The Pop-Up Box Card By Ellen Jarvis

 Hello everyone.

Don’t let all those layers fool you! This impressive pop-up box card begins with a surprisingly simple construction. With my template, all you need are a paper trimmer, scissors, a ruler and adhesive to create the basic box. No complicated machinery or engineering degree required!

I’ve made nearly 100 cards using this versatile design and regularly teach classes on how to construct them. Once you understand the basic structure, the real fun begins: you can decorate it as simply or extravagantly as you like.

Pop-up boxes can become wedding cards, baby cards, birthday celebrations, holiday scenes, thank-you cards or just about anything else you can imagine. Add a few carefully chosen embellishments for a clean, simple design, or fill the box with layers of die cuts, stamped images, sentiments and dimensional elements for a full-blown paper celebration.

For this Halloween version, I used clear acetate strips to support some of the elements, allowing them to appear as though they’re floating above and around the box. Acetate is a great little bit of cardmaking trickery because the support nearly disappears while your decorations get all the attention.

One of the cleverest features of a pop-up box card is that it can fold flat for mailing. But there is a tipping point! Add enough inserts, layers and dimensional embellishments, and eventually your creation may cheerfully refuse to flatten. That’s perfectly okay. Some cards are simply destined to be hand-delivered, especially when you’ve turned one into a miniature work of paper art.

Simple structure. Endless possibilities. And no two ever have to look alike.

Hugs,

Ellen xx