Graduation Pop-Up Card

This was my first attempt at a pop-up card.  I could pretend all went well and turned out exactly as I had planned, but it didn't and I won't.

When Cricut released the cartridge Everyday Pop-Up Cards a few years ago, I told myself I had enough images from which to choose.  Another untruth.  One can never have enough cartridges.  Ask me how I know.  Ask me about the retired cartridges that are no longer available, and how suddenly I have grandchildren who adore those licensed characters.

Oh, well.  Life would be boring if it were perfect.

Eventually I found this cartridge at a great price and decided the cute images would come in handy sooner or later (even if I never made an actual pop-up card).

But then I needed to make a graduation card and I had a little extra time to get it done, so I decided to jazz up my card with some pop-up action inside.  It looked easy enough.

It wasn't. 

My first try ended badly even though I was following the instructions provided by Cricut.  (I could only find one example of a phrase pop-up at the end of the PDF file, so we'll use that as my excuse for why I found it so difficult to piece this particular one together.)  Was mine assembled correctly? Who knows?  But I could find no evidence to the contrary and that's good enough for me.

Have you ever made a pop-up card?  If so, did you find it difficult or did it make perfect sense to you at first glance?

Thanks for stopping by!