This Christmas Pulley Card is another card inspired by something Anna Griffin did on HSN Craft Day a in June. I did a Halloween Pulley Card and you can see it here. I just love this card design and the Christmas pulley card is just so beautiful.
This card is definitely for advanced users of the Cricut. The card band is extra large to keep the card closed. The design space isn’t available for this card. It is just difficult to get all the tree detail into an SVG but I tried. If you want to download the original tree file it is available at Creative Fabrica here. Just put it in your design and take out mine after you load up the SVG files.
What you need:
- Very heavy cardstock for the base
- Scraps of cardstock
- liquid glue
- Pen
- Download file
This card is very complicated to assemble so read through the instructions completely before you start.
Paper Selection
Traditional Christmas colors work best with this card. The base card has to be heavier paper, at least 100 lb. weight. Patterned paper may look good on some of the embellishments but I wouldn’t use it for the base card. Use your imagination.
Cutting the Christmas Pulley Card
I used a red glitter gel pen for the decoration and a black pen for the Merry Christmas. You can use any color you like. I think the foil We R Memory Keepers pens would look great too. Either way the background takes awhile to draw, just warning you. And the bottom grey piece draws outside the cut space because I couldn’t slice the drawing without losing the design, so plan for that with your paper.
Watch my video on cutting different colors on the same mat.
Assembling the Card
Start by assembling the layers of the tree, presents and candle. The top layer of the tree is particularly difficult to get off the mat. Mine tore, but I managed to glue it to the bottom layer so you couldn’t tell. Be very careful.
Before you start assembling the pulley mechanism, glue the two slotted pieces together with the smaller one on top. Make sure to line up the slots and to only glue them on the vertical edges outside the slots. This will allow the slider to slide. Then glue the small grey piece to the bottom of the base card.
This card is very difficult to assemble so read the directions a few times first to be sure you got it. I made an orange version to show you how to assemble it.
Pulley Assembly
I used tape glue in this example. When you make your card, use liquid glue. We are going to glue the piece that looks like an S first. Put glue on the end part. like this:
Make a box with the last three sections and attack the glue to the rest of the piece. Put glue on the bottom of the box.
Then fold the piece around and attach the top fold to the bottom of the box like this:
Put glue on the back and bottom of this piece.
Next, slide the long uncreased part of the other piece through the two slots in the top large rectangle and passing between the two rectangles. Glue the little fold to the base card just below the center fold to separate it from the back. Glue the other folded piece to it so that it is even with the bottom. Lastly glue the whole piece to the bottom. When you have done all that it should look like this. ( I only included one of the slotted rectangles and left out the little grey piece.) The base looks a little warped in the picture because of all the dozens of times I tried to figure this out. When you make this card it will be straight.
Finishing the Card
Open and close the card a few times to make sure the back slides and the other pieces fold properly.
Once you are sure it works properly add the rest of the embellishments. The gold snowflake attaches to the top of the slider. The tree goes together and attaches to the next tab. And the presents attach to the farthest out tab. This is what gives the card its layers.
Attach the candle to the card band and wrap the band around the closed card. Be sure that it is loose enough to slide on and off. As I said earlier, this keeps the card closed and adds some decoration to the front when the card is closed.
I know this card was complicated but now your Christmas Pulley Card is done. If you have any questions or difficulties, contact me at my Facebook group or email me. I will help.
Everyone will enjoy this wonderful card!