Basic Pop-ups

I've been playing with paper lately. I mentioned a while ago how much I love pop-up books. So in January I ordered a book on how to do some basic paper engineering. It was a pop-up book that showed how to do pop-ups, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Only it wasn't in stock. Amazon kept extending the ship date further and further and I finally got frustrated. I canceled that one and ordered Paul Jackson's The Pop-Up Book. And it worked out beautifully. I've just started working my way through the book and already I'm addicted. I have been creating paper frogs for everyone I know. 

Here is my paper frog. 

This is about the simplest pop-up to do. It only requires two cuts and just a little folding. After a little bit of practice I want to start coloring them so they stand out a little more. I can see making frog cards for friends and family. Simple and somewhat impressive. 

Another simple one that I've been doing from the book is what I call the MC Escher staircase. I still have yet to come out with one that I've been completely happy with but here is my most recent attempt. The stairs aren't quite even but I have yet to bring out the ruler and X-acto knife. Both of those are needed for the more complicated designs. 

Here are two views of my staircase.

I have no doubt that I will get to the tougher patterns in the book. I've actually just enjoyed working the simple patterns to try to get the basic folds down. I will never be a great paper engineer like Subuda or Lothar Meggendorfer but I'm excited to learn.