I’ve really got to find a new way to write these pages without the line: ‘I love pop-up cards.’ But I do! They continue to fill me with joy!

Today we’re making a birthday card! The box opens to reveal a cake, a pair of birds and an abundance of flowers!

To make a Birthday Box Card you will need:

Vintage Dreams Card Pad

270gsm white felt embossed card from PaperMill Direct

Metallic Peel n Stick adhesive paper (from Poundland Plus)

Foil Stack (You only need a small amount from each sheet)

Glue

Our SVG file, which you can get in our Etsy shop

Preparing the Cut Files for your Birthday Box Card

Open a New Project and click on ‘Import Images’. Choose the file you’ve downloaded – in this case, if you use our file it’s ‘popupboxbirthdaycard.svg’. Click on ‘Ungroup’. You will see an arrangement of shapes as shown below. IMPORTANT: Some of the lines are cut and some of them are scored – you need to single out the score lines and convert them as follows. One by one, select the lines that are shown in the white piece as shown below (either by clicking on them or selecting them in the list in the right-hand margin. When selected, Click on the scissors item next to the item in the list in the right hand margin and a panel saying ‘Layer Attributes’ will pop up. Click on Score and the line in your diagram will be converted to a dotted one, indicating that it will be scored.

6. Click and drag to select everything in the piece and click on Attach (the paper clip icon at the bottom of the list on the right hand side.

7. Repeat the process for the strip that includes the birthday cake and ‘Happy Birthday! message (you may have to Ungroup it first), so that all of the small vertical lines are scored, too.

You’re now ready to get cutting!

Assembling Your Birthday Box Card:

I’m using a really high-quality, 270gsm card – but the settings only really go into weight detail on lighter card.

So…fighting my instincts, I describe my gorgeous felt embossed card as ‘Cereal Box’! If you’re using a lighter card, do use different settings – but the Cereal Box setting (with More pressure) was great (NB it requires the deep cut blade).

The rest of the pieces were cut out using the ‘glitter cardstock’ (with More Pressure) setting. I don’t claim to know why this worked – but it did! Though I know every machine is different!

The base pieces of your card will look something like this:

Glue the coloured squares onto the largest piece as shown – the outside pieces should be adhered as shown – note…the panel that was not scored is left blank – this is where you write your message! Now, on the other side (the inside), glue the panels like this. Please note: the longest panel, on the unscored section, isn’t firmly stuck down, as – when we connect the edges to create a square – we need to slide the flap (the one you can see on the right!) beneath this section: That’s what’s happening here (albeit upside down!) You’re joining the flap to the other end of the piece to form a box, but beneath the patterned paper piece, so it’s seamless! One you’ve got the box, you have to make the strip to fill it up! I have to say that, normally, I would Group lettering and transfer it on transfer paper, but not this time. This is because transferring to paper can bring its own difficulties (though if you’re going to do it, opt for masking tape rather than transfer tape!) but also because the design of this card makes it a lot easier to just fit the letters and candles (and icing!) on one-by-one, by hand: Now, we’re going to add the other elements we cut: Add the heart-shaped wings to the birds (and hand-draw their eyes in as circles) and join them up to the circles as shown: Add these to either side of the large orange flower, as shown below, gluing them on the OPPOSITE side of the strip to your ‘Happy Birthday!’ message and the decorated sde of the card (i.e. if you lay the strip out, the birds will be facing down, when the card and the message are facing up). Fold over all the score lines (fold them both sides, several times, because you want this to move easily. In the photo below, the rectangles (with diagonal stripes) show where the glue should be applied. The BEIGE square shows that the glue should be applied to the UNDERSIDE of the strip between the folds. Please note – the long front ‘Happy Birthday’ section is to be glued directly to the front of the box. You now need to attach the strip to the inside of the box, starting with the first section (the one that has ‘Happy Birthday!’ on top) which is pushed directly towards the inner front of the box (when viewed from the front – that is, with the taller section at the back). The small square to the left of it (in the picture above) is to be fastened at a 90-degree angle to the ‘Happy Birthday!’ piece to the left side of the box (when viewed from the front). In the diagram below, the yellow line indicates the areas the strip needs to be glued at:

Let everything dry! Once it’s completely dry, you can tentatively test the folds.

Now all you need to do is write your message on the back of the card!

Want to have a go at making this card yourself? Get it our cut file at our Etsy shop (comes with limited commercial licence).

Don’t forget to let us know how you get on making this or our other projects – and help yourself to our FREE resources – in the CraftAGoGo Crucial Crafting Facebook group!