Pop Up Rubik's Cube Card

Many years ago when we first met our son in law (as our daughter's boyfriend), he used to wow and delight our family by demonstrating his speedy Rubik's Cube solving skills. I recall thinking back then that it would be cool to make some sort of  Rubik's Cube themed birthday card for him, but it took me ten-plus years to finally come up with one for his birthday this year.

The paper pieced Rubik's cube I put together for the front of the card started off as an image I found through a Google search which was rendered into a svg cutting file using Make the Cut Design Studio.

Totally inspired by Karen Burniston's Surprise Pop Up Cube Tutorial, here's a short video showing the fun pop up that I constructed inside my son in law's card.

The three stacked cubes are rubber band activated pop up cubes created using Karen Burniston's Surprise Pop Up Cubes die. I used a template for a Rubik's Cube gift box designed by Creative Print Lab together with the Print and Cut function to do the individual sides for each cube. The cut file for the floating Happy Birthday sentiment was created using Hello Valentica font. A strip of acetate was adhered to it and it was attached to the back of the top cube.

During my Rubik's Cube searches for this project, I came across an interesting diagram of what appears to be drawings submitted by inventor Erno Rubik for application of  an U.S. Patent.  I reprinted the diagram onto cardstock and used it as a fun backdrop for the card.

Rubberband activated pop ups are fun to put together and give, but come with a moderate probability of failure. I usually don't have a problem as long as the card is hand delivered since I will wait till the last moment before putting the card into it's closed, flattened position and into it's envelope. On the otherhand when the rubberband activated pop ups are kept in it's fattened format for too long, the rubberbands may get over stretched and not spring back to pop up. I especially worry about this when I have to mail these types of cards. Happily, the rubber bands in this card survived the three day journey overseas via USPS and popped up perfectly, according to my son in law.