Book Review- Pop Up Cards by Mari Kumada

Mari Kumada's Pop-Up Cards- Over 50 Designs for Cards that Fold, Flap, Spin and Slide is an English translation of a book originally written in Japanese and part of Roost Books' Japanese Craft Style line of books.

The book is all about making cards with great 3d features that are elegant and playful. The designs themselves are very clean looking. For example the card on the cover, with it's simple colors and fun spiral connecting the hearts is a colorful, fun design and one of my favorite techniques in the book.

The book has gorgeous photos and several projects for each technique. The techniques include simple pop-ups, spinner cards and cards that have sliding features. The basic technique for the moving or pop-up part of the card is well explained with good photos.

The shapes are wonderful. The author doesn't show you the front of the cards, that could be plain, or just a simple sentiment, then you open it to the surprise. The pops include geometric 3 dimensional shapes like cones and boxes as well as flat pop-ups that just pop when the card is opened.

My favorite projects are:
Strawberry and Pear Mini Cards- basic pop up technique with a sweetly elegant look that makes a nice note card.
Spring's Arrival- like the card on the cover, it features a spiral, the spiral looks like the flight of a butterfly and it's pretty pastel colors make it a lovely option as a card for a friend.
A witch hat Halloween pop-up has a cone shaped hat. The same technique could be used to make wizard hats as well.
The adorable Love Bunny tab card. This one reminds me most of children's pop-up books. 2 cute bunnies, a heart and a pull tab to make the heart flip to reveal a message.
For a more challenging card, and my favorite in the whole book, Magic Show has a dove coming out of a top hat when it's opened.

It's set up like classic craft books, so most of the projects are in the back of the book with instructions and the first part of the book is full color photographs with the page number listed for instructions. There are also full sized , full color templates in the back that can be copied and cut out or copied and used as a patterns for your own paper. It does not include basic instructions for paper crafting, so it's best audience are people who know paper basics like mountain and valley holds, cutting paper and gluing it.

It's simply a charming book, and I'm loving this series.

Published by Roost, an imprint of Shambhala Publications.

I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, my reviews are always my personal and honest opinion. You can read more about my review policy here.