Shelby’s First Pop-ups

When my friend Jess told me about the paper-engineering class she was taking, I was very excited about it and signed up for it the next chance I got!For our first assignment, I had only learned the two basic pop-up mechanisms: the layer and the v-fold, but I wanted to go all-out. Little did I know how much work my idea would turn out to be!

The pop-up is a 30-piece orchestra, about to play their first note. All of the tiny musicians move their arms to position when the card opens – at least, they used to! Only a few of them still work now.

This picture shows the size of the orchestra in comparison to an x-acto knife. My fingers sure were hurting after I finished! 

There are 9 violins, 3 cellos, 4 french horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, 2 clarinets, 2 piccolos, 1 tuba, 1 piano, 1 harp, 1 percussionist and 1 conductor – phew!

Our final assignment in the class was to make a color pop-up of a place. I chose to make the Mayan ruins in Palenque, Mexico.

I looked at lots of pictures to get the placement and appearance of the buildings as close to the real thing as I could!