Why are there diamonds cut round the necks?

A tube of card will not pinch in by itself: it creases and splits. Cutting most of the card away at the neck leaves narrow bridges, 4 mm wide, that gather together neatly when you tie the ribbon. The glue lap runs the whole length uncut, so the seam is the strongest bridge in the neck and does not tear open when the cracker is pulled.

What size is the default cracker?

A 45 mm tube, 250 mm long: two 45 mm ends, two 25 mm necks and a 110 mm middle for the gifts. Flat it is 250 × 154 mm, so it prints on one A4 or US Letter sheet. Make the middle longer for bigger gifts; a tube up to about 60 mm still fits A4.

How do I make it go bang?

Buy cracker snaps (a thin strip with a friction strip in the middle) and lay one through the tube before you tie the necks, its ends sticking out of each end of the cracker. The template has no snap of its own: it is a chemical strip and cannot be printed.

Christmas Cracker Template — Free Printable Paper Cracker, Any Size

The christmas cracker template, flat and folded

Christmas cracker template — free printable dieline with cut and fold lines, any size — The printable dieline at its standard size. Type your own size above for yours.

Christmas cracker folded up from the template — the finished piece — The finished christmas cracker, made from it.

What this template is for

A Christmas cracker from one sheet: a tube with a ring of diamonds cut round each neck so it pinches in neatly, and zigzag ends. Fill it with a hat, a joke and a small gift. Christmas dinner tables, Secret Santa and party favours.

Also called christmas cracker · paper cracker · party cracker · bonbon cracker — all the same shape, and this is it.

Christmas dinner table crackers
Secret Santa and office party gifts
New Year, wedding and birthday favours
School and classroom Christmas crafts

How to use this template

All four downloads are the same christmas cracker at the same size — only the format changes.

PDF printing at home: Print at 100 per cent, or hand it to a print shop as "actual size, no scaling".
PNG 300 dpi Canva, Photoshop, Procreate: Upload, lock it in place and design your christmas cracker on top. Free plan and phone included. Full Canva walkthrough →
SVG Cricut, Illustrator, Inkscape, Affinity: Vector, with cuts, folds and labels on separate layers. Cricut and Silhouette walkthrough →
DXF Silhouette, laser and vinyl cutters: Two layers, CUT and FOLD — and the one free Silhouette Studio Basic will open.

Getting it printed properly →

Printing it

Type your size above, then download the PDF.
Print at 100% — never “fit to page”, or every measurement comes out wrong.
Too big for the paper? Pick your paper size and leave Fit the pieces to the page ticked: each piece gets its own place on a sheet and the PDF comes out with every page in it, nothing cut in half and nothing to tape.

How to put it together

These pictures are the christmas cracker itself, not a generic diagram — change the measurements above and the template changes, but the three steps never do.

Cut the solid lines
Every solid line is a cut. Do the inside shapes first, while the sheet is still whole and easy to hold.
Score every dashed line
Dashed lines are folds. Score each one first — an empty ballpoint against a ruler — or the card cracks along the outside of the bend.
Fold, glue and hold
Cut out the cracker and the diamonds. Roll it round a kitchen-roll tube or a broom handle and glue the lap under the far edge. Slip in the gifts and a cracker snap if you have one, then pinch each neck where the diamonds are and tie it with ribbon.

Glue: a glue stick for paper, white PVA on card — hold each seam thirty seconds, and let it dry before you use it.

Questions about the christmas cracker

Why are there diamonds cut round the necks?: A tube of card will not pinch in by itself: it creases and splits. Cutting most of the card away at the neck leaves narrow bridges, 4 mm wide, that gather together neatly when you tie the ribbon. The glue lap runs the whole length uncut, so the seam is the strongest bridge in the neck and does not tear open when the cracker is pulled.
What size is the default cracker?: A 45 mm tube, 250 mm long: two 45 mm ends, two 25 mm necks and a 110 mm middle for the gifts. Flat it is 250 × 154 mm, so it prints on one A4 or US Letter sheet. Make the middle longer for bigger gifts; a tube up to about 60 mm still fits A4.
How do I make it go bang?: Buy cracker snaps (a thin strip with a friction strip in the middle) and lay one through the tube before you tie the necks, its ends sticking out of each end of the cracker. The template has no snap of its own: it is a chemical strip and cannot be printed.

Print your own design on it

Add a logo, photo or pattern in the panel on the left and drag it onto the christmas cracker. It is trimmed to the cut outline, embedded properly in the PDF, and never leaves your computer — most free template sites hand you the outline and stop there. How printing your own design works.

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