Free shadow box template

Paper village at dusk shadow box SVG

A village of small houses climbing a hill at dusk: a crescent moon and the first stars, a top row with a terrace of five houses, a house with a chimney and a schoolhouse, a middle row with a cottage, a row of shops and two more houses, a bottom row with a bakery, a second terrace and a cottage, a street with two lamps, a bench and a cat, and a picket fence and flowers at the front. 6 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.

Paper village at dusk shadow box: 6 layered sheets seen from the front

Download the SVG files

6 sheets at 10 × 8 in, landscape, zipped, with a note on putting them together.

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

The 6 sheets

Sheet 1 is the back and sheet 6 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, “Top row”, the slowest: at 0.8 mm it has the thinnest part in the scene, and sheet 6, “Fence and flowers”, fills the most of the view, 23% 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	29%
2. Top row	Rolling ground, with: Village row of five houses, House with a chimney, Schoolhouse with a bell and Round tree silhouette	0.8 mm	8%
3. Middle row	Rolling ground, with: Cute house with a scalloped roof, Row of three storefronts, Farmhouse with a porch and House with a chimney	0.9 mm	14%
4. Bottom row	Rolling ground, with: Bakery storefront with a cake in the window, Village row of five houses and Cute house with a scalloped roof	1.1 mm	18%
5. Street	A gentle slope, with: 2 × Lantern on a lamp post, Park bench with a slatted back and Sitting black cat	0.9 mm	7%
6. Fence and flowers	A gentle slope, with: 2 × Picket fence with pointed tops and Grass with flowers	0.9 mm	23%

Measured from the files at 10 × 8 in, landscape. 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 10 × 8 in, landscape. 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
10 × 8 in, landscape	254 × 203.2 mm	0.8 mm	20 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed

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

Making this one

Ten houses, shops and terraces on three sheets, with their windows cut through, so with a light behind the back sheet the village glows. Cut it in white card for a light box, or in the Blue dusk colours, pale at the top of the hill and dark at the street. The top row is the fine cutting, at about 0.8 mm at 10 by 8 inches. The middle row is about 0.9 mm, and the bottom row, the street and the front sheet are about 1 mm. Do not cut it at 7 by 5 inches: the top row is too fine at that size. Nothing hangs on a thread.

Cut all 6 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 6.
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 6 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

Are these houses to fold and stand up?

No. They are flat silhouettes on layered sheets, for a deep frame. Nothing is folded or glued into a box.

How is this different from the other village scenes?

This one is all houses: three rows of them up a hill, with no church and no snow, in a wide frame. The Christmas village and Winter village scenes are snow scenes with firs and a snowman, and the Village church scene is a summer one with a church on a green.

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