Christmas Pop Up Card: Complex Pyramid Tree Tutorial

09 Jan Christmas Pop Up Card: Complex Pyramid Tree Tutorial

So here we are, January 9^th and I'm posting a tutorial on a Christmas card. One could say that I'm 15 days too late, or one can say that I'm 349 days early for Christmas 2011. Who am I kidding, I'm late. So this is my second tutorial and I'm still learning what to do and what not to do. First of all, this video started out being 30-40 minutes long. I doubt any of you would have the patience to listen through that. So, I had to cut out a lot of extraneous parts and speed things up a bit. Ok, I sped things up a lot. That was the only way I could manage squeezing the tutorial down to 10 minutes, which is still pretty long. I'll keep trying to make these tutorials shorter.

If you don't have the patience to watch the video, here is a summarized set of instructions:

1. Purchase the template for this design here: Christmas Pop Up Card: Complex Pyramid Tree.
   1. You can print the template directly on your cardstock, but you will see some print lines after you assemble the card
   2. Or, you can tape the template sheet over your cardstock and cut through the template and the card stock. This is preferred, but more difficult because you do not want the template to shift positions while you cut
2. Score the lines that need to be folded. These lines are dotted. There are a few areas on my template where the dots did not come out, such as the dog's ears, the dog's feet, and the tree branches which still remain attached to the ground. There are 2 ways to score:
   1. Use your knife and cut very gently half way through the paper. You want to make the cut on the “mountain” side of the fold, so you have to make sure you are scoring the correct side.
   2. Cut dotted lines through the area you want to fold. This will allow you to make either a “valley” or “mountain” fold. You need to worry less about which side you are scoring.
3. Weed all the extraneous pieces from your cutout. This will take patience. Use a sharp X-Acto knife to trip corners that you missed.
4. Fold all of your scored lines. Use the X-Acto knife to help control where the fold will be. Don't forget the dog's ears and peeing leg.
5. Glue the 2 halves of the dog.
6. Glue the tree together starting with the inside tabs.
7. Glue the outside tabs.
8. Create a 2 backing sheets that are 4.25″x6.5″.
9. Glue the first backing to the card, making absolutely sure that you are aligned with the center fold of the card.
10. Glue the second backing to the card when the card is in the open position to make sure that the card opens as desired.

I hope you were able to follow that. Now I can finally start working on the Valentine's Day cards.