Easy Holiday Pop-Up Cards Made From Recycled Packaging
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This card-making project is the perfect cold day kids craft. You don't need any special supplies, just some recycled packaging, glue, and scissors. (I'm always digging around in my recycle bin for materials!) Use colorful packaging like cereal or snack boxes or old Christmas cards.
supplies
- 1 folded cardboard or cardstock card, around 6"x 8" (plus 1 slightly larger card for backing; optional)
- scissors
- craft knife and ruler (optional)
- white glue
- scraps of packaging cut into tree shapes
- To make a basic pop-up base, start with the card folded. Using scissors or a craft knife and a ruler, make parallel pairs of slits (this card calls for five) perpendicular to the fold. Vary the lengths of the slits so that, when popped out, they will be staggered, but keep them shorter than half the depth of the card so they won’t poke out when the card is folded. Pop the slits forward inside the card to make tabs for gluing
- Glue the shapes to only one side of the tabs. (With the card sitting open, attach to the side of the tabs facing you, not the top of the tabs.) Keep the shapes shorter than half the card’s depth if you don’t want them to poke out.
- Glue the back of the pop-out up to the larger second card to hide the slits or to hide any shapes that end up poking out when the card is folded, using a very thin layer of white glue. A backing card in a contrasting color will make the card look like it has a border when it’s opened.
For more recycled crafts, check out our book, Paper Goods Projects!