Low Poly Polar Bears

Each year at Christmas I try my hardest to come up with a different way to give gift cards as gifts to family and friends. I'm not very good at buying gifts so I generally prefer to give gift cards so everyone can choose what they want. But since giving and getting gift cards sounds pretty boring, I like to make it  interesting by presenting them in some fun way. This year I decided to make polar bear gift card holders.

These 3 dimensional paper polar bears were put together using a modeling technique known as "Low Poly" named for the different polygons that comprise each piece. If you search the term "Low Poly" online you will come across hundreds of beautiful, and intricate 3D paper sculptures. My low poly polar bear is definitely beginner level but still challenging and fun for me to assemble. I purchased the svg template for this bear from Form You Design on Etsy. 

The biggest challenge I faced with this template was that for whatever reason, I was unable to import the svg file into Make the Cut Design program. This meant I had to finally bite the bullet and sit down to learn how to use Silhouette Design Studio. I probably only learned just the bare minimum to be able to import the files and group and ungroup as needed. Most importantly I was able to cut the 21 multiple scored pieces needed to assemble each polar bear.

Polar bear pieces were cut from textured pearlescent cardstock. After cutting, each piece and every scoreline on each piece had to be numbered and meticulously mountain or valley folded. Although assembly of the bears was slow and took time, I found it curiously enjoyable and relaxing. After finishing the assembly of 14 polar bears I thought they all looked  like they were missing a little something so I cut strips of red felt and fringed the ends to make scarves to wrap around their necks and warm them up a bit.

I needed a place to attach the gift cards so I made tapered  hexagonal "glacier" bases for each bear. I used pearlescent blue cardstock for these and added tabs underneath each base to hold a gift card.

The finished size of each polar bear together with the glacier base measured approximately 13 inches in height and 7 inches in width.

The bears were wrapped in cello bags with a silver taffeta bow. I made simple gift tags with a stamped sentiment and die cut glitter snowflake embellished with flatback rhinestones.

And just for fun... a photo of our furbaby "Polah Beah" together with her namesakes. I just couldn't resist taking of picture of them together!