Pop-Up Card with Piano Keyboard

I've been very busy again - no sooner had I finished the Explosion Box than I had to forge ahead with Dad's birthday card ready for Tuesday. It didn't take me as long as I thought, and I finished it yesterday. Today I've been working on the video, and taking a few photos, and trying to find a way of uploading videos to Youtube without them complaining about a whole lot of stuff that is totally beyond me - if they don't want people to use certain formats etc. they should explain in layman's terms exactly what is required, in my opinion - I was left totally in the dark as to what to do.

I finally discovered that it could be converted to a flash video (.flv) for which I downloaded a free converter. The only trouble is, the resulting quality isn't nearly as good... I suppose it will have to do, though.

Here are some pictures of the card.

This is just after I finished the front:

This is the pop-up keyboard inside, which also shows the music - it is the piano version of "Happy Birthday" and I inserted "Dad" into the relevant bit!

Here's a closer view of the pop-up - you can also see the music a bit more clearly on this one:

The next two pictures are of a side-view of the pop-up, showing how the cutting and folding works, and what happens when you close the card.

Here are a couple of photos which show the card almost finished - all I had to do at this stage was add the final 3-D elements.

These pictures show the inside with the floating music notes just after I'd made them:

Finally, here are the pictures of the completed card:

Now, here is the video. I decided this time to video the work in progress. It did make for some difficulties, because each step took me quite a while, and I was concerned about the light going before I'd finished, but it was OK in the end.



Here is the template for the keyboard pop-up. I made it to fit inside a folded A5 card, i.e. final size A6, which is a bit small, and it made it pretty fiddly to make. I'd suggest making it final size A5. I've saved this template as a .jpg, so you can paste it and enlarge it to whatever size you like. You can use your photo editor or desk-top publisher to substitute the name in the Happy Birthday music. I have made the fold lines on the black keys quite thick so they show up when printed. If they show on the finished project, simply go over them with a black felt pen.

I am hoping to go over on Tuesday and see Dad on his birthday. I hope he enjoys his card!