over the political scene in America, I’m cooking, baking, walking the dog, reading, writing, cleaning house, singing to myself, dancing by myself, doing the laundry, exercising, working with my husband, or relaxing in my hammock chair. You get the picture. But sometimes I let my creative juices guide me into some other territory.

Don’t bother reading this one unless you like little kids and are interested in making a Pop-Up Book for some little one you know and love. Maybe it’s a birthday gift that you want to personalize. Or maybe it’s just for no special occasion, except you want this little tyke to know how much you care about her (or him). This post is a quasi “How-to-Make-a-Pop-Up Book.”

I can’t draw. I simply can’t. But I have lots of ideas and lots of ways of letting out those juices I mentioned. I don’t let it bother me that I can’t draw. I just doodle around it. So here goes my little lesson on making a pop-up book.

First you must have an idea of what you want the book to be. An ABC book? A little story? A picture book? A photo book?

Next gather your supplies. Heavy weight paper of different colors, pencils, pens, scissors, glue, water color pencils, paint pens, and markers are important items. Obviously if you are doing a photo book or a picture book (where you aren’t doing the illustrating) you will need to throw those things into the mix. The sky is the limit really. I could see using buttons, ribbons, glitter, stickers, stamps…whatever you want. Let your story line guide you, or let your supplies guide your story line. Either way, just have fun.

Okay, now I’m going to cheat. I’m going to send you to a site where this great fellow shows you how to do lots of different pop-ups. Why reinvent the wheel I always say.

Visit http://wp.robertsabuda.com/make-your-own-pop-ups/

This said, I must say he doesn’t have you put a back on your page though, and that is something you must do.

Here’s another site: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pop-up-Book

You can find lots of YouTube videos as well. Go ahead. Check out the internet.

Here is what I made for Aleia (Ah-lay-ah). She is a sweet little girl who will be two on Sept. 14th.

I took this picture of her last week. Isn’t she darling?

At first I wrote out this story with tons of detail. Then I thought, how silly that was because she isn’t old enough for such depth. She won’t have the attention span for something like that. I’ll save that story for when she’s older. But what I did was pare it down. Way down. Basic items of the story.

I’ll just show you the book now. Here’s the cover:

 

 

Next up, the first page: On a beautiful day, Aleia went for a walk.

Doodles, lots of them.

My simple pop-up parts are the letters to her name. So the first page has an A.

Page 2: The birds were singing and the sun was shining. (The letter “l” pops up).

More doodles and a couple stick figures, plus lots of color. Kids like color.

Page 3: Down the road she discoverd two ducks playing in a pool. (The pop up is an “e.”)

Okay, I tried my hand at a little illustration, but I couldn’t even draw the ducks, so I got some clip art from google images. The rest of it are my attempts at drawing. I used markers and water color pencils, so I added water and smeared the paint. Works for me.

 

Page 4: The next thing you know…Aleia found a red, yellow and orange kite. “I bet I can fly this kite.” And guess what? She did!!

 

Again, I doodle, use water color pencils and clip art.

Page 5: At the top: FREE BALLOONS. Wow! 3 red balloons tied to a fence. Free! What could be better?

Aleia has a kite and 3 red balloons. But wait (written in the arrow) There’s more!

(Next section) Farther down the road were 3 sunny yellow flowers. It was meant to be.

Okay, those pages all have a pop-up of the letters of her name. A-l-e-i-a

Last page: When Aleia got home, she gave her daddy the kite, her mama the 3 sunny yellow flowers, and she gave the 3 red balloons to her baby sister. Why? Because Aleia has a happy, giving heart. 

 

The heart is the pop-up on this last page.

I haven’t given her the book yet. Saturday I will go over to see her and I hope she loves it.

That’s it. You may wish to do something like this for a child in your life instead of pulling out your hair or doing laundry. It’s therapeutic for me. Who knows, maybe for you too.