Christmas Pop Up Box Card with Reindeer, Holly and Poinsettia

I made my first pop up box card for Mothers Day earlier this year and whilst I was pleased with the end result, having followed instructions from another blog it turned out quite a bit smaller than I had expected which also made it quite fiddly to work on. As always doing something for the first time there were things that I wished I had done differently so this time I have made the box slightly bigger and changed one or two things. Here is my step by step description of how it was made, but first a look at the finished item.

To Make the Pop Up Box

I started with an A4 sheet of green card which I trimmed to 29.5 x 18cm, I scored this longways at 9cm and across ways at 7, 14, 21 and 28cm. This left a 1.5 cm strip at one end, I cut half of this strip off, cut the corner off the other half and put double sided tape on it to make a tab that will stick the box together. Finally I cut along three of the score lines to the centre.

Scored and cut box base and interior supports.

When you trim the A4 sheet at the beginning you will be left with a strip about 2.5cm wide and 29.5cm long, cut this into three 9cm long strips, score these 1cm in from each end, fold into a Z shape and put double sided tape on the outfacing side of each folded end. These will go inside your box to support the things that pop up. 

The first time I made one of these I finished making the box base before I put any decoration on, I soon realized it would have been much easier to put the patterned paper panels on whilst the box is still flat. I cut eight panels 6.5 x 8.5cm, four each of two different patterned papers and adhered these to the outside of the box and the folding panels. They need to go on opposite sides of the box base to be in the correct position when the box is assembled.

The next step is to fold the box into a square using the tab with the sticky tape to fix it together and fix the Z shaped strips inside the box. Here is the assembled box.

To Make the Decorations for the Box

Now the fun starts as you add the decorations to the box. I used strips of ordinary acetate to position the reindeer and holly, attaching the acetate to the supports inside the box. The very front piece of holly is attached directly to the inside of the box.

For the gold decorations I spread a very thin layer of Flitterglu over a piece of scrap card, put gold gilding flake all over it, smoothed it down and rubbed off the excess to leave a piece of gilded card. Then used it to die cut the reindeer, greeting and holly branches.

The green holly branches are die cut from green card and all the holly berries are self adhesive pearls, ( I used a clear Wink of Stella pen all over the bigger pearls on the gold holly to give them a gold sheen).
Attach three reindeer and three holly branches to strips of acetate and the attach the other endow the acetate to the supports inside the box. Arrange them at different levels and positions so that they are all visible and as much of the acetate as possible is hidden. Attach a fourth holly branch directly to the inside front of the box. Use the smaller gold holly branches to decorate the side panels and attach the greeting and a holly sprig to the back panel.

The poinsettia on the front panel is die cut from book pages that were backed with card, I did this to make them stiff enough to be able to curl them using a bamboo skewer. Before assembling and curling the petals I inked them with red ink. The holly leaves were made the same way and inked with green ink. Curl the petals and assemble the flower, I used a vintage style gem for the centre and then attached the flower and the leaves to the front panel of the box.

The box can be gently collapsed to fit in an envelope.
Thanks for calling in, hope you like it.
Debbie x

Materials used:

• Green and white card
• Pages from an old book
• First Edition 12 x 12" Jingle All the Way paper pad
• Poinsettia die cutter
• Leaping Reindeer die cutting stencil
• Holly branch die cutter
• Happy Christmas die cutter
• 3mm and 5mm red self adhesive pearls
• Wink of Stella glitter pen Clear
• IndigoBlu Flitterglu
• IndigoBlu Phat Foam
• IndigoBlu gold gilding flake
• Foam ink blending tool
• Festive Berries distress ink pad
• Evergreen pigment ink pad
• Round Vintage Gemstone Embellishment