Garden Lantern Pop Up Card with Integrated Electronics

Garden Lantern OA

I have been making chicken tracks around integrating paper electronics with origamic architecture for several years.  This is my first presentable project along that line.

I’ve had a vague idea for a garden lantern OA for quite some time.  The electronics seemed like a solid match for this.  The lantern itself it is a single piece of stock, cut, scored, folded and joined on two edges to make a pop up. It is mounted on two additional flat base layers that incorporate and conceal the electronics.

This uses an integrated switch and has no externally-visible electronic components, which I haven’t seen in any other paper electronics projects elsewhere yet.

The closed card is 11cm by 16cm. The lantern is 4cm square at the base and ~5cm tall when opened.

Watch the video to see the candle flicker effect and, to see it folded flat.

The “ambient nocturnal background sounds” in the video is another one of my multi-track recording experiments.

Special thanks to Natalie Freed whose paper electronics class at HSL shortened my learning curve with the paper electronics stuff. Thanks also to Jie Qi for her inspiring projects and, to the team at Circuit Stickers whose efforts made my project a lot easier.

Hammering a Helical Heart

Hammering a Helical Heart

I made an edited build video for the Helical Heart pop up cards, including an original taiko soundtrack (well, pentatonic xylophone, mokogyo, bowl gong, bells and fish rasp, anyway). This is my first YouTube video and, my first multi-track audio recording.  Let me know what you think and, if you would want to see more stuff like this.

The Popup Card Shop is Live

XOXO Popup Card
XOXO Popup Card
XOXO Popup Card

I am not sure why I didn’t think to mention it when the new Popup Card Shop went live a couple months ago. It features pretty new photos of all of the commercial cards from Japan and, more relevant for this site, some of my designs, on sale for the fist time. You may remember the first one up from my post here last January on the Golden Spiral card (now available here). I added the quick design I did for the XOXO festival as a Valentine’s Day card in February.

I am slowly working on getting some of my older designs production-ready. So, look for more soon.

I’m also working on refining some production techniques and, on some other experiments. I’ll post more detail on those here eventually.

In the meantime, check out the Popup Card Shop and, let me know what you think!