I love a matchbox - any tiny box really, and I bought a job-lot of them for a pound in Home Bargains the other day. I've been wanting to try a simple pop-up matchbox idea, and Halloween seemed like the perfect time!
It took a few attempts to work out where to cut and where to stick... but we got there in the end! And once you've made the pop-up mechanism, you can add any ghostly, ghastly ghoul you like..
1. Rather handily, our matchbox had lines on it already, but basically you need to draw two lines, a few cms apart, down the middle of your box top.
Take them really close to one end, and draw a line across (this is important! See above), leaving the other open (about 0.5cm from the edge). We've coloured this open end with the black pen so it's a bit easier to see which end's which. (And this black mark will become dracula's shoes later!)
2. Adult help is needed for this next part - use some nail scissors or similar to pierce a hole through the line on the matchbox top (keep the scissors closed, press down firmly and twist from side to side). Once you've pierced through, cut carefully along the 3 lines you've drawn, leaving the end with the space (or the thick black mark in the picture).
3. Fold this flap of card right back and press firmly.
4. Then fold the flap of card in half and press the crease firmly again.
5. Cut a strip of paper, about the same width as the card strip, and roughly 4cm long.
6. Glue a good section of it under the card flap and let the glue dry.
7. Now the more fiddly bit, because you need to glue the other end of the paper strip to the end of the matchbox drawer.
Take the match box drawer out of the cover and dab some glue at the end and bottom of the cardboard drawer. Then push it back in from the thick black mark side (not the paper strip side), gluey end first, until it's half in, and
Take the match box drawer out of the cover and dab some glue at one end of the cardboard drawer (end side and bottom). Then gluey end first, push it back in from the thick black mark side (not the paper strip side), until it's half in, and you can see the gluey end through the hole in the top of the matchbox cover.
8. You need to stick the paper strip to the glue, this is tricky, so we used the end of a pencil to push the paper strip into the glue (end side and bottom).
It is really important to get the cardboard strip as close as you can to the edge of the drawer - there should be a small gap, but it must be small, or the mechanism won't pull back properly. (See how close it is in the photo. We've drawn a black line along the top edge of the matchbox drawer, so you can see how close it is to the edge of card strip.)
9. Once it's dry you can try out your pop-up box! When you push the drawer back into the cover, the middle section should go flat. If it doesn't, then the card strip needs to be glued closer to the end of the drawer. If the box is too tight and won't shut properly then the card strip has been glued too close to the end of the drawer and needs more of a gap.
11. Draw your Halloween figure on some paper - make it roughly the same size as the matchbox.
12. Make sure the matchbox is open so the mechanism is sticking up, and glue your ghoul to the side of the folded card strip that isn't attached to the paper strip, lining up the bottom edge of your figure with the crease.
