April 15 is coming.
Idea
This one is pretty obvious. I had started on a different design, but it was going to be similar to another one, so I ruminated a bit, and came up with the punny title for this one.
Design
This pop-up looks complicated, but it is just one twisting mechanism in the center of the card. I like this mechanism since it gives you many planes to attach pieces to. And when it opens the twisting of the large tacks and flipping others creates quite a bit of movement.
I originally was thinking about tacks like nails, but when looking for images, I thought of thumb-tacks, of course. And those are much more colorful. I used the computer to design the shapes for both kinds of tacks, copied various sizes, then had the Silhouette Cameo cut them out. The colored tacks are two pieces, the colorful top, and the gray pin.
After the mechanism was attached to the card, I started randomly adding tacks to it. I also added tacks to the base and didn’t pay attention. After adding some, then trying to close the card, a tack on the mechanism that slid against the base now collided with that one little layer of cardstock on the base and would bend it. The picture below shows one of the collisions. I can fix it by trimming the colliding piece, or adding another piece on the base to cover the colliding edge, or remove the offending piece.
The image below shows one case. The larger black tack moves on the green line as the card closes and collided with the black tack on the base. I first added the red tack to fix it, but later it started colliding with that. So I ended up trimming the black tack to avoid the collision. That’s why that one has a smaller head than the others.
Ouch!
I used index paper for the mechanism, and found it was too flimsy and end up having to double up the bottom part of the mechanism.
Cover
I downloaded and altered a tax form to print on the front of the card. Bonus point if you know “frabjous” reference.
Build
- 9” x 6”
- The base was Strathmore 300 Bristol 270gsm
- The mechanism was index paper cut by hand, and all the tacks were cut on the Silhouette Cameo.