Faux Stained Glass Christmas Trees

Every year I make two sets of Christmas cards.  Set one cards, the Extreme Cards, generally involve some sort of "in" joke, so these go relatives and close personal friends.  (My mother claims the jokes are so obscure that *I* am the only one who gets them. This may be true.)  Set two was originally for my online friends, and now I send them to co-workers and neighbors, too.

These beautiful stained glass tree cards, made from printable acetate and black card stock, are my set two cards.

The tree design was inspired by a project made with pasta sheets(!!) and permanent marker, seen on You Clever Monkey.  I had to make a papercraft version!

How to make a stained glass Christmas tree card

Make It!


Click to download file set: Silhouette Studio, PDF, SVG (how to use my SVG files in Cricut Design Space). Files download for free. A huge thank you to the many readers who support my site with a small contribution when downloading.  Pay what you wish for the tutorial and to support this site.   Suggested contribution for this project is $1.00.

Materials:
printable acetate to match your printer
black card stock
white card stock
liquid adhesive
glue runner adhesive
cutting machine (difficult but not impossible to hand cut)

Choose appropriate files for your equipment. Cut files ("lead") are pdf, svg, or studio.  Print files ("glass") are pdf or studio.  Open files and resize if needed to 8" wide.  Both cut files and print files will make four cards per sheet of paper.

Cut the "lead" page from black paper.

Print the "glass" page on printable acetate.  I used overhead transparency sheets designed for inkjet printers.

Cut four cards apart.

Adhere the lead to the front of the glass.  I tried my Xyron machine, but it left excess adhesive on the acetate.  In the end I used tiny dabs of Tombow Aqua glue.

Glue this glass and lead sandwich to a white card.  I used glue runner for this part, just on the outside edges where it would be covered by the black frame.

See this previous post for more information on designing stained glass cards.