It's Time To Make Something for Fun

This is not for everyone, but it's amusing!

It seems like time to take a break and make something fun, hopefully to share. I’ve been working with a design I once had for a different kind of greeting card, a small kinetic art piece that goes through the mail.

You must have some really old books around or pictures of old-fashioned portraits and engravings that you cut out and stashed away in a file folder. Well, let’s pretend you do.

They all want to say something different. But what?

These people in odd clothes, hairstyles and fancy whiskers seem to take themselves so seriously, that humor lies just below the surface. Even if they say something ordinary to your friend like “Happy Birthday”, “Thank you” or “Hello!” they will be amusing.

Below is my first experiment with a moveable card.

Ada Lovelace, below, designed the first computer program. I couldn’t fit the words that I wrote for Ada into her mouth, but when you gently move the tab up and down she speaks with self-confidence. By the way, she and Charles Babbage were a strong team.

Here’s another example.

It says at the top, “For a special message, move [the tab] gently” On the right, he says, “Hi!”

Or you could move his mouth and have him blink at the same time. (I scanned and copied the original photo.)

He says, “I didn’t really forget your birthday. I just never think of you as getting older!”

It’s surprising how the photo comes alive. If it looks like fun to you, proceed with abandon.

Here’s an easy way to put it together. The same basic construction works for all the cards. I'll use the photo of Christopher Columbus at the top of this post. It’s from a discarded copy of Harper’s Encyclopedia of United States History, 1905. I offer no personal opinion of Columbus.

Glue the eyes onto the moving pull tab.

Cut 3 strips of cardstock paper. Cut the eyes out of the picture with a craft knife. (Above on the left you can see them at the top.) Hold the moveable strip under the holes in the picture; with a pencil trace the outlines of the eye holes onto the moveable strip. Glue the eyes onto the outlines you drew, as in the picture on the right, above.

The front and the back.

Hold the moveable strip behind the picture so the eyes fit in place; carefully turn both pieces over. Hold the strip firmly in place while you tape the other 2 paper strips onto the back of the picture, as above; they make a track for the moveable strip to slide through.

Columbus looks around the island.

Pull the moveable strip back and forth, above.

My message on the card above is, “Christopher Columbus says, ‘Happy Birthday! Have a healthy, happy year to come, full of discovery and adventure!’”

What would this man say?

If you think this is a silly project, you’re right. But it’s a wonderful stress reliever and might even deliver a smile to someone in the mail.

I’m happy to send you some small portraits (most are about 2-1/4” square) from my 1905 encyclopedia to play with, just ask. You could scan and enlarge them. Or — they don’t have to have moving parts for them to say something amusing!

They do give your mind a rest and activate your creativity. Just for something completely different!