With delight, I recently discovered paper automata kits, and NicePaperToys, an online paper toy community.

Great design and mechanical toys. And everything is made of paper — even the cranks, cams, and camshafts!

Here was our first happy experience with making a paper automata from a stand-alone kit, Flying Pigs‘s flying pig. This kit had clear, easy-to-follow directions. My 4-year-old popped out all of the paper pieces and folded them. It took many hours, but I assembled the pieces with just a glue stick.

Flying Pigs also publishes a collection of six, Amazing Paper Pets: 6 Animated Animals to Make. I figured it was a great deal.

I really wanted to love this book. But inexplicably, it’s different. Mainly, these machina have been difficult to assemble:

1. I’ve had to guess where things go because at times, the pictures are too small. The platform for the cat, in particular, I just had to wing it.

2. Many areas are under tension. I’ve had to glue, clamp down and re-glue many areas with paper clips. I simply gave up on C6 and C7 on the cat platform. And what to do when the areas aren’t in areas that you can clip? Right now, I’m totally baffled as to how to glue the belt on the cat because it keeps coming unglued and I have yet to figure out how to clamp it.

3. Other design complaints: when making the dog, the feet don’t reach down far enough and the head is attached by a tiny tab. When making the chickens, their heads and tails just don’t fit around the inner box enough to stick; I had to reglue them several times each.

All this adds up to a test of patience for me and my preschooler, who is hanging on my arm while I glue these together.

So far, a frustrating experience.