DIY tropical pop-up card, paper craft!

Craft a DIY pop-up card from a landscape! Are you dreaming of traveling to a tropical beach? A snowy mountain landscape? Or going on a city trip? Create a mini pop-up card world from your favorite landscape or destination. Or surprise a loved one with this giant pop-up card. You can easily fold it and send your card by mail. This craft is fun and requires no special tools, just cardboard, and paper!

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Craft Supplies

Cardboard
Colored card stock
Ruler
Pencil
Craft knife
Scissors
Glue (stick)

Step-by-step instructions

Step 1: What landscape would you like to create for your pop-up card?

Step 2: Take a big piece of cardboard and a ruler and start measuring.

For the width of the pop-up card I measured 10 inches. For the height of the card, you have to measure precisely. I used three layers for my pop-up card: ocean, beach, and mountains. All layers are different in height as the size goes up. For the sea (first layer), I measured 1,5 inches; for the beach (second layer), I measured 2.5 inches; and for the mountains (third layer), I measured 3.5 inches. All layers are double because you fold the cardboard five times. So you will need a total height of 15 inches. So 10×15 inch. Take a craft knife and cut out your cardboard rectangle.

Step 3: Alongside the height of your cardboard, you make small lines on both sides: 1.5 inches, 1.5 inches, 2.5 inches, 2.5 inches, 3.5 inches and 3.5 inches (so a total of 15 inches). Now take a ruler and make soft horizontal lines with a craft knife to easily and neatly fold the cardboard. Gently slide your knife, don’t push too hard with the knife because you don’t want to cut through the cardboard.

Tip: use a piece of leftover cardboard and practice cutting and folding the lines.

Step 4: Start by giving your layers a color, blue for the ocean, yellow for the sand, and green for the mountains. If you don’t have colored paper or cardstock, you can use paint instead.

Step 5: Start by making little decorations for each layer. I created a: dolphin, turtle, surfboard, flower, palm tree, mountain, rainbow, etc. Use your imagination!

Step 6: Glue your pop-up card together. For the smaller pieces, use a glue stick so you can glue more neatly.

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