I had meant to show this off on last week’s shows on Hochanda. We were all set for Charlie to demonstrate pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but we had left it under the counter and completely forgot about it in the heat of the moment.

To be more accurate, this is a slide pop-up. The rabbit is my own illustration, possibly coming to a polymer stamp set soon! The top hat is one of That’s Crafty! Surfaces – a MDF upright, designed for the top hat to be the other way up – but with a bit of crafty hiding and wedging, it works just as well upside down.

Construction notes: front

I learnt on the job for this project… I completed the slide with no problems, but the whiskers kept getting caught on the edges of the hat/slide and were in danger of breaking off. A oval of acetate and careful gluing stabilised the flimsy bits and made the whole head and ears slide much more reliably. By mounting the front feet on foam pads and curving them inwards, I managed to inject a little bit of dimension.

Construction notes: back

On the back, you can see the slide. This is a folded pocket the width of the rabbit, with the slot running up the centre to move the tab up and down. I added a small notch at the top so that the rabbit could be fixed in the up position. As the rabbit was cut from 160gsm card stock, I also added a central support to be sure he wouldn’t flop over… the last thing you want is a dead rabbit in your top hat! It’s to that support the tab is fixed.