Papers and card can be bought in a wide range of colours

Card mechanics Here you will find techniques to help you make card and paper mechanisms for pop-ups. You can adapt these examples to create imaginative designs of your own. Materials Papers and card can be bought in a wide range of colours, textures, thicknesses and weights. This brief guide will help you decide on a suitable thickness of material. You will find more detailed information in the Paper and Card Chooser Chart. The backing sheet on which the pop-up is built should be strong enough to open without buckling. For pop-ups that involve a lot of stresses and strains, use a rigid, heavy weight of card, such as mounting board. For the pop-up design, you can use thick paper, such as cartridge paper, or thin card. Card that is too thick will be too bulky to fold flat and thin paper will not keep its shape when the page is opened. Decoration Take care when using water-based paints to colour your design. Too much moisture will wrinkle the surface of paper and cause thin card to warp. You can achieve effective results with markers, pencil crayon and pastels, or use a colour photocopy of your original artwork.

Scoring and folding Scoring makes it easier to produce a neat fold. Using a metal ruler as a guide, run the tip of a scalpel along the line of the fold. Only the surface of the card should be cut (do not cut too deeply or the card will break). The card is then folded away from the score line so that it can open slightly along the cut. You will find that the card bends and folds accurately. Remember that paper and card will fold more smoothly with the direction of the grain. 1 A pop-up design with scoring lines (- - - - -) and cutting lines (_____) 2 Just fold and the castle ‘pops up’ 3 Adding extra detail. Can you explain why the tower can’t be included in the original piece?