Pop Up Rabbit Card Craft for Lunar New Year
Looking for some Year of the Rabbit Activities for Chinese New Year/ Lunar New Year? Look no further.. have a go at our easy Pop Up Rabbit Card for the Year of the Rabbit. Complete with printable template. Wish someone a very Happy New Year with this adorable handmade card!
There is nothing quite like handmade card DIY. Personalised cards are super fun to make and a lot easier to make than you think and any 3d Lunar New Year card is extra special. Last year we have a fabulous Year of the Tiger.. and now we move into the Year of the Rabbit – the Wood Rabbit to precise!
We have a range of fabulous Year of the Rabbit Activities for you to browse already.
And today, we add another great paper rabbit craft to add to the pack!
Let’s celebrate the new Chinese year and learn a little more about the Year of the Rabbit.
Year of the Rabbit Dates
Taking a look at the Chinese calendar, here are some detailed history Year of the Rabbit Dates!
- 19th February 1939 – 7th February 1940
- 6th February 1951 – 26th January 1952
- 25th January 1963 – 12th February 1964
- 11th February 1975 – 30rd January 1976
- 29th January 1987 – 16th February 1988
- 16th February 1999 – 4th February 2000
- 3rd February 2011 – 22nd January 2012
Key upcoming dates for the year of the rabbit are – 2023 – 2035! So the…
Next Year of the Rabbit
… is in 2023. Starting on the 22nd January 2023 and lasts right through to 9th February 2024. The upcoming year of the rabbit is the year of the water rabbit! We last had the Year of the Rabbit in 2011 was the Gold Rabbit.
The year of the rabbit rotates through:
- Gold rabbit
- Water rabbit
- Wood rabbit
- Fire rabbit
- Earth rabbit
Apparently my birth year rabbit is the Wood Rabbit! I will let you work out what year I was born! Teehee!
Rabbit Characteristics
Rabbit people tend to be outgoing and kind! They are often consider having good luck, but that is also often as a result of being hard working. They have a tendency to be chatty too and like being around people.
More Year of the Rabbit Activities:
Looking for fun activities? We have a number of great Year of the Rabbit Activities that you may want to check out. All of these make great classroom activities, celebrating Chinese New Year in a fun, but also (hidden) educational way!
- How to make an origami rabbit face (great for collages, garlands or also greeting cards)
- How to make a Rabbit Bookmark Corner
- Printable Rabbit Headband for preschoolers
- Easy macrame rabbits
I hope you will agree that these are great activities for kids of all ages. From toddlers and preschoolers, right up to older kiddos and maybe even teenagers (actually, I LOVED making pop up cards as a teen!). Anything to release that creativity and have much fun!
Supplies needed for your Year of the Rabbit Pop-Up Card:
The supplies list is simple! Basically you will need:
- Some card stock (we used a sheet of A4 card folded in half. You can probably get away with using construction paper too) – you can use any color, white card stock is nice, but we went for green and blue today
- Some paper in lucky rabbit colors (e.g. pink, red, blue or purple) and white paper (for printing)*
- Pens/ markers for decorating
- Scissors
- Glue stick
*Check out China Highlights for this list of lucky and and unlucky elements for Year of the Rabbit individuals! Use this as a giude as to what colours to make your origami rabbits in! So you can avoid unlucky things.
Lunar New Year Craft: Year of the Rabbit Printable!
As with many of our crafts – and by popular demand – I have created a handy printable and worksheet for you over on either my gumroad shop or the teachers pay teacher’s store. This helps support the upkeep of this blog! And gives you a handy learning tool/ worksheet to use in the classroom or at events such as library crafting sessions! You do not need the printables to make this craft, I will guide you below and you can create your own template!
How to make a pop-up Rabbit Cards for Lunar New Year
Do watch our handy video tutorial on auto play (it is a nice and short video, with a voice over – great for any English students!) or follow our step by step photo instructions below!
1. Prepare your rabbit card shapes
You can print the shapes straight onto colored paper or white printer paper and use them as a template. If you want to make your own shapes, that is totally fine too! You will need some very simple shapes:
- start with a larg oval for the face – I alwas use the width of my card as a guide. So if my card is roughly 30cm by 21cm (A4), your oval should not be bigger than 21cm.. in fact around 16cm wide is probably good.
- a body – sketch one out in relation to the oval face
- and two ears – again, check against the oval size to figure out how big to make these
Cut out your basic bunny shapes. You will need a face, 2 ears and a body. You can add a tummy to your body if you wish!
Once you have the pieces of this DIY New Year Card, fold the body parts in half and nestle in the centre fold of your card.
2. Create the special M fold to pop up
Fold your face in half.
Fold a flap at the edge of the face that is parallel to the centre fold. It is key to the pop up that this flap is parallel! Else your card won’t work very properly. So take care with this step. Repeat on the other side.
When you look down on your face, you should see an M shape fold. This is a simple pop up that works really well!
Add a cute rabbit face with pens.
3. Perpare the ears to pop up up with the rabbit face
Position the ear behind the rabbit head.
Fold the ear to LINE UP with the face flap. Again. It is KEY that this fold lines up to make a straight line.
Fold down the ear flap so it fits inside the card.
Ad a little glue to the bottom of the ear and glue to the back of the head.
Repeat for the second ear.
4. Glue the rabbit in place to make the pop up greeting card
Add glue to the back of the body and secure in place against the fold of the card.
To secure the face add glue to the flap of the face and the triangle of the ear ONLY.
Lay flat onto the card and secure.
Repeat on the other side.
Your basic bunny will now pop up!
Now add some Lunar New Year decorations – we have created some lantern printables as part of the Teachers Pay Teachers print out, or cut your own red paper lantern shapes. All you need is some circles and rectangles! Super simple shapes. You can also draw some paper fans, or maybe some cherry blossoms. And print out “Happy New Year” message in Chinese.
Once done, pop it in a large envelope and send it on it’s way!
I hope that you agree, that this is indeed an easy craft and that you give it a go this Chinese New Year!
More Year of the Rabbit Activities COMING SOON!
In the meantime, do browse
…in the meantime, we have some more wonderful Chinese New Year resources for you:
You can grab the FREE Dragon Puppet Printable and FREE Dragon Twirlers today!
More ways to explore the Zodiac Animals here – take a look at the remaining Chinese Zodiac Animals and activities here:
Have lots of of fun with the Year of the Rabbit crafts shared today!