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Pop Up Flower Birthday Card

paint chip pop up card flower
The inspiration for this pop up flower card came from Peter Dahmen's color wheel pop up card.
He's an amazing artist and paper engineer. Needless to say, my interpretation is much simplified!
The template for the flower is a based on this waterlily design.
I used paint chips for the colored parts, cutting a petal from each of three shades on the chip. From the scraps I cut the confetti for the cover and the inside. I also cut words from the paint shade names--things like "toast" and "old" and glued them to the front of the card.




How to make a pop up flower card from paint chips


Download template set PDF and DXF and SVG and Studio
Creating the flower parts with paint chips
Cut the three flower base pieces (not the small petals) from white paper. I used standard printer weight paper.
Cut petal overlays from colored card stock or paint chips. You will need 8 of each size. Glue the colored piece to the petals on the corresponding flower bases leaving a small white border around each petal.
Constructing the three layered flower pop up card
My sample is made from blue, green, and pink paper to make it easier to see the construction process.
Fold each flower base in half, matching center tabs.
Crease the score line on each side-fastening tab.
Spread glue on each side-fastening tab, and adhere.


Open largest set of petals (green) and middle size set of petals (pink). Match fold lines.

Refold the flowers together. Check that the middle sized set is centered in the opening of the largest set.
Fold down tabs on the largest set of petals (green).
Spread a little bit of glue on just the top half of the tabs of the middle sized set (pink) and fold down, gluing the two sets of tabs together. They purposely do not match up exactly.


Open this glued together set and lay the smallest set of petals (blue) on top, matching fold lines.

Close all three and center the smallest set in the opening. Do not glue these together.

Holding all the layers together, fold down the tabs on the smallest set of petals.

Lay the entire set into your base card, matching the points to the foldline of the card.

Spread glue on the tab parts that are visible (smallest tab and middle sized tab). Close card, turn over. Spread glue on the visible tabs on this side.
Close card. Put a weight on the card until it dries.



Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.