How to Make a Cactus Christmas Card

This craft project creates a card adorned with a colorful prickly pear cactus. The green of the cactus pads emulates the color of an evergreen tree. The bright red fruit provides a natural ornament along the top edge. This Southwestern cactus card offers a refreshing break from ordinary Christmas trees, Santas and snowmen. The prickly pear cactus was named the state plant of Texas in 1995, so this card is especially well suited for sending holiday greetings both to and from Texas.

Things You'll Need

• Printer paper
• Printer
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Glue stick
• Colored pencils

Instructions

1. 

   Click on the thumbnail image and print out the prickly pear cactus template included with this step. Cut out all of the pieces along the black lines.

2. Place the cactus pieces over green construction paper and the fruit pieces over red paper. Trace around them in graphite pencil. Trace up to 10 additional fruit pieces on the red paper. Cut the cactus pieces out from the construction paper.

3. Fold a piece of 9-by-12 inch construction paper in half. You may choose any color besides red or green. Arrange the two green cactus pieces in a diagonal pattern across the front of the card. There should be a margin of at least 1 inch on the right, left and top sides. The bottom margin may be smaller, if you like. Lightly mark along the top edge of the top cactus segment in pencil.

4. Place the fruit pieces so that they overlap the curved pencil line you just made by about 1/8 inch. Arrange them in groups of two, three or four. Overlap the fruits over one another until you find a pattern you find appealing. Apply glue to the reverse side of the fruit pieces with a glue stick and adhere them to the front of the card.

5. Apply glue to the reverse side of the smaller cactus pad. Adhere it to the card so that the top edge of the cactus pad very slightly overlaps the prickly pear fruits along the bottom edge. Glue the larger cactus pad so that it overlaps the tip of the small one.

6. Make a diagonal pattern of dots in dark green colored pencil on the cactus pads. Then draw cactus spines in white pencil, radiating outward from the green dots. Make three white lines for each green dot and make at least one of these lines longer than the other two. Vary the direction of the spines slightly to create more interest.

7. Draw a semicircular patch at the top of each prickly pear fruit in white pencil. Then make a staggered pattern of white dots on the fruits. Don't make this pattern too even. Make sure to put at least one white dot in an odd place on each cactus fruit.

8. Add a greeting to the front of the card and include a personal message on the inside.

Tips & Warnings

• Look at a picture of a real prickly pear cactus for more ideas on how to arrange the cactus pads, fruits and spines.