I AM NOT a CAT Mechanical Card

After nearly a whole year of struggling with social distancing and virtual meetings, what we all needed was a real-life courtroom drama involving a digital cat, a couple of straight-laced lawyers and zoom (extra bonus: contempt of court apparently committed by the judge himself). So after a good laugh I decided I just HAD to turn the meme into a mechanical card and share it for free.

2 sheets of card stock (letter or A4)

Color printer

Scissors (or preferable an Xacto knife and cutting mat)

Scoring tool (see step 2)

Glue

10 minutes of spare time

Get the FREE download here.

www.makepopupcards.com is a website/community devoted to downloadable paper craft. Mostly pop-up cards, as the name implies, but also paper toys and tools.

Print the template on 2 pages of light card stock. The template includes written instructions, but proceed to the next step for more details and pictures.

After you printed and cut out the shapes, SCORE all the fold lines. This is not an optional step; it makes the difference between a clean fold and a crumpled mess. The goal of scoring is to make a crease line by denting the paper (be careful not to pierce it!), so that it will fold neatly, exactly where you need it to fold.

You can use a number of tools for scoring. There are bone scoring tools (or plastic ones designed like the traditional bone tools) but I don't find those comfortable. I like a ball-point pen without ink (in this case though it's OK if your pen still has ink and you draw a line), or an embossing tool like this one,* or even a knitting needle. Anything with a pointed but not too sharp tip will do. Always use a ruler when you score, because you want that line to be neat!

Fold the pieces as indicated on the template, then glue them together as shown here in the photos. The important thing to point out is that you need to leave the area around the long eyeball tab clear of glue... It needs to move freely as you open and close the tab if you want your kitten's eyes to dart back and forth and he desperately tries to turn back into a human....

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* full disclosure: I am an Amazon affiliate so if you click on this link and buy the tool the price you pay will be the same, but I will get a small commission. Thank you!