Pop-Up Paper Art by Half a Cup of Tea

Glory of Hong Kong has long been fascinated with pop-up construction. She set about learning how to do it by studying instruction books and paper engineering tricks. Obviously, hard work pays off... just look at the detail she cut and folded into this little scene.

I love the story of how Glory decided to make miniatures her specialty... after practicing for hours on end and using loads of scrap paper, she noticed her cuts were becoming smaller and smaller in order to save paper. She wisely realized this gave a unique quality to her designs and has kept it as her signature style.

The idea for adding the LED lighting that casts such a wondrous glow came about by accident. One evening after practicing, she set the paper cut she'd been working on upon her scanner. In the darkened room, the blue scanner light beautifully brought the illuminated cut-out to life.

Mountain Village is her most difficult cutting to date, but also her favorite. It's a detailed fairyland of many tiny houses with windows; some have doors and even doorknobs. There are also mountains, a rising moon, a church, birds, and 99 steps! Except for the moon, the entire sculpture is constructed from a single piece of paper.