As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Beach Diorama Tutorial

vintage French paper pop up beach
How to make a French beach diorama
Download graphics. (Modified from vintage French graphics from Agence Eureka.)
Print pages, printing page 2 on the back of page 1.
Score legs of oval on first page. Cut slits in oval. Cut out oval and both scenery strips from the first page.
Glue together the two long scenery pieces (not the oval) on the water side. Line up the right hand edge of the shaped scenery piece with the faint white line on the extension piece.
vintage French beach pop up
On each object on the second page, score the top horizontal line of each white rectangular foot. Cut out objects. Some of the pairs can be cut out attached together to make pairing them up easier.
Fold up feet of center post. Fold the post in half and glue it together. Do NOT get glue on the white rectangular feet. Allow to dry.
vintage French beach pop up
Cut slits at the top and fold in the sides at the slits.
vintage French graphics pop up
vintage French graphics pop up
Fold up the feet on all the objects and glue the pairs back-to-back. Do not glue the feet together.
vintage French beach pop up
Crease feet of oval. Fold oval in half the long way. The center three slits will be along the fold.
vintage French beach pop up
Select a base card and fold it in half.
Lay oval on base card, aligning the center folds. Mark each slit on the base card by penciling through the cuts.
vintage French beach pop up
The mark for the center post is not as wide as the feet of the post. Lay the base of the post on the line, and eyeball it to center it. Apply glue to feet, and affix to base card, one foot on either side of the center fold of the base card. For the moment, set aside the footless three-girls pieces which will be glued to the post.
vintage French graphics pop up
Glue the feet of the remaining object on top of their respective pencil lines, centering each object on the line. Let everything dry.
vintage French graphics pop up
vintage French graphics pop up
Starting with the center, slide object up through slits in oval.
beach pop up card
beach pop up card
Unfold the side wings of the center post, locking the oval into place.
beach pop up card
Glue three-girls pieces to the front and back of the top of the center post.
beach pop up card
Spread glue on the bottom of one leg of the oval.
beach pop up card
Half close the card, starting to fold the oval in half, until you can tuck the leg down and under the oval. Make sure it is straight, then close the card the whole way.
pop up beach diorama
pop up beach diorama
Flip the card over, half open it, and tuck under and glue the other leg the same way.
Now attach background scenery strip to the oval.
If you are not familiar with the Sizzix type pop up cake construction, watching the video on this post, starting 4 minutes in, will help you visualize how the wrap-around strip is attached. Notice, however, that for this piece you will start gluing in the center of the background strip, not the end.
Double sided tape works much better than glue for this part.
Apply glue tape to the oval's two uprights (feet parts) that you can see when the card is open.
Line up the faint white line of the background scenery with the center of the back upright and adhere.
pop up beach diorama
pop up beach diorama
Wrap the background strip around to the front. Do not wrap too tightly. You should see a little space, all the way around, between the oval and the background strip. (The thicker your paper, the more space you should leave.)
Adhere the background strip to the front upright, and glue the ends of the background together where they overlap, trimming excess overlap.
pop up beach diorama
Close card slowly to establish the left and right edge folds in the background strip.
vintage French paper pop up beach
vintage French paper pop up beach
vintage French paper pop up beach
Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.