Making a Pop-Up Card with the Cricut Scoring Wheel

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

Making a pop-up card has never been easier than with the Cricut Maker and the Scoring Wheel! This post contains affiliate links which, when purchased through, add no cost to the consumer but help support this site. 

When I originally purchased my first Cricut machine many years ago, I bought it with the intention of making handmade cards and other paper crafting projects. Once I became familiar with the plethora of other materials that the Cricut machine was able to cut, paper crafting was quickly replaced with vinyl. But every time I pull out a pack of card stock, I have no idea why I don’t make handmade cards more! There is something uniquely satisfying about creating an adorable handmade card from scratch to give to a special someone.

With the Cricut Maker, making cards has never been easier. The Cricut Scoring Wheel system allows for deeper scoring lines than the Scoring Stylus. With past machines, such as the Explore Air series, the amount of pressure supplied by the machine was often not quite enough to allow users to fold heavy card stock without faint cracking in the material. It also provided only difficult-to-visualize, faint score lines on some heavy or patterned card stock. The pressure from the Adaptive Tool System with the Cricut Maker machine solves these problems with the Cricut Scoring Wheels. Crease-and-fold projects have a whole new level of precision for professional-looking projects every time! Brush up on all the ins and outs of the Cricut Scoring Wheel with last week’s post on Using the Cricut Scoring Wheel with the Cricut Maker.

For this pop-up card, I’m using a medium weight card stock. I’ve used this exact card stock with the scoring stylus in the past, and the score lines were quite faint. The Cricut Scoring Wheel is the answer to all paper crafting scoring woes! This pop-up card was a breeze to fold and assemble.

When creating a pop-up card, the easiest place to begin is with a ready-made pop-up card in Cricut Design Space. Cricut Design Space is my go-to for ready-to-go projects. The great news is that projects (like pop-up cards) in Cricut Design Space are customizable. No matter what the project was originally intended for, you can make it your own by replacing images and text.

I discovered the Mama Bear Pop-up Card in Cricut Design Space, but my eye was drawn to the baby bear by the mama bear’s side. One of my boys calls me his “mama bear” and calls himself my “baby bear.” I decided to alter the card a bit to turn it into a Valentine’s Day card for him. He is sensitive and a complete mama’s boy, and I know he’ll find this card special.

To create this exact card, log into Cricut Design Space and click the link HERE to use my design. Please note that those who are not Cricut Access subscribers may have to pay a charge for the usage of certain elements in this card.

Supplies:

• Cricut Maker
• Cricut LightGrip Cutting Mat
• Cricut Single Scoring Wheel System
• Cricut fine point blade
• Cricut 0.4 tip pen
• White card stock
• Green card stock
• Blue or turquoise card stock
• Pink or red or magenta card stock
• Your preferred craft adhesive – I used a combination of a glue stick and mini Glue Dots for this card.

Send the card to the Cricut Maker machine. Cricut Design Space will instruct on which paper to place on the mat and what tools to place in the Cricut Maker. The machine does a great job at detecting the tools in the Adaptive Tool System. At one point, I was distracted and did not switch out the Scoring Wheel for the fine-point blade. Cricut Design Space alerted me and did not begin until I had completed the switch.

Once cut, there will be a white card stock piece, a blue card stock piece, a green card stock piece, and several pink hearts.

Before attaching the card pieces, fold along the score lines of the white bear piece to make the bears pop up. The scoring wheel creates awesome score lines, so getting crisp folding lines should be a breeze.

Use your preferred adhesive to adhere the green card stock to the top half of the card. Be sure to only apply adhesive to the upper and edges of the white card stock so that the bears will still pop up.

Fold the blue card stock along the score line. Open the card back up and adhere the blue card stock to the back of the entire card.

Finish by adhering the hearts.

After all the adhesive is dry, practice folding the card closed. It’s ready to give!

Give paper crafting with the Cricut Maker and the Scoring Wheel System a try. It’s a perfect time of year to learn to create beautiful handmade cards, and this pop-up card is a great  beginner project.

For more Cricut tutorials or tips, check out my Cricut Project Page.