Make a Birthday Card with Pop Up Watercolor Flower {Free Designs}

Hi creative friends! Let’s picture this: instead of driving to the store and looking for an extra special unique birthday card, you could make a birthday card with a gorgeous, huge pop up watercolor flower in almost the same amount of time, while having so much fun crafting! Does it sound like a great idea? 🙂

I designed this handmade birthday card using watercolor textures, so it looks like a big 3D watercolor flower. If you have a printer and some paper, you can make it in less than 1 hour!

I will share with you all the free printable leaves and flowers templates (download at the end), and step by step tutorial with a video on how to make a beautiful DIY Happy Birthday Day card with a big pop up flower, plus some color and design variations.

You can use these free designs to make all kinds of pop up cards and use them as handmade Mothers Days cards, thank you cards, happy anniversary cards, and anything really! Who doesn’t love a big pop up watercolor flower?

Video tutorial on how to make a birthday card with pop up flower (or skip to written tutorial below ):

Materials and tools to make a birthday card with pop up watercolor flower:

( Some of the helpful resources are affiliate links. Full disclosure here. )

• Paper or Card stock: to print the flowers and leaves, you can use regular white paper, watercolor paper, or  this white card stock  which I always have on hand for all kinds of craft and decor projects. You can use the medium green from a pack of mixed green card stock for the card cover. Here’s another mixed green one.
• a printer to print the birthday card designs, and craft glue

There are many color and design variations to make pop up flower cards. For example, this DIY Mother’s Day card has 5 layers in the flower, with shades of blue colors. You can check out the tutorial here.

Step 1: Print and cut flowers and leaves

Print the front and back side of the flower template designs. The front side has the watercolor flower texture. The back side has outlines for cutting and dotted lines as folding guidelines. Choose the “print on both sides” option when you print, and select “flip over”. ( Not “flip up”)

Check out the video above if you are unsure of any steps. Cut the outline of each flower layer, and fold them along the dotted lines with the petal lines showing at top.

Cut the petal shape and unfold the flower layer. Repeat on all 4 layers.

Step 2: Fold and glue flower layers

The key to this step is to carefully match the tip of each tab on each flower layer, and use just a dot of glue on each tab. I will show detailed photos. You can also watch the video tutorial above to follow along.

Fold flower #1 in half, matching the two tabs, fold in between the petals along the cut lines, glue the two end petals together. Repeat with the other flower layers.

Place flower layer #2 inside layer #1, fold the tabs of each layer so the end tips of the tabs matches. Glue the tabs of flower layer #1 to layer #1. Repeat with flower layers #3 and #4.

IMPORTANT: Once all the layers are glued together on these tabs, put a dot of glue between the back of the tabs on layer #1 and the back of layer #1 petals, and press together. This will help the flower open to full size.

See the blue flower example above.

Step 3: assemble handmade birthday card with pop up watercolor flower.

There are different ways to use the cover for our DIY happy birthday card with pop up flower. You can print it out on this white card stock ( like in the pink flower version), or use it with colored card stock to create a layered look (like in the pink flower version).

I love the watercolor flower on the deep green background, so I trimmed the Happy Birthday card cover, and glued it to the green card stock also trimmed to size, and folded in half.

Center the stack of flowers vertically inside the card, and line it up with the folded line. Put a dot of glue on the back of the tabs and press together the cover and the flower tab. Do this on the front and back cover. Check out the video above if you are unsure of this step.

Add some leaves as final touches. You can glue the leaves to the card or to the back of the flower. It is so much fun playing with these pop up cards. Don’t you think they would make beautiful displays on a shelf or mantel?

To download all free templates for this card and tons of other goodies, click button below!

You may also love: DIY large wall art for $5 (frame included!)

Free printable calendar and monthly planners!

Happy creating! See you soon!