Review: The Pocket Paper Engineer

Now, here’s a great find: The Pocket Paper Engineer, a pair of books on making pop-ups by Carol Barton. This is Vol. 2, which deals with platforms, props, and spirals. There’s also a Vol. 1, which covers basic pop-up forms.

So, in these volumes are the tools to make really spectacular pop-up greeting cards and books. The projects look quite kid-friendly, too.

I absolutely love the layout! These are the best engineered-for-use craft books I’ve ever seen. There are tabbed sections for each style of pop-up the book teaches. Within each tab, you’ll find a series of projects.

Here is one project. As you can see, it’s covered in a series of fold-out pages that contain both the instructions and all the cut-outs needed to make the project.

. . . And the step-by-steps are illustrated wonderfully. Once you’ve mastered the technique with the cut-outs provided, you can branch out and apply it to your own drawings and photos.

There are some really cute pop-ups in this book, and lots of good paper-engineering education. (Ooh – and, spiral binding, of course!) I could see this being a great book not only for card-makers, but scrapbookers and paper artists of all kinds.

Definitely make a visit to the Popular Kinetics Press website, where you can see some fun photo galleries and try some free pop-up projects. I also recommend taking a look at Carol Barton’s artists’ books, which are beautiful.