Pop-Up Staircase Card

OLD PAPER TRICKS

I've always been fascinated with pop-up books and cards. There are so many different versions of the mechanisms that are used but this is one of the more simpler ones I've found - but it looks very complicated. It is basically a pop-up technique although I would call it an 'expandable' technique not unlike a honeycomb apparatus. The instructions are simple so no template is needed.

It can start out at card size or any size. You just cut several long pieces as thick as you want, fold them and glue them together strategically so they display whatever you put on the end of them when the card is opened up. I love flowers and butterflies so I'll probably go with that.

 

There is no wrong way to do these. I've seen them go from left to right, up and down and every which way you can imagine, even full circle. I just cut out 8-1/2" strips from my card at about 3/4" wide. Then fold one end over about 3/8" or so and holding the folded edge in, fold the strip in half and then while it is still folded, fold over the uncut edge (and then reshape it to a "V") about 1/2" so it looks as shown.

Now it's about 3-1/2" long. Just glue the end flap of each strip to the over the other strip end. Make about 12 of them (depending on how much you overlap them. I only used 11 for mine. And then glue them on top of each other overlapping at about 1/8" to 1/4" along the long sides as shown. The more you overlap them, the more strips you will need to make so it will be about 6 inches long on the spine.

Keep your lines straight while gluing the strips together because the ends will go in the fold of the card. Also take time to open each piece after gluing to make sure they are not sticking together inside the folds. You can really make these as lush as you want by making more strips and gluing them closer together.

Keep adding them until you have about six inches of strips. You want to leave room for your attachments so they won't stick out of the card.

card front

Now just glue the first and last ones to the inside so when you open it up, it will make it expand. Now you can glue pieces to the end of one side of the fold or the other. You may want to glue to both insides of the little end piece when you get to the middle. So going up the bottom half of the card you want to glue to the left side of the middle fold and going up the top half you want to glue pieces to the right side of the card end fold.

Just attach a gazillion butterflies and decorate. It's not as thick as I thought it would be and will still fit inside an envelope nicely. I even decorated the front of the card. I think it's one of the prettiest I've made so far.