Making Pop Ups

The second installment of Kimberly-Little Chute Artist-in-Residence Drop In Program actually built on the knowledge I learned in the first session. Instead of learning book making techniques, Ben Rinehart taught us different techniques to make pop up books. 

Again this was a drop in any time class and I learned from last time to get there when it started.. especially I had to get to Little Chute for the Book Festival at noon. Yes it was drop in anytime but Ben (or Stephanie) would have to catch the others up while the rest of worked on the current page. Then Ben would teach us a new concept and catch up any new people.

In the course of the 90 minutes or so that I was there, we learned 4 different pop up book techniques that would make good pop-up books and/or pop up greeting cards. I actually stuck with a theme for my pop up book and maybe one day I'll finish it....

We used card stock for the papers and a light paper for the pop up elements

The V Tab

The was the first type we learned This is how you'd get different types of landscapes such as grass or mountains. We cut a piece of paper in half and then trimmed the top to be something other than straight across. I just did some wavy edges. Then we folded in half. and folded up from the bottom a little. We then snipped the bottom center crease to make a "V"

We glued one side of the paper to the book page and then close the page down to glue the other side on to so the gutter lines up. We were told that the we wanted it tilted a bit. 

To make the pop up we cut out shapes and then attached them to the V Tab using  Z tab. Again we glued the shaped (with a base) the page and one end of the Z tab to the back of the shape. Then we closed the page to attach it to V-Tab. 

This one wasn't too difficult. It had to many working parts for me. Cut this a certain way... glue this a certain way... then add this... and glue it this way. This would be the best one for making cards though.

The Lotus

Okay so this may not be the right name for this pop up technique but it followed the lotus technique of book making in the first session. We folded a square into quarters and then diagonally on the opposite side of the paper to make the paper pop. We glued it to the page the same way... one side to the page and the close the page to secure the other side.

Then we added stripes of paper to the center of the lotus and attached shapes to the stripes. When you open the page, the shapes pop out at you. You could do several smaller squares or one large square.

This had to be my favorite pop up technique. It was relatively easy and you can add whatever shape you want from the stripes.

The Spiral

This was probably the easiest of all the pop-up techniques... no folding required. You literally draw a spiral on a piece of paper then cut it out. You glue one end on and close the page to attach the other side. Easy peasy. Then you can attach your shapes to the spiral. 

This was the fun one. I liked making it and if I didn't have all my pencil marks on my spiral, it probably be even better looking. I had one of the girl scouts draw my roses for me. I am not an artist and my pop up book was showing this.

The Strip

This concept allowed us to add shapes outside of the central fold of the book.. allowing a more creative landscape or book. Basically you glue a strip that had some extra folds to your page so you actually extra gutters to attach shapes using the V-Fold from above.

I struggled with this one. I just wasn't getting how the V-Fold worked with the strip. Maybe if I had more time I would be able to figure it out.. or if my stripes weren't so close together. 

Again I had a lot of fun learning these techniques. I am really sad that I won't be able to the final Artist-in-Residence event at the end of the month because I have to work.