Papercraft Christmas Village Advent Calendar

It's that time of year when people like to to do holiday craft projects. I like this papercraft project by the Woo! Jr Kids Activities website because it combines two Christmas traditions into one. First, it is an advent calendar. Second, it is a Christmas village. Another cool feature of this printable is it comes in both a pre-colored version and a color-it-yourself version. Happy crafting!

Other Holiday Papercraft:

Vintage Nativity Diorama
Christmas Toys Collection
Mini Santa Sleigh
Krampus Paper Toy
Geometric Reindeer

Marvel Christmas Papercraft: Baby Groot

You won't find a more unique Christmas papercraft than this: Baby Groot dressed up like a Christmas tree! This paper model shows Groot with a tree topper star on top, a string of lights around his head, and a Christmas wreath around his body. Every part of this model is 3D, including the string of lights, so it will take some time to build. The finished model stands at 21" (55 cm) tall. The printable template (which may be downloaded at W R Papercraft) comes in both Pepakura PDO and PDF formats. There are no instructions available other than the PDO file.

Other Groot Papercraft:

Dancing Groot Automata
Groot Paper Toy
Rocket and Groot Diorama

Robot Santa Paper Toy

Tis the season for Christmas paper toys to adorn your desk at work. What better than a robot Santa paper toy? This papercraft was created by Sherrie Thai as a little gift for her nieces and nephews, many Christmases ago. The JPG template for the festive robot may be downloaded from Sherrie's website, Shaireproductions.com. Let the holiday papercraft season begin!

Other Christmas Papercraft:

Pop-up Holiday House
Melting Snowman Paper Toy
Naughty or Nice Santas
Martha Stewart Xmas Collection
Printable Santa Sleigh

Papercraft Christmas Star Ornament

I like the geometric quality of this papercraft Christmas star ornament. I believe the technical name for this shape is the "first stellation of an icosidodecahedron". Please correct me if I am wrong. :) This papercraft is one of several different star ornaments that may be downloaded at the Brother Creative Center.  This star has 32 points. The other two stars in the series have 8 points and 14 points.

Other Geometric Papercraft:

Tron Bit (3 modes)
Platonic Solid Lanterns
Five Intersecting Tetrahedron Origami
Melting Snowman Paper Toy
Advent Calendar Crystals

Pop-up Holiday House Papercraft

Canon offers a huge assortment of tiny DIY papercraft projects in their "Miniature World" collection. The seasonal pop-up books in the collection are some of my favorites. Pictured is their "Happy Holidays" book which features a four room pop-up house that is decorated for Christmas. Canon estimates it will take 3 hours to build the house.

Other Christmas Papercraft:

Vintage Nativity Diorama
Martha Stewart Collection
Hexagrammic Christmas Tree
Winged Reindeer Ornament
Origami Angel

UPDATE 12/3/25: Sorry, Canon no longer offers this papercraft. :(

Home Alone House Paper Model

Happy new year! We are a week past Christmas, but I figured it wasn't too late to post this paper model of the house from the 1990 movie, Home Alone. This papercraft was created in 2020 by Tekzo at Paperhobby to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film. The model is 1:100 scale and includes several cars seen in the movie, as well as 2D character cutouts of Kevin, Marv and Harry. The PDF template for the model may be downloaded here. Only minimal photo instructions are provided.

Other Papercraft Buildings:

Munster's House
Futurama Headquarters
Hobbit Lake-town Buildings
ThunderCats Mumm-Ra Pyramid
Easy Pixar UP Victorian House

UPDATE 12/19/23: It has come to my attention that the designer of this paper model neglected to include the front porch roof in the template! :( 

Pop-up Origami Angels

These origami angels from David Brill can be folded to be either free standing figures or greeting card pop-ups. The folding pattern for the angel is a modification of a "Christmas fairy" origami. PDF Folding diagrams of both the angel and the Christmas fairy may be downloaded from David's website located here. Also available from David is a video tutorial showing how to fold both versions of the angel.

Other Christmas Papercraft:

Melting Snowman
Winged Reindeer Ornament 
Praying Angel Origami
3D Coca-Cola Bears
Krampus Paper Toy

Vintage Papercraft Nativity Diorama

This extraordinary papercraft nativity scene was published in an Austrian magazine in 1958. The thing that makes it special is it includes not just a nativity scene, but also five other scenes from the Christmas story. Across the top of the model are Mary and Joseph inquiring at the inn, the Annunciation, and an angel appearing to the shepherds. Along the bottom of the model are the flight of the holy family into Egypt (I think), the nativity, and the three wise men. The JPG format template for the model may be downloaded from the AGK website. German language instructions are included as part of the download.

Other Christmas Papercraft:
Tiny Manger Scene
Santa's House
Easy Printable Nativity
Origami Angel
Snowy Cottage

Printable Crystal Advent Calendar

This is one of the more unusual Advent calendars I have seen. It takes the form of quartz crystals. At first I thought, "Where are the dates?" But as I looked closer, I found faint numbers near the base of each crystal. As is typical for Advent calendars, treats may be hidden inside. The pointed end of each crystal acts as the lid. The PDF template for this calendar may be downloaded from the Mr. Printables website. While quartz crystals may not have much to do with Christmas, this papercraft definitely has a wintery feel to it!

Other Holiday Papercraft:

Sonic Christmas Tree
Matt Hawkins Santa
Apple Macintosh Ornament
Papercraft City Advent Calendar
Easy Nativity Scene

Melting Snowman Paper Toy

Inspired by some novelty melting snowman cookies, Kate at Mini Eco designed this Christmas printable in 2015. Having only two parts, this papercraft is an easy build! For nerds (like me) who care about such things, the snowman's head is a 20-sided geometric shape called an icosahedron. The PDF template for the snowman toy may be downloaded here.

Other Geometric Papercraft:

Platonic Solid Lanterns
Three Tron Bit Models
Colorful Gemstones
Chinese Lanterns
Cubeoctahedron Globe

Papercraft Santa's House

For Christmas, Canon Creative Park has a papercraft Santa Claus house available for download here. The house has several fun features. The door and windows on the front of the house open so you can peek at what's going on inside. Can't see enough? Give the tab on the right side a pull and the interior of the house comes out revealing two floors with furniture, elves and Mr. and Mrs. Claus. There's even some friendly mice hiding between the floor joists. Want a better view yet? Pull another tab and the whole first floor slides out. This papercraft is a perfect family project for the holiday season.

Other Christmas Papercraft:

Sleigh Full of Presents
Christmas Cottage
Santa Yoda Cubee
Coca-Cola Polar Bears
Tiny Nativity Scene

Christmas Paper Toys: Naughty and Nice Santas

It's getting close to Christmas. Have you been naughty or nice this year? The Fold Up Toys website will let you know. All you have to do is click on the download button for their Santa paper toy. If you have been naughty, you will receive a creepy Santa. If you have been nice, your download will be a cute, cheerful Santa. The nice Santa comes with a gift wrapped present. The naughty Santa comes with a lump of coal. I was naughty and clicked the download button more than once so I could get both toys. ;)

Other Santa Claus Papercraft:

Printable Gift Boxes
Matt Hawkins Cartoon Santa
Martha Stewart X-Mas Collection
Doctor Who Robot Santa Mask
Canon Mini Sleigh

UPDATE 12/7/23: The naughty or nice button at Fold Up Toys is long gone. But the Santas live on at a new home.

Papercraft Power Ranger Christmas Ornaments

Nickelodeon has printable Power Rangers for your Christmas tree! These papercraft ornaments were designed with children in mind and are easy to build. The bodies are 3D while the head, arms, and legs are 2D. Pictured are four of the five Rangers available (Black Ranger not shown). A PDF file with templates for all five Rangers may be downloaded here. I am no Power Ranger expert, but I think these ornaments are the incarnation of the Rangers that were on TV in 2016: Power Rangers Dino Super Charge (Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger in Japan).

Other Papercraft Christmas Ornaments:

Coca-Cola Polar Bears
Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball
Happy Apple Macintosh
Spirited Away Dragon
Winged Reindeer

Mini Santa Sleigh Papercraft

Several years ago Canon Creative Park released a Santa Claus papercraft set complete with sleigh, Christmas presents, and a reindeer. Recently, Canon released a new mini version of the papercraft where the reindeer is flying instead of walking like in the previous, larger version. This papercraft was created by Katsuyuki Shiga and may be downloaded here.

Other Santa Papercraft:
Printable Doctor Who Robot Santa Mask
Matt Hawkins Santa Paper Toy

Origami Santa Head

Payday 3D Santa Mask

Martha Stewart Holiday Papercraft

Printable Christmas Tree Advent Calendar

This printable Christmas tree Advent calendar from Canon Creative Park has an ingenious method for counting the days until Christmas. The tree contains numbered drawers corresponding to the days of December.  After the appropriate drawer is pulled out of the tree (and the treat inside consumed!), the drawer is then replaced in the tree backwards. On the back of each drawer is an ornament for the Advent tree! This papercraft was designed by Masahiro Watanabe.

Other Papercraft Advent Calendars:
Santa Boxes
Modern Town
Winter Village

SpongeBob Papercraft: Patrick Tree Topper

This printable Patrick Christmas tree topper is offered by Nickelodeon as a project to do with your kids. Easy to build, the finished star measures about 7" (18 cm) tall. The PDF template for the papercraft ornament may be downloaded here. Patrick, as you well know, is the faithful starfish sidekick of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Other Papercraft Christmas Decorations:
Origami Angel
Disney Agent P Ornament
Winged Reindeer
Dr. Who Heavenly Host Ornament
Krampus Paper Toy

Krampus Paper Toy

In certain European countries, the Feast of St. Nicholas is celebrated on December 6th. In many of these countries, "Krampus Night" (in German Krampusnacht) is celebrated on December 5th. Whereas St. Nicholas comes to bring good children presents, Krampus comes to bring naughty children coal. Krampus also carries a bundle of birch branches in order to swat those children that are particularly naughty. Extremely naughty children are carried away to Krampus' lair. This paper toy Krampus was created by Trystan Mitchell and may be downloaded here.

Other Papercraft Mythical Creatures:
Fire Wyvern Origami
MLP Griffin
Yeti Paper Toy
Mermaid Papercraft

Papercraft Santa's North Pole Diorama

This free papercraft diorama of Santa's workshop complex at the North Pole was created by the folks at Papertoys.com. The set includes Santa's house, a reindeer barn, a toy factory, Santa's office, a clock tower and a North Pole marker. To give you a idea of the size of the completed diorama, the entire complex fits in a circle about 8" (20 cm) in diameter.

Other Christmas Papercraft:

Geometric Reindeer
Vintage Christmas Fireplace Model
Easy Paper Nativity Scene
Modular Origami Christmas Tree

Papercraft Christmas Village

 The Christmas Village Displays website offers a free collection of eleven simple papercraft buildings that are suitable to build with young children. Most of the templates in this easy-to-build set have only one piece. Pictured are a sampling of the buildings available in the collection: A hotel, a town hall, a clock tower, a flower shop, and a church. There are eleven paper models in all.

Other Christmas Papercraft:
Santa Sleigh
Tiny Nativity Scene
German Christmas Carrousel
Doctor Who Robot Santa Mask

Origami Christmas Advent Calendar

Christmas origami is not all that common, but here is one cute example: an advent calendar! This creative calendar consists of tiny origami bags that can be filled with treats. The bags may be scattered across a table top as is shown in the photo or they may be pinned to a string and hung like a garland. Information on how to construct the calendar may be found on the DIY blog, Look What I Made.

Other Christmas Origami:
Angel Tree Topper
Santa Ornament
Modular Christmas Tree