opened.

Whales School Project

Whales School Project

Whales School Project

Whales School Project

Whales School Project

Whales School Project

And after this layer the card opens to the first layer and so on it goes ---never ending!!

Whales School Project

My daughter loves to show off our unusual school projects charts and this year her class teacher is so appreciative of the extra efforts we put in.

Other ideas for school projects involving lots of pictures

Squash book

Interactive Chart

Waterfall Card

Flag Book

House Pop up card Tutorial and Template

Pop up Card - House

As promised here is the tutorial to the House pop up card.

House pop up card

When I first started making pop up cards I used templates from the net ,now I find  it is so much more fun and rewarding when I design one myself!
For my friends who want to make a quick House Pop up card here is my template.

House Pop up Card Template

Just score on the dotted lines and mountain fold.
For those of you who may be crazy like me and want to "understand the mechanism "and go about it the difficult way, sharing instructions to help you design your own customized House pop up card.
How to design your own House Pop up card

Make the Base of your House

Take a rectangular strip of card.Don't use very thick card stock as your House pop up should be easy to crease and fold.

For people who like measurements- I started off with a card measuring 3.5 x 9.5 inches.

Score your 3.5 x 9.5 inch card lengthwise 0.5 inch.This will help for the tab of your house base.

Pop up card Tutorial

Score at 0.5,2.5,5 and 7 inches. This will give you a 0.5 inch width tab ,  two 2 inch wide sides and two 2.5 inch wide sides for your house. You can play with your measurements however you fancy.

So you have your strip in now divided into tab[ 0.5 inch width], Side A[2 inch wide], Side B[ 2.5 inch wide],Side C[2 inch wide] and Side D[ 2.5 inch wide]

Pop up card Tutorial

Easy way to fold your house pop up card is score sides B and D in the middle as shown

Cut off the lower parts[ below the score line] of parts B and D as shown and slant and cut to form tabs for parts A and C.

Pop up card Tutorial

Draw a triangular shape towards the top of parts B and D as shown and horizontal lines meeting as shown on parts A and C.[My measurement was 0.75 inch from the top]

Pop up card Tutorial

Cut off  the extra parts marked above.Slant and taper cut your tab also and your house pop up base is ready.

Pop up card Tutorial

You can mountain fold all the score lines to start with.Then Valley fold the score line in the middle of part B.[You can also mountain fold this if that is the shape of house you like]

Pop up card Tutorial

Glue your tab to the inside of part D and your house shape has formed.
Make a roof. 

I used rough measuring for this and you can do the same.

If you want a short cut you can follow my measurements which is a 4 x 2 inch card strip scored at 0.5inch,2 inch and 3.5 inch.

Pop up card Tutorial

If you want to go about designing a roof is here is how you do it:

The guide is your roof strip should measure the same height  as the width of Parts A and C[mine is 2 inches in height].To design a roof take a 5-6 inch long strip  score it in the middle and place it over your house shape. Judge the length you will require. You need to cover the house and have some extra to glue on the house.Cut the rest off.

Pop up card Tutorial

Attach your roof tabs to Sides A and C as shown above.

Additional Parts

You can add lots of fun additional pop up parts like an arched door  or a chimney like I did.

House Pop up Card

To make the arched door cut a shape and give it small tabs on the sides as shown.Fold it along the middle and fold the tabs too.

Pop up card Tutorial

Position it over your side B to find a position you like.
Attach one tab on the front of your house making sure the central fold lines of the house and the front of your house[ side B] align.Apply glue on the other tab and  fold over your house on to it.

Pop up card Tutorial

You can decorate your house before sticking it to your base card.

House Pop up Card

Open up your house and position it over  the base card.Roughly mark the position of your tabs in this position.Fold your house , apply glue to the tabs. Stick one tab to the base card. Fold over the base card and let the other tab find its own position. Wait for the glue to dry well.

House Pop up card Tutorial

I added some layers of "snow "cut from photo paper  folded and attached in a V shaped manner.

House Pop up card

The house pop up card is such a versatile pop up - you can use it for a housewarming card, a moving away card, a Christmas card, a birthday card and what not!
Here are links to more Pop up Card Tutorials
Do leave me your comments
Edited this tutorial was featured at
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