bridge mechanism, 4 youz, 4 ewes

This card was made a long time ago by playing around but never mailed or used. Looking back at entries made when I first started describing these things I noticed that and thought, "Shame to waste a perfectly serviceable pun innit." I've hardly mined the depths of that whole [you : ewe] thing and I do resist giving it up, plus my whole family generally responds positively to dumb jokes.

Now is the time of year that three birthdays coincide, and whereas I should be thinking up something fresh and unique for each person, instead, I revitalized the original idea already described here and produced the same card for each person. You might prefer that link ← for a more thorough description of a single card. In some ways it is a better card. This page describes the production of three cards at once.

Three cards for one effort makes me feel like bum because I am not thinking exclusively of one person while making them. On the other hand it also make me feel like a Henry Ford type and I don't imagine Ford agonizing over the impersonal aspect of assembly line production.

If the term speeding can apply to coaxing a printer to true color with fresh cartridges for two hours then printers do indeed speed things by eliminating the need to paint backgrounds.

These wide straps ↓ are the basis of this card. Each card has two. They veritably cover the background so they are provided the same pattern. They are used to displace a segment of the central fold and double it.

See, the central fold of the card is the powerhouse for pop-up mechanisms and so often mechanisms are build directly upon it to avail its leverage directly. That puts pop-up things dead center of the card every time. A strap placed across the central fold eliminates the central fold in the area of the strap by inverting the valley of the original card to a peak of the strap while simultaneously creating two new valleys on each side of the original valley at the places where the straps attach to the card, which turns out to be vertical lines that imitate the central fold. It is these two valleys that are created by the attachment of the strap that imitate the central fold and not the peak of the strap that interests us. In a way, it is like two smaller cards within a card. It also moves content farther out toward the edges so whatever pops up must now be shorter. Each card has two straps producing four central fold displacement segments.

The straps shown below are not yet tented. At this point I do not know exactly where that crease will be, the one that inverts the central fold. What we see are the end tabs bent upward. Those tabs can be glued on the surface of the card or inserted through slots and glued to the back of the card. Either way, the line that is formed by the bent tab is the new displaced central fold. There are two for each strap. When the strap is tented, then the strap becomes the new recto leaf to the new little card, and the original card itself (with the new tab above, or below through a slot) is the verso side of the new little card. Opposite for the other side of the strap, the strap is verso page of the new little card and the original card (with tab) the new recto.

So these straps when they're tented become the verso and recto leafs of two new smaller cards that are grafted onto the original. When tented and inserted inside the main card the strap appears to be a card within a card attached with tabs and operating in the opposite direction to the original larger card, and that is correct, but we are ignoring the peak of the strap and instead we are using the connecting points (lines) of the strap and treating the strap when tented as two sides to two new smaller cards that operate in the same direction as the original card. 

*  The straps are printed with the same grass pattern as the background.  

*  The straps can be off-centered. 

*  Straps should be short to keep content built on them away from the edges. These are a bit long and so content that stands up on the straps must then be short in order to fold inside the closed card since they are so close to the edges. Some areas of the card closest to the center will not be affected much by this constriction, but most areas will. So the constructor must test with each new addition of content to make sure that it fits inside when the card is closed. 

The peaks created by the two straps in each card do not interest us presently, it is the valleys that these straps are about. You can see that at 45º the straps form two little cards that are opposite to the main card. Viewed another way, the straps also create four new valley creases where they attach and a tent atop the original valley segment. You can also see that when the card is opened flat then the straps too will lay flat directly on top of the opened card, and opening such a card fitted with two broad straps will be like opening five cards simultaneously, the main card and the four smaller cards contained therein. 

V mechanism strips are prepared for each new valley fold created by the strap attachment loci.  

These strips with grass pattern on one half and white on the other will be bent twice to form V mechanisms at each new displaced central fold created by the larger straps. The grass sticks up and the white is glued.  

Download grass pattern. 

These strips are a little more complicated than usual because the grass pattern is needed on the front and back. That is a style decision. The strips can be whipped out quickly and in great number, but because of the printed pattern these strips must be folded over for the upright portion but not for the tab portion. That doubles the density of the card stock along the strip. I would rather have not doubled the card stock for these mechanisms just to have pattern on both sides. Here is where painting would have been better (or printed on both sides). The result is that single strength straps force double strength V mechanisms that flip up content that is already diminished because the straps forced content to the edges of the card. Mechanistically, it is not a great idea. If anything, the straps should be double strength and the V mechanism single strength, but it did not work out that way this time because of the perceived need for pattern on both sides. 

The areas on the standup V mechanisms shown in blue are the places where content can be glued.  

The tabs that attach the straps onto the card background are not shown. They would complicate the diagram unnecessarily, obviously the straps must be attached somehow. You can make whatever kind of tabs you like; built into the strap as done here, separate pieces glued to both the strap and the background which I do quite often, glued directly on top of the background image, or inserted through slots and glued to the back of the page to make them disappear from the surface. In this case, the background image is grass so it doesn't make any difference at all if tabs with the same pattern are glued to the top or glued underneath.

All that up there ↑ is mechanisms and background , all this down here ↓ is content. 

As the animated GIF suggests, straps can be located anywhere across the central fold. The closer that the strap is to the viewer then the closer that the V mechanisms attached to it are to the viewer. The V mechanism fold forward toward the viewer when the card is closed and flip forward all the content that is attached to them.  The content attached to the two V mechanisms closest to the viewer risk sticking out  beyond the bottom edge of the card. The placement of the straps and their attendant V mechanisms is somewhat random in that the space for content is not actually measured, although now that the V mechanisms are in there is no reason not to measure. Different size sheep are provided for for this variation and for error. 

The content needn't be detailed on both sides, but this content is. A page of sheep content is uploaded and available for download. The page is mirrored so that pages can be matched and the content of both sides cut out at once and glued together. 

Download sheep content side A

Download sheep content side B

You just gotta see these things in action. The strap inside lifts upward to a folding tent when the card closes, which forces the V mechanisms attached to them downward and forward. Because half of the V is the original card, then content attached to that half of the V simply pushes forward and downward, but the half that is lifted upward by the strap while also being being forced forward and downward by the V it is attached to flips both forward and inward. It is marvelous to watch this paper sheep go flying upward, flipping forward, tucking inward as the card closes and while the bush right next to it simply falls forward. It's like you planned it that way or something when in fact that's just the way it turns out. In two cases, the straps were positioned too close to the front edge. Luckily, I preprinted different size sheep for that exigency. A little trim to their hoofies and they fit right in, that is, larger sheep stuck out when the card is closed. The straps having moved content from the center to the edges. 

Review:  Without straps, V mechanisms can be positioned on the center fold of a card.  The upright V provides two surfaces to attach content, as you can see, content angled toward the viewer. A short tented strap covers the central fold and provides two new valley folds closer to the edges. 

Mind the edges. 

Two flat straps displace large segments of the all-important central fold and double them. Anything that would be ordinarily placed on the central fold can now be placed next to where it would have been before the strap moved the central fold, and now there are two of them and the content placed on them must be shorter. Central fold mechanism-backbone availability is doubled but the content placed on those mechanisms will be shorter. 

It's a good way to get something off the center. 

Fitted with straps and the card  fully opened, everything is completely flat. 

Originally, a regular V mechanism is placed directly atop the central fold, the point of the V on the fold. Now the card is no longer flat. It's flat with a fence sticking up, a fence in the shape of a V with its point on the crease of the central fold. 

When the card is shut, the force applied also forces the fence to fold. The fence inside is attached to both recto and verso sides and to itself with creases at each line of contact. As the card closes the shape of the V changes, it falls in on itself, the fences inside being forced shut collapse along their creases and are forced forward or backward at a compensating angle. The bridge that was standing up 90° from a flat open card is now laying flat at 45° with its opposite right on top of it sandwiched between the recto and verso pages. All that goes for content attached to the fences. 

The idea is to attach stand up V mechanisms directly over the new displaced central folds. And now that they're doubled there are two places to attach V mechanisms with their double upright surfaces, not just one place to attach V mechanisms.  And then there are two straps, so four new displaced central fold creases, each with it's own V mechanism presenting two surfaces each, so eight new upright surfaces to attach content in a zig-zag arrangement angled toward the viewer -- are you sensing how splendid this is? -- that all stretches and extends and then abruptly flips into position when opened and then compresses like an accordion which packs the V mechanisms and everything on them tilting content toward the viewer during that moment of closing, difficult to follow as a shutter of a camera, for some of the content, a reverse flip with a twist and tuck back into position. 

You know what? I just realized this. I must make another of these and video it because describing it is goofy but seeing it open and shut with all that stuff flipping around, standing up, tucking back, is awesome. 

mushroom house, field mouse page of forest pop-up

A stiff arm or piston is fashioned to attach near the central fold on the verso page of the card. The arm fits through a slot cut into the recto page to accept the arm. A hinge is attached to the arm that will fit through another slot to flip back and forth as a door when the card is opened and closed.

The slot for the door hinge is reinforced on the back of the recto page of the card.

The arm with its hinged door in place through its slots. The arm is glued to the verso page of the card near the central fold.  1/2 inch distant from the central fold produces 1 full inch movement of the arm. That is to much movement to flip the door (it drags the door through the slot when closed and extends the door when opened), so the distance for the glue point from the central fold is reduced to 1/4 inch, and isn't it strange to desire less movement in a card?

The position of the door on the arm is determined by opening the card half way straight up and down. The door will be attached to the arm on the backside of the card with the little door also in the straight up position. If the door is larger, then the door should be positioned a little bit closed so that when the card is closed it can close on top of the little door, that is, the door tends to interfere with the card closing if it is even a little bit larger than the tiny door shown here. 

Card fully opened, door fully opened. 

Piston, door.

forest central page of forest card

A tree trunk is build on a V mechanism design. Flat branches are passed through the tree trunk and fixed parallel to the flat opened card. The double V shape tree trunk closes when the card is closed which angles the trunk tucked into the center of the card and collapses the inserted branches like the wings of a butterfly folding. The V shape is pulled apart when the card is opened which lifts the tree trunk up into position and drags along everything that is attached to it.

Content is drawn in anticipation of a platform to be built upon posts that present upright forward-facing content and that will be attached by an elevated platform to the tree trunk.

These are the square posts that will connect the platform to the tree. These posts determine the height of the platform. All following posts must conform to these original tree trunk posts. These are the only posts with four sides. Although as it turns out the forward facing sides were not used here, they could have contained upright forward-facing content and in that case then, one side is glued to the tree, another side glued to the background of the card, the top side used to build the platform and attach it to the tree, the fourth side to forward-facing content.

Notice the lightly penciled chevron design extending outward from the tree trunk.

Two of these pages of plant life were needed to form the floating platform and to cover the background of the card. 

These are the paper sticks that connect the tabs at the top of the posts that both elevate the platform and present upright forward-facing content obediently conforming to the V of the tree trunk. You can see they are nothing more than random shapes and lengths. Some curve will be needed to connect the uppermost tabs of each post so most of the sticks are drawn and cut slightly curved one way or another. They will be mostly covered so there is no point in being precise about drawing the sticks. These were scratched out in less than one minute. 

It looks like a mess at this point, but it's an organized mess! All of these upright pieces will be connected by their top tabs, here still flopping around but eventually forming a incomplete platform that is connected directly to the tree trunk.

The remaining posts are all scored three-square rectangles. One side to attach to the card background, the middle square to present upright forward-facing content, the last top scored square to build a matrix of paper sticks upon which plants are glued and that is connected to the tree.

Finally, all the top tabs of the posts are connected with paper sticks and covered with plant life forming a platform conforming to the tree trunk. Extra plants are glued to the background to create two layers of plants.

The card is seen to fold neatly and close as it should.

The backs of the forward-facing content is colored carelessly. I simply do not have the patience needed to carefully detail the backs of everything.

coiling snake, forest pop-up card

This is the third time I used this snake. I like this snake a lot.  It's a common crimp mechanism fitted with an arm with content attached. Content can be made to appear as if it is being rolled. Double crimps can appear as if content is rolling other content. In this case, discs glued to arms glued to crimps, rotate in opposite directions to appear as a snake coiling or uncoiling. 

A small platform is created for the center of the card 1/2 inch high and attached 1/2 inch away from the central fold on the opposite page of the card. In the card opened position, the platform is stretched completely flat.

For some reason, I worked this part upside down ↓. The tabs that affix the platform can be glued either directly to the background surface or they can be fitted through slots and glued to the back of the card, thus mysteriously disappeared. 

At the half opened position, the inserted platform forms a step 1/2 inch high. In the closed position, the platform is forced flat in the opposite direction from when it is stretched. Crimps made in the corner of the step are pushed in the opposite direction of the fold in the step, that is, the creases of the crimp operate opposite to the direction of the step in the platform. Arms attached to the crimps create an arcing motion of 90°. Crimps facing each other create arcing movements in opposite directions. (Incidentally, if the arms are connected to the opposite half of each crimp than the little triangles shown in the above animated GIF ↑, then the arms will flip as the crimps fold shut. The motion differs from it's opposite portion where an attached arm simply angles slightly and slides to closed or to open position without flipping as shown below.)

Discs drawn with a snake design are attached to the arms glued to the crimps in the platform step.

Now we're right side up ↓. Arms attached to half of each crimp ↓. The arms can extend from the crimp in either of three directions and they will each have the same effect. 

A mesh table built up of content upon posts just above the snake is covered with the same forest floor pattern material as the background of the card, so the snake appears to be nested between layers of forest floor material. The snake discs rotate in opposite directions and eerily mimic the motion of a real snake. The movement is concealed beneath forest floor content as a snake would be concealed.

Posts for elevated table glued to background ↑, a few along the center, the rest randomly but still parallel on both sides of the central fold. New content will connect the surfaces of the posts ↓.   

For the table to work, at least one of the posts must be situated along the central fold. All other posts are connected to the central posts one way or another. Additional posts are placed to the right and to the left of the central fold and aligned with it perfectly. To connect the posts with content and thus to form a net-like table, all the posts can be moved either to the extreme left or extreme right position, then connecting content glued in place. To check for accuracy, the entire table should move from flattened extreme left, to upright center, to flattened extreme right position as a single unit, an incomplete, see-through, slotted table without tugging and without any bulges. It is a very rigid interconnection of elevating posts that makes the partial table possible. In this case, the short incomplete table is made of branches and leaves, a matrix positioned on posts that act as paper columns and produces a reticulated table-like surface, a paper scrim, if you like.

Here is another, Cupcake Snake birthday card, with a video that shows how the snake action looks. It is a lot better with wispy but rigid camouflage table.

table, step with crimps

chameleon page of forest pop-up

An arm is glued on the front of the card to one side of the card's central fold that slides back and forth through a slot cut into the opposite side so the arm disappears behind and operates concealed on the opposite side of the central fold. In this way, the arm makes use of the physical force applied by opening the card and closing it. The action of opening and closing the card will cause the arm to move back and forth one inch through a guiding sheath like a piston. The back and forth motion is transferred to another arm (show above) on a pivot pin thus creating another movement, a much longer arc that sweeps nearly half the opened page. The first arm disappears through a slot to the back of the card. A second arm is attached to the original arm along with a paper pivoting pin. The mechanism is constructed on the back of the card. The tip of the pivoting swinging second arm is pushed back to the front through a another slot cut in the shape of the arm's arc. On the front side, ontent is glued to the tip of the arcing arm traveling along arc of the slit. So, the original tip of the first arm shows on the front of the card, then the arm disappears behind the card where the transfer mechanism is located, and the tip of the second arm shows through the slot cut from the arc produced by the second arm.

On the back of the card, the button with an X cut into it forming four propellers. Two of the propellers are glued to the back of the card. The remaining two propellers are folded along a crease so that the propellers can fit through the hole cut into the pivoting and swinging arm to act as a stable swivel pin. 

A finishing disc is provided to reinforce the two propellers that were cut and bent that form a pin for the pivoting arm

An arc is drawn on the back of the card determined by the swing of the arm. 

A slot is cut in the shape of the arc.

The tip of the pivoting arm is pushed through the slot so now content can be glued to the tip that swings back and forth on the front of the card. Notice the ends of both arms, the mechanism is hidden in the back. In this case, the content glued to the swinging arm is the chameleon's tongue. Only half the tongue swings back and forth along the arc, the other half is drawn directly onto the background of the card, also along the arc so that it appears as if the tongue is extending toward the worm. 

Leaves of various tone covering a sheet of card stock.

The leaves cut out and ready to be applied to some kind of scaffolding. 

The chameleon is drawn, colored, and cut out, then pasted onto the background of the card. So it is distinguished slightly from leaves drawn directly onto the background and very slightly 3-dimensional, at least so much as the thickness of card stock. Some leaves are glued to the background too. Other leaves are drawn directly onto the background. So there is a very slight variation in background height that creates a little shadow and hints at dimension.

Then there is actual additional dimension. Another layer of branches and leaves is situated on an incomplete table. The original conceptualization of a table is another plane, an inner card situated on paper legs directly above the background card. So a card within a card that work  parallel with each other, fixed by posts, one post along the central fold of the card and two more posts for each end. The post in the middle can service both sides of the table as an I bar. 

A variation of this is a table with large holes cut into it so that the background shows through. Like cutting holes into a broad side of cereal box so that the contents can be seen through the cuts. 

Yet another variation of the table is a flimsy net-like or lace-like construction that operates the same as a table  on posts, one along the central fold, but weak legs and not for the full length -- a very weak flimsy table. With the same or similar pattern as the background then the flimsy paper mesh constructed as a table can suggest depth through layers.Layers that can be seen through. 

There is only one additional layer 1/2 inch above the background layer, yet it appears as if the chameleon is tucked behind thick dense layers of branches.  

This idea of a flimsy table set atop flimsy legs, incomplete and randomly but properly positioned, is used again for the second page. This time looking down onto the forest floor.

lever, piston, table