art days: spooky pop-ups!

This year I get to be art mom again in the 7 year old's class. It's one of my favorite ways to pass a morning. I think the most popular project we did last year was pop-up card-making, so we tried it again except this time we made pop-up haunted houses with graveyards since it's almost Halloween. Plus everything is more fun for kids, I've found, if you can somehow work in death.

This is the boring adult one that I made for the example. The kids' scenes were so much better but I didn't bring my camera and they took them all home so you'll just have to imagine little paper houses with lots and lots of tombstones glued all over them, and lots and lots of skinny pop-out haunted structures.

In case you've never tried a pop-up, here's a quick how-to. You can adapt it into all kinds of things, building on the idea of a piece of paper folded in half, and cutting lines in pairs. Draw your lines (here's for one haunted mansion: very easy), cut, and reverse-fold the paper between your two cuts (see how I just bent the paper the other direction, in the fold?). To add tombstones just cut little tomb-y shapes, and make paper tabs to glue on the back (the tabs are better than just glue or tape because they also help to prop up the tombstones from behind).

You can also make moving-mouth pop-up cards very easily - again, a total hit with the kids. They will think you are a magician. Instructions are here. Here's the 5 year old's...(You could totally make a vampire!)

Have fun scissoring...