Free shadow box template

Christmas house shadow box SVG

A house dressed for Christmas on a snowy night: a crescent moon and stars, snowy firs at each side, the house with its windows open to the light, the front door with a wreath and a garland between two small trees in pots, a tree hung with lights beside it, and strings of lights across the top with a snowman and a pile of presents at the front. 5 sheets of card, cut and stacked with a gap between each, make the picture. The files are free, and every part of the scene can be moved, swapped or resized below before you download.

Christmas house shadow box: 5 layered sheets seen from the front

Download the SVG files

5 sheets at 8 × 8 in, zipped, with a note on putting them together.

Free for personal and commercial use, no sign-up. What you can do with it.

The 5 sheets

Sheet 1 is the back and sheet 5 is the front. Each one is a single piece with the same frame round its edge, so they line up when stacked. The colours shown are the “Blue dusk” set; cut them in any card you like. Cut sheet 2, “Snowy firs”, the slowest: at 0.9 mm it has the thinnest part in the scene, and sheet 5, “Lights and snowman”, fills the most of the view, 32% of it.

Sheet	What is on it	Narrowest part	Seen from the front
1. Moon and stars	A whole sheet with holes for: Crescent moon and 6 × Plain disc	over 2 mm	30%
2. Snowy firs	Rolling ground, with: Pine forest on a hill and Three Christmas trees in a row	0.9 mm	5%
3. House	Rolling ground, with: House with a chimney	over 2 mm	16%
4. Door and tree	Rolling ground, with: Christmas door with a wreath and Christmas tree with a string of lights	1 mm	16%
5. Lights and snowman	A gentle slope, with: 3 × String of Christmas lights, Snowman silhouette with a broom and Stack of three presents	0.9 mm	32%

Measured from the files at 8 × 8 in. The narrowest part is the thinnest neck of card that holds anything on; sharp tips are not counted. “Seen from the front” is the share of the picture that sheet fills once the sheets in front of it are in place.

Will it cut at your size?

The download is 8 × 8 in. The scene maker above makes the same scene at any of these sizes; the thinnest part scales with it.

Frame opening	Each sheet	Narrowest part	Depth needed	Fits a 12 × 12 in mat	Rule of thumb
6 × 6 in	152.4 × 152.4 mm	0.7 mm	17 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
20 × 20 cm	200 × 200 mm	0.9 mm	17 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
8 × 8 in	203.2 × 203.2 mm	0.9 mm	17 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
23 × 23 cm	230 × 230 mm	1 mm	17 mm	Yes	Cuts easily
25 × 25 cm	250 × 250 mm	1.1 mm	17 mm	Yes	Cuts easily

Depth needed allows 3 mm of foam between sheets and 5 mm for the card itself and the backing.

Making this one

The windows of the house are cut through and behind them is only the pale back sheet, so they read as lit. For windows that really shine, cut the back sheet from vellum or tracing paper and put a light behind it. The house is about 10.5 cm tall at 8 inches and has nothing under 2 mm. The door is a sheet of its own, standing in front of the door of the house: the wreath is cut into it, with a garland round the frame and a small tree in a pot at each side. It is fine cutting, at about 1 mm, and so are the far firs, the snowman and the presents, at about 0.9 mm. The lights are three strings of six bulbs, each joined to the top of the frame, so nothing hangs on a thread.

Cut all 5 sheets from 160 to 220 gsm card at the same size.
Lay them out in order, sheet 1 at the back.
Put strips of 3 mm foam tape round the border of sheet 1 and press sheet 2 onto it with the edges level. Carry on to sheet 5.
Fit the stack into a deep frame with the front sheet against the glass. For a light box, run a strip of warm white LEDs round the inside of the frame behind the stack.

The zip includes these steps as a text file, each sheet as its own SVG and all 5 side by side in one SVG. More on paper, frames and lights is on the shadow box page.

The parts, on their own

Everything in the scene comes from the free SVG library, where each has its own page and file:

Questions

Is it a house to fold and stand up?

No. It is a flat picture of a house in five layered sheets, for a deep frame. Nothing is folded or glued into a box: the depth comes from the sheets standing one behind another, with the door in front of the house and the lights in front of both.

How is this different from the other Christmas scenes?

One house fills the picture, seen from the garden. The Christmas wreath on the door scene is a close view of the door alone, the Christmas village scene has a whole village on a hill, and the Gingerbread cottage scene has a house made of gingerbread.

Can I sell boxes I make with it?

Yes. Finished pieces are yours to sell. The files themselves may not be sold or shared; send people to this page. See the licence.

More shadow box scenes

All scenes and the scene maker