How to Make Pop-Up Cards!

I don't know about you, but lately we've gotten quite a few requests to make cards for people! Our boys' school had a teacher appreciation week, my great grandpa's memory care home is asking for us to send cards to our loved ones, and our church has adopted a local nursing home to send cards to the residents!

So, when I received an invite to be a special guest on our church's daily "Lunch Break," I just had to show the kids how to make pop up cards!

Ever since the kids have been home from school, our awesome kids' pastor Matt and early childhood coordinator Natalie have been eating lunch live on Facebook, every week day from 11:30-12:00 central time. They take some time to say hi to everyone tuning in, pray for our lunch, compare what everyone's eating, tell jokes, announce birthdays, give away prizes, play games, and have special guests! (Everyone of course is welcome...you don't have to attend our church or even be a kid!) My boys and I are big fans of lunch break so they were pretty stoked that Mom was going to be on.

I showed the kids how to make three different types of pop-up cards! Since the kids at our church were sending cards to people they didn't know in the nursing home, just to make them smile, I thought it would be fun to incorporate some jokes into the cards. Of course, I had to also have a little fun with Pastor Matt and Miss Natalie as well, so I pulled some photos off the internet of them to incorporate...

 These ones above both utilize a simple mechanism that you can glue pictures to and make them pop up! The top card has one pop-up element, and the bottom one has two. Watch the video to see how to make this...it is WAY easier than you'd think!

Below are two more types of cards we did. The cowgirl joke utilizes a paper "spring" that we made, and the duck card is just one simple cut and a fold to make a fun beak!

If your kids have a particular object or animal they like to draw, just google it for jokes! I just did a Google search for "duck jokes" and "bike jokes" for these. Help your kids though, so you don't end up pulling up something inappropriate for them! ;-) One of my boys' favorite duck jokes is, "Why do ducks have feathers? To cover their butt quacks!"

My boys made cards for their grandparents too. I took a photo of Sam with his arms reaching out, he cut it out and turned it into a "hug on paper," since we couldn't hug our grandparents due to social distancing! ;-)

Click here to watch the full episode, and learn how to make three kinds of pop-up cards! Materials you'll need are:
- Paper
- Scissor
- Glue
- Something to draw with

I'm super excited to be back on Lunch Break again tomorrow, Wednesday, April 29th, where we'll be doing some really fun origami projects! These will not just be pieces of paper folded into shapes...we will be making cool things that kids can play with! Stay tuned for a recap of that one! Until then, keep smiling and be well!!