Tutorial: Pop Up Card “Christmas Tree”

I created a new tutorial video for you. You can customize the colors and the decor for the Christmas tree according to your taste. The creation of the pop-up card needs some time, but I think that the outcome is worth the effort. Here is a short video with a few design ideas:

Watch the video tutorial in full lenght here.
You may activate english subtitles by clicking on the small “gear”:

The template can be downloaded here for free: christmastree.pdf
For private use only! No commercial use!

You will find more free tutorials in my Youtube channel.

51 Comments

  • I love this pop up Christmas tree. I now what my family and friends will get for 2018 Christmas card. I did your Endless Love card for a friend for their valentines.

  • Very pretty ! And not so simple… 🙂 THANK YOU for the sharing <3
    Très joli ! Et pas si simple… 😉 MERCI pour le partage <3

  • I have just made the Christmas Tree, with great success, as a present for a friend who loves working with paper as much as I do. I have only recently discovered your website- your work is a real inspiration. Thank you for generously sharing your ideas

  • Thank you. LOVE THIS!! Can’t wait to try it. Mom loved her pop up honeycomb flower so I’m sure the folks will love this too.

  • Thank you so much for sharing your creativity like this and being so thorough with your instructions which makes it so easy to recreate what you do! Will follow you for more wonderful paper works of art.

  • Thank you Peter.

    Your work and your generosity of sharing the template is beautiful. The instruction tutorial is thorough and well done. Will soon have some delayed surgery and be off my foot for a couple months. I am locating the proper materials so that I am ready to work on making the pop up Christmas tree cards during my time home. My goal is 25 cards before I go back to work. I’ll have nothing but time while recovering.

    Thanks again!

    Brian. South Florida

  • Merry Christmas. Thank you for so generously sharing your methods and templates. It’s a beautiful card with lots of room for creativity.

  • Dear Mr Dahmen,
    Your pop-up cards are stunning! Thankyou so very much for sharing your templates and instructional videos. Family and friends are going to get a veru special Christmas card this year.

    Thank you again!

    Wanda

    • Dear Wanda, many thanks for your kind words. I am very happy that you like my tutorials – and I am sure that your family and friends will appreciate your pop-up creations!! Have a wonderful Christmas time! 🙂 All the best, Peter

    • Dear Ramya, many thanks for your comment. No, unfortunately, it is NOT possible to print the tempate in color, because I used ready-made papers, that I bought in a store for handy craft articles (artist’s supplies / DIY). Some of my designs are decorated by hand, so all these Christmas Trees are single, unique pieces. There is no other option for you, than to create your own color desig for your tree. YOu may color the finished paper object – or you may use ready-made colored papers before you assemble it. please watch the video! In the video, I am explaining, how it works. I hope that I could help you. All the best, Peter

  • This is such an amazing tutorial with easy to follow steps and instructions, thank you Peter! I’m going to make this one but just want to ask you one question: Would you recommend me to print this out on A3 papers instead of A4 if I want it to be bigger size? Or would it be too big and unstable of I were to do that?

    • Hi Robert, many thanks for your kind komment. I am happy that you like my pop-up tree tutorial. I have never tried myself to make it bigger than the size that I am showing in my video – but I am sure, that it will be possible to scale it up from A4 to A3. I can’t give you a general answer, because it will depend on the paper that you choose. For the “inner structure” of the tree, you should use strong cardboard (card stock), while the “surface” of the tree will probably work better with (thick) paper. Just try it out! I wish you every success and much fun. ALl the best, Peter

  • I just discovered you and your work! So beautiful and amazing! Thank you for sharing some of your expertise allowing us to make cards. So kind…and so fun! Merry Christmas and thank you again

  • Your work is amazing! Thank you for sharing your Christmas tree design. I made popup cards for my coworkers and your directions were very easy to follow. I confess that I created svg files from your templates so I could use my Cricut cutting machine to cut out all the shapes. I would love to send you the files if you were interested in making them available for other Cricut users.

    • Dear Marla, many thanks for your kind words. I am very happy that you like my CHristmas Tree pop-up card design. It is OK, that you created them for your personal use. But I ask you kindly not to share them – online or offline. The reason is, that I need to protect my design against copyright misuse. As you know, my templates are free for private use only. But as soon as somebody shares other data than my ORIGINAL PDF files, and as soon as there are other resources than my original website available, which share my design, I won‘t be able to protect my design against illegal use any more. Furthermore, I don’t want to support the use of cutting plotters too much. I myself do a lot of hand cutting. Even though I am using a cutting plotter for my professional work, I never use it for the CREATION of the design. I won‘t share svg files (or similar) on my website, because I think, that people learn MUCH more when they use their hands instead of a computer & a cutting machine. Please don‘t take this personal! As I said: Enjoy your work. I am happy that I could help you. Share the pop-up cards, that you have created, share the joy – but don’t share the data 😉 Merry Christmas! All the best, Peter

      • I completely agree with everything you said and do not plan to share the files with anyone. There seems to be a huge market for personal diecutting machines tthese days that I thought maybe you would be interested in offering up your designs to that market as well. I just started using my new Cricut machine and was looking for a Christmas project to try it out on and I came across your tutorial. I also created a card cover by designing a stylized Christmas tree out of dots and stars, that I then cut out of the paper with the Cricut and used the stars and dots to decorate the tree with. I will share the link to your tutorial but not the files I made. Merry Christmas to you too!

        • Dear Marla, thank you so much for your kind reply! Of course, it would be very easy for me to give away files for a cutting machine: Please note, that my original artwork is already vector data. It’s not a big deal to transform these files into svg data 😉 But as I have said in my last message: I prefer to share only the original PDF files – which include my copyright note 😉 All the best, Peter

  • Thank you very much for sharing your talent. The tutorial is very well planned and easy to follow. I am grateful for the template. You are very generous. I hope to make one for a family member, since I am unable to share a live Christmas tree with them. My only hope is to have patience when assembling the unit. Merry Christmas!

  • I saw your video on Paperspecs and followed the link to the Christmas tree tutorial.Thank you so much for this. I have had a fascination for pop-up for many years and I just looked on my bookcase and found a couple of never attempted Ondori pop-up books (Masahiro Chatani 1998) and The Pop-up book (Paul Jackson 1996). I have always wanted to give this incredible art a go but have never got there. I too have worked as a graphic designer for roughly the last 28 years and am about to retire. We are in lockdown with coronovirus for the next four weeks and what a wonderful way to fill my days attempting this inspiring artform.

    • Dear Yvette, many thanks for your kind words. I love “The pop-up book” by Paul Jackson. In my opinion it is one of the best instruction manuals. I myself used it a lot! Yes, now that we all are forced to stay at home (because of the corona lockdown), you can use the time to create nice paper works, e.g. pop-up cards. I wish you every success and much fun! Stay healthy. All the best, Peter

  • Thank you so much for your beautiful Christmas Tree template and very clear instructions. I will certainly try this out for my family Christmas cards. You are very kind to share this with us all. I hope your Christmas is full of Joy.

    • Thank you very much, dear Janice! I wish you much fun and every success with the creation of your own pop-up cards and I also wish you and your family a Merry Christmas! All the best, Peter

  • Gracias por compartir tus diseños, los patrones, el tutorial, está explicado de forma sencilla, espero poder realizar este proyecto, es muy lindo, luego subiré fotos y quizá un vídeo para que veas cómo me quedó.
    Ojalá pudiéramos comunicar carne a de forma directa para aclarar las dudas que salgan en el camino.
    Muchísimas gracias

  • Instructions were very well said. I wanted to make this for a long time. Thanks for going step by step with ease.

    • Thank you very much, dear Lynne-Rosemarie! I am very happy that you like my tutorial (and the way I present it). I wish you every success and much fun with the creation of your own pop-up cards! All the best, Peter

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