Papercraft alphabet

2012-07-01

P1350653Update: The alphabet is now available as a beautifully printed book. It makes a nice gift for preschool kids and students starting to read and write.

This is the official announcement for the papercraft alphabet I just finished uploading. That was quite some work, especially with two hyperactive kids climbing all over me while I am typing. By the way, if you speak German: Hätte auch auf Deutsch funktioniert.

Anyway, the alphabet is now complete – a collection of 26 papercraft templates for all letters 0f the alphabet, each representing an animal, thing, or people starting with that letter:

 

You will find the complete list of templates here. You can use them for education, as toys, or to spell out whatever message you want to get across. Here is a tutorial on how to make the letters.

Here is a ZIP file containing all templates as PDFs.

Have fun with these – and if you do, I wouldn’t mind if you help to spread the word…

Edit: I have just uploaded numbers to go with the alphabet. They do not represent any objects, but there is a trick to them, too. Here they are.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For more details on what you can and cannot do with my work, see here.

Comments

  2. Nancy,

    Wow! This is very nice! The letters you made are very cute.
    Im gonna make a logo of my home club based on your paper craft letters.
    Thank you very much.

    Regards,
    – Nancy –

  4. martha,

    These alphabets are adorable.
    I know my grandkids will have fun making them. Thank you for your generosity. May God grant many blessings on you and you family.
    You make it easier on us grandmothers who are quite so creative. Thanks a million times over.

  9. Casey,

    Bloody awesome, mate!

    Not pressuring, but will you be making any alternates for the letters?

    1. admin,

      I will. Well, at least that’s the plan right now. However, a number of projects are piling up on my desk, and I need to get some of them out of the way first. But it’s definitely on my list.

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  11. Sigrid,

    These are absolutely adorable! One request though, if I may: I am a preschool teacher and I would love to make each of these to use in my class. I’m hesitant though to use the I for indian- in the U.S., we’re pretty touchy about being pc. I noticed in your #102 Cubicity section, you have a female and male scientist that could be re-purposed and be used to represent an inventor. Any chance you could re-size it so it could be used as an alternative for the letter “i”?
    Vielen Dank!

    1. admin,

      Hi Sigrid, thanks for your message! I know about the cult of PC in the US. It’s actually very laudable that the States are so aware of issues that may hurt minorities, however sometimes from a quaint European perspective it looks like you are taking things a bit far. Just as some other countries don’t take them far enough. Anyway, I see your point. I have added an alternative model, an insect.

      I didn’t adapt the Cubicity models (yet), as I had the insect model already finished, and the scientists would have been more work. However, I like the suggestion and hope I will eventually come around to adapting them for the alphabet.

  13. Leanie,

    Amazing. Found this in pinterest. Be doing this for my son. Fun-filled project. Thanks for sharing.

  14. Mi young,

    Hi!. I’m korean. These alphabets are wonderful and useful. I love them. My kids love them, too. Thanks for sharing . Be happy! ^^

    1. admin,

      Hi, and thanks for your kind words – it’s nice to hear from beautiful Korea! Glad your kids like the alphabet!

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  17. rosy,

    Hi I’m Rosy, from Indonesia. I love it, Thanks for sharing the alphabet and the others. God bless you more..

  18. Benjamin,

    Thank you for these wonderful letters Benjamin 5 years old, Stockholm i made a picture for you but can’t post it. Really fun!

    1. admin,

      Hi Benjamin, thank you for your kind comment! Glad you like it! Yes, posting pictures in the comments doesn’t work. Feel free to send it to me by email, at fischer@digitprop.com – I’d really like to see it.

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  24. karina,

    I would like a larger model,
    because i don’t want to waste paper therefore also the result would be bigger, always using A4 paper

    tnk

    1. admin,

      Hi Karina,

      it’s very difficult to provide a larger model. I know that some of the letters do not fill the entire A4 page. However, some do, and since the letters have to have a similar size to work together, I cannot simply scale some and not others. I am afraid you have to live with the slight waste of paper.

  25. marina,

    i found this on Pinterest and printed them. my husband made my twins names on cardstock for their birthday (he loves papercraft).
    they came out beautiful. thanks for sharing.

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  27. sophie,

    Thank you so much for this sharing!!!! Can’t wait to use them for my daughter’s nursery.

  28. Tilly,

    These are amazing. I would love to make them larger to mount on my grandson’s wall (about an A4 size for the main front image – I realise this will need to be done in sections). Any suggestions as to how I could do this? Also, JPEG would be better for me than PDF – again, if you can help here. I can’t wait to make them. Thank you so much. You are wonderful!

    1. admin,

      Doing them in sections will be quite difficult. What I would do, instead, is to go to print shop and have them printed on a larger scale (say, A1). I would also use stronger cardboard for a larger scale version, something in the range of 300gsm.

      Sorry, unfortunately at the moment I am too busy to convert them to JPEGs, but for a print shop, PDFs work better anyway.

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  31. Karrie,

    Awesome. My kids love your adorable alphabet. Thank you so much for your sharing.

  32. Antonio,

    It’s really wonderful… my daughters love your templates!!

    Thank you SO much!

  34. Suzy,

    Thank you so much!!! This papercraft will inpsire me and kids in learning ABCs.
    Great thanks from Vietnam!!!

  35. Adriana Garcia,

    Perfect for my ESL class, Love, Love, Love it!!!! Muchas Gracias!!!!!!!!!!1

  37. teaha,

    you guys awesome!!
    and lots of thanks for making it available for free.Thanks!

    ~regards from malaysia

  38. Julia,

    I am always amazed when I see this kind of talent!!! Your creations are awesome and inspiring! Thank you so much for putting an amazed smile on my face. Hugggzzzz aplenty from Julia

  39. evie,

    amazing…want to make this for my friend to celebrate his graduate day :)..so usefull
    thank u so much

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  41. Vikky,

    Wow! Amazing! I’m wondering if you also have lower case letters?

    Cheers

    1. admin,

      Thanks – as for lower case letters, unfortunately I don’t have any at the moment. I may make some eventually, but it’s tricky: First, the shapes for some of them are much more intricate than the upper case version, and second I’d have to deal with the descenders.

  42. Janelle,

    This is fun! I love working with paper and making new things. I put a little bit of rice in the letters before I sealed them up to make them stand up better. Thank you for providing this fun project and others.

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  44. Sabine,

    Thank you for this great work and sharing it with all of us. It is really wonderful.

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  47. Lotta San Pedro,

    Whaooo!!! Thanx!!! I really LOVE this alphabet, thank you for sharing this lovely templates. I will glue som small stones at the bottom of the letters, think they will be more stady then.

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  52. Suzanne Vaughan,

    These are super fun and with teacher appreciation week, these will be fun to print up and pass out!

  53. Lori,

    You are insanely creative and clever to have come up with these. Love them, can’t wait to make them with my paper craft obsessed 11 year old! Thank you for sharing!

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  56. Deb Baker,

    Wow – this is amazing. So much work!! Thank you, thank you – this will keep my kids entertained while we are stuck indoors due to floods in our part of the world..

  57. Susan,

    Thank you so much for this beautiful alphabet and for sharing them!!

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  60. Jo,

    Thank you thank you thank you for this clever idea !!! My daughter will love this !!!

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  63. thuy,

    thankyou for sharing. I made the T for Tiger. I will use it for my classroom.

  64. Anna,

    This is very clever! 18 of these letters may work in Italian too (Astronauta, Camaleonte, Dottore, Elefante, Gorilla, Indiano,Jolly, Leone, Mostro, Ninja, Pappagallo, Serpente, Tigre, Ufo, Vampiro, (Raggi)X, Yak, Zebra), so I will print them for my 3YO son! Thanks!

  65. Ali,

    I love these! Thank you so much for sharing. I can’t wait to use them in my classroom!

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  67. Shannon,

    For now I just printed the first letter of my two older boys’ names. If they actually sit and make them like I hope, I will print out the rest!

  71. Sonia,

    I just had to print these out for my 3 yr old. I had regular paper so I used cereal boxes to help them stand.

  73. Clyphane,

    Thank you! These are great. I will make these for /with my son. God bless

  74. Peg Farrell,

    These are so clever and wonderful and simply delightful — thank you so very much for sharing them with us.

  75. Monique Rodgers,

    This is AWESOME!!! I can’t wait to put it all together for my girl. Thank you!!!!!

  77. Cassandra,

    Wow! Thanks so much! I love your alphabet! The detail is fabulous!

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  79. Debbie,

    First let me say thank you for these cute letters, I love’em. Also I was thining about the Q, could you not make a Queen? I can’t even pronounce quetzalcoatl. Just wondering.

    1. admin,

      Tanks! Yes, a queen is a good idea. Will definitely consider it. Actually I have a couple of additional letters in mind.

  81. Roxana,

    What a neat website you have. Excellent ideas. Thanks for sharing!!!!
    Hope my son will hook into these activities as I know I will. :)

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    1. admin,

      Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately right now a lot of other projects are piling up on my desk. It would be nice to have the Icelandic characters in the alphabet, though. I will try to work on it when I have a bit more time (maybe around Christmas?).

      Since the other characters are modeled after things that start with the corresponding letter, would have any suggestions for Þ and Æ, i.e. any words that in Islandic start with these letters?

      Best,
      Markus

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    1. admin,

      Wow, thanks for sharing! Give my regards to your granddaughter – she did a great job cutting! Great photos!

  96. Happy Nat,

    Awesome work! I love them all. Would you by any chance have the same kind of alphabet but in French? Out of the 26 letters I could use 20 as these French words also start with that letter however 6 of them are not usable for the French alphabet (B, F, Q, R, W, X)? Just thought I would ask. Thanks a lot
    Cheers

    1. admin,

      Sorry, for the time being I don’t have a complete French alphabet. As for the letters missing, any suggestions for suitable French words? I have to admit that my French is a bit rusty (to say the least). I can’t promise anything, and in the next couple of weeks I will be very busy, but if time permits, I will definitely consider adapting the alphabet to French words.

  97. Sasha,

    Awesome craft for the kids to take home from Kindy :) thank you for sharing

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  100. Elizabeth Toel,

    Just wanted to let you know that we introduced students to your wonderful 3D letters. They all had such fun and had lots of ideas of what they wanted to do with them…make a baby’s name for a baby shower, put their own name on their shelves in their rooms, make their teacher’s name and give it as a teacher gift. They were all so excited and I gave them each the web address so they could find you!

    xoxo

    1. admin,

      Thank you very much for sharing! I am very happy that your students liked the letters!

  101. Michelle,

    Super cute!! I am working on cutting them all out right now and will be putting them together before long! Thank you so much for this awesome FREE (wow!) craft! :)

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  103. Lisa@hooplapalooza,

    Oh.Em.Greatness! YOU are utterly awesome! That is a freakin’ ton of work you did and it turned out SOOOOOOO COOOOOL!!!! And FREE too?!?! I bow down to you! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! :)

  104. Kim,

    I am really enjoying making these letters, my daughters are having a lot of fun playing with them – thank you for sharing your amazing creativity. The patience you must have! Looking forward to exploring the rest of your site!

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  108. liz,

    Found these this afternoon through Rag and Bone Bindery… through Apartment Therapy. I’m passing this awesomeness along through my new blog, as well. It’s Flowers for Ferdinand– http://flowersforferdinand.blogspot.com/

    Just want to say T H A N K Y O U so much for sharing. I’m so inspired. xo

  109. virginia,

    ¡¡¡♥!!!
    love it! now making my daughter´s name and it´s amazing, thanks!

  110. chy,

    You are such an amazing person for making this and for offering it for free! I have completed all the 26 letters in 2 weeks and I cannot wait to let my almost 3 year old boy play with them! (Who I am sure is going to smash it to bits in 5 seconds!) Thanks again!

    1. admin,

      Thanks! I am happy to hear that you made all of them – congratulations! Yes, with a 3-year old the models will not get very old. But actually I find that quite charming about papercraft toys: They have a small environmental footprint, and if they break, you can either build a new version or let it be a lesson for the kids that things last as long as you take care of them.

  111. pneu,

    These are splendid! Thanks so much for the work you put into these. I’ll spread the word. :)

  112. Steffi,

    Die sind total super!!! Werde sie als Motivationsstütze in der LRS-Therapie benutzen. Vielen Dank!

  113. mary,

    hmmm… “i” for “indian”? what happened to “i” for “ice cream”? they don’t have “r” for “russian”? or “e” for “eskimo”?

    1. admin,

      Well, ‘ice cream’ didn’t work for me, as I wanted the whole alphabet to work both in English and German. Interestingly, there are not many non-abstract words starting with an ‘I’ both in English and German. I struggled a bit with ‘Indian’ myself, as this is the only letter representing a nationality. However, I put some effort into making this a nice, flattering character. If people feel uncomfortable with it, I will think about alternatives…

  114. Die Raumfee,

    This is just great! Thank your for designing this and giving it to us all for free use. The letters are wonderful for a birthday or anything else.

    Greets, Katja

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  117. Amy in TX,

    Super cute! My husband is a doctor, so I’ll have to make one for his desk. I’m here from the Grosgrain blog and I am overwhelmed by the awesomeness of your work. Can’t wait to dig in to more of your content!

  118. artis moon amarche,

    how awesome! and generous of you to share! and hilarious, i had just said, right before stumbling upon this, as i try to work with my computer on the floor (recent move), ‘ahhh, that’s it, i’ve gotta set up my desk! i can’t work like this with two kids climbing all over me & my stuff!’ then i saw your post and it made me laugh…

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  120. Veron Tung,

    Thanks for sharing! This is really sooo cool!
    Now i can make this as a gift for frens..! how wonderful…!!

  121. Sarah,

    Thank you – what a beautiful concept, beautiful design, beautiful generosity. Just wonderful!

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  124. Melanie Saucier,

    Dashing graphics! Congrats on finishing this project with your little monkeys around, I know what it is! :)I’ve shared it on my FB page, so cool!

  125. jean,

    Thanks for sharing this. I pinned these and plan on printing them so my daughter can play with them. They are so cute!!

  126. Linda T,

    This is so wicked! My kids will have a blast making these, thank you so much for sharing. And ditto the UFO – LOVE!!

  131. Monica,

    Thank you so much for your generosity in publishing these unique alphabet letters for all the have! My husband & I have been looking through Etsy for a while now to find the perfect alphabet set for our son and haven’t found anything cutting the mustard, until this. I feel a little daunted about the construction, but I did read the comments and will try my best. Thank you again- you are very talented!

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  135. Alicia,

    Just wanted to say you are fabulously creative and I can’t wait to try making these!

  136. holly f,

    thank you so much for sharing for free!!! I appreciate the kindness so much. My grandson and I are having a blast!

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  139. jet,

    wooow this is sooo funny and cute , well done, and thank you soooo much for sharing the free templates.
    Love it, awesome design!!!!

  140. Vinati Bhatt,

    Oh! They are so lovely. Thanks for sharing your efforts with us. Can’t wait to make for my kid and myself too :)

  145. Christine,

    Awesome!!! Thank you so much for sharing!! Can’t wait to print out and start cutting!!!

  146. christina,

    These are so cute!
    Would you recommend using standard printer paper, or something a little thicker like cardstock?

    Thanks!

    1. admin,

      Definitely something a bit thicker. Cardstock is ideal – a weight of 50-80 lb is good. It should work with regular printer paper as well, but it’s a lot of work to make all of the letters, and with printer paper I’m afraid they won’t last very long.

      1. Cheri Jeralds,

        I wonder if anyone has blown them up to a bigger size and put on cardstock to acutally have children in the classroo be able to manipulate?

        1. admin,

          Interesting – someone else asked about that as well. If you don’t have access to a larger-sized printer, a print shop should be able to do that at reasonable costs. What do you think would be an ideal size?

  147. Suse,

    I love these and my kids will love it too.
    Next week there’s a goodbye party in the kindergarden and the theme is ABC. I try to do something with your great offer. You’ll see it on my blog!
    Thank you soooo much!!

    1. admin,

      Nice – if you post something, please let me know. Would love to see the result…

  152. Anony mouse,

    I LOVE these!! I’m just a little confused as to the making of them because I have no experience in this…do I just fold on all the dotted lines? Is there any chance of a tutorial? ;) Or is this all much easier then I think it is?

    1. admin,

      Unfortunately I don’t have a detailed tutorial ready at the moment. However, it’s indeed much easier than you think. Simply cut along the outlines / solid lines. Crease along the dotted lines with the back of your scissors, using a ruler as a guide. Then fold along the dotted lines (most are mountain folds, some are valley folds – this is not indicated, but in most cases easy to figure out). Glue the tabs to the opposing faces.

      For most letters, the templates consist of the two faces of the letter (back and front), plus an edge about 10mm wide. Since the edge needs to go around the whole letter, in some cases it can be somewhat difficult to assemble. In these cases, I suggest to glue the edge to one face first, and then – when everything is solidly glued – add the other face. Hope that helps…

  153. Sally,

    I also loved the U the best, even though I wasn’t sure what it was until I read the previous comment! A UFO is cool! I also posted it on pinterest. Thanks so much. Really really cool.

  155. Stephanie Needham,

    I think it was very generous of you to offer this adorable alphabet. I am a K-12 Art teacher and i just love collecting ABC’s of all types. I will add this to my collection and share it with my students. i also posted it on Pinterest. Thanks again!

    1. admin,

      Glad you like it – hope your students do, too! And thanks for posting on Pinterest! I am really happy if I can expand the readership of the website, and who knows, maybe some day this will turn into a small community…

  158. Joan,

    Those are adorable I saved my grand daughters names to print and when they come to grams they will make them. Very nice. Thank you

  159. Keller,

    This is amazing!! Thank you so much for sharing. I’ll be using this for my sunday school kids’ activity ;)

  160. kat,

    love these!
    my favorite is the monster!
    (now if only my name had a ‘M’ in it)
    going to make these!

  161. Ali,

    These are so darling! Congrats on completing the project despite the distraction of the hyper kids!

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