Running Late Belated Birthday

Last month while shopping at the Hallmark store in my area, I saw the cutest pop-up Father's Day card with Snoopy on it. As you opened the card, Snoopy's ears unfolded and popped up! I immediately thought of my good friend and shopping buddy, Kris, who loves Pochacco, and thought it might be fun to try something similar for her birthday card.

As it turned out, it wasn't as easy as it appeared. Although the pop up mechanism for this card is actually just a pair of arcs cut at the inside folds of the card, it took a bit of experimenting to figure out the right length the arc needed to be to get Pochacco's ears to fold open and pop up correctly. (I kept thinking to myself how I should have paid more attention in geometry class!) I also found that I had to end up lengthening Pochacco's ears to get it all to work right.

I tried to take photos showing the movement of the ears as the card is opened, but it was difficult to capture the full effect with still pictures.

...And this is the card fully opened. Pochacco cuts were created using Inkscape and Sure Cuts A Lot.

When I first saw this card, I got excited with all sorts of ideas I wanted to try; like having a cheerleader raising her pompoms in the air as the card is opened... but after this, I think I've changed my mind. I need a geometry refresher course on arcs and angles before I attempt this again. Guess that's why they call it "paper engineering"!