It’s a circle of life – at kindergarten you proudly make all kind of things for your mom, in your teen years you don’t understand why your aunts have so much kids’ rubbish at the fireplace and when you have your own kids you hold the tears as you pin the masterpiece of your offspring to the fridge.

I never became tired of making gifts for my mom and I like to think I got a bit better at it over the years. This year for her birthday I decided to make a card with pop-up flowers. I really recommend you to go ahead and try it if you have an event such as a birthday coming up.

Step 1: Step 1: You’ll Need

- higher weight paper for the card

- lower weight paper for the flowers (color paper, origami paper etc.)

- pens, color pencils and anything to paint the flowers

- anything you want to decorate the card with

- paper punches – especially the round corner punch

- scissors and optionally also paper cutter

- glue

Step 2: Step 2: Making a Flower

Cut a square from the lightweight color paper. (photo 1)

Fold the square across to create a triangle. (photo 2)

Fold the triangle again…(photo 3) …and again.

Photo 4 shows what it should look like from the side now.

Position the triangle the joint corner towards you and draw the desired shape of the petal of your flower. (photo 5)

Cut out the petal. (photo 6)

Unfold the flower. (photo 7)

Step 3: Decorating and Making the Flower 3D

Draw on the flower to decorate it and leave out a pair of petals. (photo 1)

Cut out one of the petals you didn’t decorate. (photo 2)

Apply glue on the other petal you didn’t decorate and glue it to the backside of the edge petal that you did draw on. Now you should have a flower like the one in the picture 3.

Make 7 flowers in total following the above steps. (photo 4)

Step 4: Assembling

Take the flowers and fold them in half. (photo 1)

Now it’s time to glue the flowers together. In each step I marked those petals with a dot, to which you are supped to apply the glue. Apply it only on the upper part of the petal, not the whole petal. Attach the flowers as shown in the pictures. Apply glue to the first flower (red) as indicated. (photo 2)

Attach two more flowers (here blue and yellow) and apply glue as indicated. (photo 3)

Attach one flower (pink) and apply glue as indicated. (photo 4)

Attach two flowers (yellow and red) and apply glue as indicated. (photo 5)

Attach the last flower (blue). (photo 6)

Let the glue dry. Then try to open the flowers carefully. (photo 7)

Step 5: Attaching Flowers to Card

Now take the higher weight paper and fold it in half. Apply glue to the upper part of the flower petal marked with the dot. (photo 1)

Align and glue the flowers to the central line of the card. Apply glue to the petal marked in the picture. Close the card, so the upper flower can stick to the card, too. Let the glue dry. (photos 2 and 3)

Carefully open the card. (photo 4)