How to Build a Pop-Up Birthday Cake
- 1). Fold each piece of embossed paper in half vertically. Open one of the pieces of paper and mark along the crease with your pencil, about an inch from the top and 2 inches from the bottom.
- 2). Draw a line at the bottom of the page, through the bottom vertical mark. This line should stop about an inch from each side of the bottom of the page. From each end of this line, draw a new line to the top mark made in Step 1. You will now have three lines, making a triangle. Score the two sides of triangle, but not the bottom side, with a carpenter's knife.
- 3). Place your saucer about 2 inches from the top of your scored sheet and draw a curve following the plate that runs to each side of the triangle. Draw an additional curve 1/8 inch under the previous curve. Move your plate down by about 1 1/2 inches and then draw an additional two curves spaced 1/8-inch apart. All of these lines should touch the sides of the triangle.
- 4). Place the edge of your dinner plate close to the bottom of the triangle. Draw two curves spaced 1/8 inches apart. These curves should touch the edges of the triangle.
- 5). Cut out each curve with the carpenter's knife. There should be three 1/8 inch spaces inside your triangle. Vertically make a crease the center of the triangle in the opposite direction from the crease in Step 1 so that the card folds shut when it's closed. This will create the pop-up effect when the card is opened.
- 6). Open your card, lay it flat and then color between each curve in a different color. The triangle will now resemble a birthday cake. For the candles, draw an inch-long line on each side of the cake's layers. In a different color, draw a small vertical "S" on top of the line to represent the flames.
- 7). Write "Happy Birthday" along the top of the card. Personalize your card. Push the cake back through the card as outlined in Step 5 and then glue the back of the section that doesn't pop out onto the other piece of embossed paper.
