This card is fairly simple to construct, but takes some time and care to cut. You must use an exacto knife and a metal straightedge or wooden ruler with a thin metal edge. But the result is worth the effort, as the parallel strips form a stunning 3-dimensional image. If you then glue the paper circle of strips onto colored paper, you will have a beautiful art piece to display, or a card to give a friend, with a greeting on the front cover or on the inside, written or typed onto the card above or below the paper sculpture.

Rather than making a card, this project can be used as piece of free-standing art work, when placed on a shelf with one half of the colored paper (or illustration board) as the horizontal base, and the other half as a vertical backdrop.

The first step in creating this card is to construct, draw, or copy and paste the image below, onto plain white paper, and cut out the pattern along the outside edges. Then the students should use an exacto knife and a metal straightedge to cut on all the vertical lines inside the circle.

The next step is to score on the midsegment of the rectangle (the horizontal line through the middle), using a metal straightedge and the metal point of a geometry compass, or the point of a pushpin. Then fold the card on that midsegment. Fold the card back open, and use a toothpick or compass point to gently raise all the vertical lines within the circle, to create a "3D" card as shown below

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"Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences, because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics." Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

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