🌸 Easter Special Workshop 🌸

🐣 A Spring of Stories: Inside Imagimosaic’s Easter Pop-Up Book Workshop with Lijie Zhang

Last week, Imagimosaic was filled with creativity, color, and cheer as we hosted our highly anticipated Easter Special Pop-up Book Creation Workshop — a hands-on experience designed especially for young creators.

Led by renowned children’s pop-card designer Lijie Zhang, the workshop welcomed aspiring young artists eager to explore the magical world of pop-up storytelling. The result? A joyful afternoon of discovery, paper engineering, and imagination in full bloom. 🌷

👉 Check out the video for highlights from the workshop!

👩‍🏫 Meet the Artist: Lijie Zhang

Lijie Zhang

**Lijie Zhang** is a pop-up book designer and independent illustrator bassist in London. She graduated from the Art and Design Department of Fudan University from 2012 and studied children’s picture book illustration at the Cambridge School of Art (2012–2014).
Since 2018, she moved to London with family from Beijing , where she has published interactive pop-up books **Yummy!Yummy**!**My favorite Chinese Food** and **Treasure Chest**. Recently , she has hosted numerous pop-up card crafting workshops in cities including London, Cambridge, and Reading. She is currently working on a pop-up book project depicting the architectural landscape of East London named Here is E20 East Bank.

With her expertise in children’s visual storytelling and a passion for interactive design,

Lijie Zhang brought an inspiring energy to the classroom. Her step-by-step teaching style ensured every child understood the structure and principles behind pop-up art, while her supportive approach encouraged kids to take creative risks and experiment with their ideas.

Lijie’s own portfolio of pop-up creations dazzled both the children and parents — showcasing just how powerful this medium can be for storytelling and expression.

📖 What We Created: Building Art That Pops

The focus of the day was not only art for art's sake but also learning through creation.

Children started by exploring:

📐 The Mechanics Behind Pop-Ups
They were introduced to the basics — tabs, folds, angles, and layers — and how these building blocks combine to create the 3D "pop" effect.

The Pop-up Card samples made by Lijie for this workshop

✏️ Concepting a Story: How Kids Brought Their Stories to Life

One of the most exciting parts of the workshop was watching the children dive into the process of story concepting. Before a single fold was made, participants spent time imagining their own Easter-themed adventures — blending creativity, character design, and storytelling into a single, vibrant idea.

During our brainstorming session, kids were encouraged to think about:

🐰 Who their characters were — Easter bunnies, hatching chicks, playful lambs, or even mystical creatures like fairy rabbits or talking flowers.
🥚 What the adventure would be — Would it be a daring egg hunt through an enchanted forest? A race between magical creatures to find the golden egg? Or maybe a story about a lost Easter egg looking for its way home?
🌼 Where their story would happen — In lush spring gardens, secret underground tunnels, floating islands covered in candy, or even on the back of a flying bird.
🎉 The twist in the tale — Every good story needs a surprise! Some children added secret treasures hidden inside pop-up eggs, while others imagined magical portals opening behind fields of flowers.

After sketching out their ideas, each child set to work designing scenes within their pop-up books that would unfold as a mini adventure. Some created multi-layered pages where each new pop-up revealed a next chapter of the story — making every turn of the page an exciting surprise.

It was inspiring to see how naturally children combined imaginative thinking with spatial design, creating playful stories you could literally open up and explore.

🎨 Design & Assembly

Using vibrant paper, glue, scissors, and an assortment of creative materials, participants built their own one-of-a-kind pop-up books that brought their stories to life — literally!

**🎨 Design & Assembly: Turning Ideas Into Real Pop-Up Magic**

After brainstorming their imaginative Easter tales, it was time for the real magic to begin — **bringing those stories to life through design and assembly**!

Armed with brightly colored paper, glue sticks, child-safe scissors, and a treasure trove of creative supplies — from glittering stickers and washi tapes to cotton balls for bunny tails — the participants jumped into action.

Here's how it unfolded:

✂️ Cutting and Crafting Components
Children learned how to carefully cut out characters, props, and landscapes, keeping layering and pop-up mechanics in mind. Some kids created intricate Easter baskets overflowing with eggs, while others shaped entire spring meadows filled with hidden surprises between the folds.
📐 Mastering Pop-Up Techniques
Under Lijie Zhang’s expert guidance, each child explored techniques like V-folds, parallelogram lifts, layered tabs, and pull-tabs. They discovered how small design choices affected how their scenes would move or appear when a page was opened.
🎨 Adding Layers of Detail
Once basic structures were set, the real decorating began! Kids colored in their characters, added fluffy tails to bunnies, used pastel papers to craft blooming flowers, and even glued on tiny gems to make magical "hidden treasures" shine.
🖍️ Building Pages Into a Complete Story
Each page of the pop-up book represented a different part of their adventure — creating a true mini-narrative in 3D form. Some built sequences where bunnies found clues leading to a golden egg, while others showcased magical hatching eggs revealing surprises inside.
🪄 Imagination in Full Bloom
No two books were alike. Each child’s final creation was a unique and vibrant interpretation of their individual story, combining artistry, craftsmanship, and narrative thinking. Watching their expressions as pages popped open exactly as they had imagined was pure magic!

Every pop-up book was more than just a craft — it was a handmade storybook, a labor of love built with creativity, care, and a deep sense of pride.

**💡 What They Learned**
Workshops like this give more than just a fun afternoon. They equip children with real-world creative skills, such as:
✂️ **Fine Motor Skills**: Cutting, folding, and assembling delicate pieces
💭 **Storytelling**: Structuring a beginning, middle, and end in visual form
🧠 **Spatial Awareness & Geometry**: Understanding how pieces fit and move together
😍 **Confidence & Creativity**: Seeing an idea come to life through their own hands
It was a beautiful reminder that design is not just for professionals — it’s for anyone with an imagination, especially young ones learning to bring their ideas into the world.

🧒 Join the Fun: Imagimosaic’s Children's Creative Courses

This Easter special was just one chapter in a much bigger story.

At Imagimosaic, we believe in nurturing creative expression in children through our Children's Creative Courses — a series of carefully designed sessions blending art, design, storytelling, and hands-on projects to help kids think, create, and grow.

Whether it's illustration, animation, design thinking, or storytelling, our programs are designed to be engaging, educational, and most of all... fun.

🎨 Is your child ready to explore their imagination?
✨ Join us for our next course and let them discover the joy of creating something extraordinary!

✏️ Choose the Course That Fits You:

🌱 5-Week Introduction Course

Perfect for beginners! Learn the foundations of storytelling, develop your first picture book concept, and explore what makes a children’s book truly magical.Ideal for: hobbyists, aspiring writers, illustrators, and curious creatives.

Quick View

"How to become a young author" 5-weeks Children's book creation introduction course

£399.00

🌿 8-Week Advanced Course

Build on your skills with character development, pacing, voice, and layout. You’ll start to shape your ideas into full drafts and explore illustration techniques.
Ideal for: budding authors/illustrators with a story idea in progress.

8- Weeks Advanced Course for Young Authors

Quick View

8- Weeks Advanced Course for Young Authors

£799.00

🌳 12-Week Masterclass

A deep dive into the full children’s book creation process—from concept to finished book. Includes professional review, and publishing guidance.Ideal for: those preparing to publish, pitch to agents, or build a portfolio.