Free shadow box template

School bus shadow box SVG

A school bus pulling up outside a little schoolhouse with a bell tower, a flag on its pole in the yard, trees on the hill behind, and a fence, a bicycle and a sunflower by the road 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.

School bus 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 “Forest green” set; cut them in any card you like. Cut sheet 5, “Fence and bicycle”, the slowest: at 1 mm it has the thinnest part in the scene, and sheet 5, “Fence and bicycle”, fills the most of the view, 29% of it.

Sheet	What is on it	Narrowest part	Seen from the front
1. Sun	A whole sheet with holes for: Plain disc	over 2 mm	31%
2. Far trees	Rolling ground, with: Three trees, Round tree silhouette and Oak tree with a broad crown	over 2 mm	8%
3. Schoolhouse	Rolling ground, with: Schoolhouse with a bell and Flagpole with a small flag	1.6 mm	16%
4. Bus	Flat ground, with: School bus from the side and Round tree with leaf cut-outs	1.6 mm	14%
5. Fence and bicycle	A gentle slope, with: Wooden fence with dog-eared boards, Bike silhouette and Sunflower silhouette	1 mm	29%

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	0.8 mm	17 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
20 × 20 cm	200 × 200 mm	1 mm	17 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
8 × 8 in	203.2 × 203.2 mm	1 mm	17 mm	Yes	Cuts easily
23 × 23 cm	230 × 230 mm	1.1 mm	17 mm	Yes	Cuts easily
25 × 25 cm	250 × 250 mm	1.2 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

A gift for a teacher or a bus driver, or for a first day at school. The bus and the schoolhouse are sturdy shapes with nothing under 1.6 mm at 8 inches; the spokes of the bicycle on the front sheet are the finest cutting, at about 1 mm. Cut the bus in yellow card and it needs no other colour.

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

Can I add the name of the school or the teacher?

Not inside the maker yet. Cut it from the lettering in the library and glue it to the bottom border, or write the class and the year on the back sheet.

Can I leave the flag out?

Yes. Select the flagpole in the maker and choose Remove, or choose Swap and put a tree in its place.

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