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Vintage Gas Station Pop Up Tutorial

vintage gas station pop up card

This vintage French gas station paper model makes a fun pop up card. Maybe for "Have a great trip!" or "Life is a journey, not a destination!"


The original graphics were on a blog post by Toto which has been taken down. This card is based on the cleaned up version from Papermau.

I added and subtracted here and there--a few tabs, some more roof, cut off the sides of the building and added some pop up boxes and so forth.




How to make a vintage gas station pop up card

Download file.

Print pages 1 and 2 on white card stock and page 3 on brown card stock.

Score where indicated by green lines, and cut out pieces on pages 1 and 2.

Cut slots on page 1, the building background piece, as indicated by red lines.




Slide the tabbed characters and cars through the slots on the building background.




Glue the tabs to the back of the building background. I like to tape the tabs, especially at the weak spots.

Fold the pieces forward and backward several times along the crease. You want the paper fibers at the score line to loosen up a bit.




Page 3 has strips to construct five pop up boxes. Score the short horizontal lines. Cut the long vertical lines and strip ends.

You will have two identical large strips, two identical small strips, and one strip that is different.

 Fold and glue the boxes.

school pop up card

Glue blue roof and yellow wall overlays to the two large boxes.



Glue the three smaller pop up boxes into place as shown in the photo. The exact placement on the back of each piece does not matter as long as the boxes open and close properly.



Close the card, weight it with a heavy book and allow it to dry completely.

Do not rush this step.

Drying time ....

When the glue is dry, open the card and insert the tabs at the feet of the building facade through the corresponding building background slots. Fold the piece forward and backward, creasing to loosen the fibers at the score line.

(Ignore the lack of cars and characters in some of the following photos).



Close the card and flip the roof closed. The roof tab should be lying on top of the back of the card.

Glue the tab to the back of the card.




Flip the two front pieces down.



Insert the large pop up boxes next to the building facade, with the roof on top and the yellow to the front.

Glue the bottoms of the boxes to the floor and the backs of the boxes to the back wall.



Flip the characters up and glue in place to the front of the large boxes.




Fold the gas station flat, collapsing the pop up boxes.

Glue gas station into a base card. Slide the piece into the base card, matching center folds. Spread glue on the back side of the gas station piece (the white parts). Close the card, flip over and spread glue on the white parts on the other side.



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