I love a pop-up card…in fact it’s one of the main reasons I bought a Cricut in the first place. The fact you can take ordinary pieces of card and make them into something special will never get dull for me!

Anyway…this pop-up keyboard card requires a bit of crafting ability – again, it’s not difficult so much as fiddly, but I wouldn’t say it was super hard to put together.

You will need:

Approx 5 A4 (or letter size) sheets of cardstock

Glue to put it all together!

Our SVG File, which you can get at our Etsy shop here: Piano Card Cut Files

You’ll also obviously need a cutting machine with blade (we used a Cricut Maker with fine blade) and a stylus tool would come in handy. Aside from that – a sticky mat is crucial!

Preparing the file:

Open a New Project and click on ‘Import Images’. Choose the file you’ve downloaded – in this case it’s ‘pianocard.svg’. Select all of the pieces on the canvas and then click on on ‘Ungroup’. Click on ‘Upload’ in the left-hand margin, and you’ll get the following options: Choose ‘Upload Pattern’ (the option on the right) and choose the sheetmusic.png file (or use your own alternative of course!) – it’s included in the files with this card. Now, select the small white rectangle piece on your canvas (by clicking on it), and you’ll see that the piece is highlighted in the list in the right-hand margin. Click on the Scissors icon next to the item, and the Layers Attribute will pop up. Select ‘Pattern’ from the top of the Layers Attribute Panel and you’ll see that the sheet music pattern has appeared on the piece on the canvas – though it may be a bit off-centre. If necessary, resize or reposition the sheet music by clicking on ‘Edit’ at the bottom of the Layers Attribute Panel, and you’ll get the following screen: Here, adjust the numbers in the boxes until it’s the correct size and at the correct position for you. You can see we enlarged it slightly (in the ‘Scale’ box) and moved it horizontally (changing the number in the ‘Horizontal’ box). Choose ‘Complex’. Choose the option ‘Save as a Print then Cut image’. Now, it’s just a matter of converting some of the lines on the pieces into score lines. To do this, simply select a line, and click on the Scissors (or Cut) icon where it appears in the right-hand margin. When the Layers Attribute panel appears, select the Stylus (or Score) icon and the line is converted! Once converted, they appear as dashed lines. There are quite a few lines you need to score on this card, and to make it easier we’re showing them in a diagram here (please note – we had to pull the book apart to put on the score lines – the white rectangle we’re showing below is the sheet music one, blank here as the music ‘disappears’ when you ‘Attach’ it – don’t panic though, it’s there!): Once you’ve done this, you’ll need to individually select each piece and attach them – e.g. click and drag over the whole of the white piano piece and click on ‘Attach’ to ensure that the score lines are actually on the piece.

Now you’re ready to start (printing and) cutting!

Cutting the Pieces:

When you start printing, you might find that the sheet music print ‘disappears’ from the piece, but don’t be worried – just carry on as eventually you’ll see it comes back! Print the piece. The rest of the pieces are fairly straightforward to cut, as long as you’ve made sure you scored and attached correctly when you were preparing the pattern

Assembling the Card:

You will have the following pieces. (Please note…the small white piece will actually have your sheet music print on it but this was a photograph of an early version!). Apply glue to the back of the black section: Carefully fit the black piece on top of the larger white piece, matching up the keys. Allow to dry: Push through the white slits and bend the score lines: Move carefully and slowly, until it looks something like this: Once you’ve done this, close and open the card slowly a few times, ensuring the folds are crisp. Apply the scalloped trim to the top and bottom of the card. Add the letters to the front of the card. In the correct order, mind! 😉 Glue the back of the upper side of the keyboard up to the centre line and apply this half of the card to the inside of the outer card, ensuring that this half is connected to the reverse of the section with the ‘Happy Birthday’ message. Firm down carefully and allow to dry. Apply glue to the remaining half of the card and press it against the outer card. Fold carefully, and allow to dry. Fold your sheet music piece and glue it to the remaining rectangle of card. Your card is now complete and the keys will pop up upon opening!

Fancy having a go yourself?

Get the piano card file at our Etsy shop!

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