Workshop: Cardboard Creatures & a Pinata too!

I had a great time with all the kids and parents that came to the mask-making workshop. Their creativity transformed a pile of cardboard and paper recyclables into a fun menagerie of hats, masks, wigs and mythical creatures. I also loved sharing my family's long time tradition of making pinatas (this time in cardboard) with so many families who had no idea what pinatas were.

Thanks to everyone who helped with clean-up, spreading the word through email, my very kind friends who translated for me, and to everyone who came out on such a beautiful day to enjoy the fun of making and celebrating together.

Fort Building with Banana Boxes

I've been doing a lot of work with banana boxes recently and we've had so much fun  building little places to hang out in....and then knocking them down!

Stackable Cardboard Dressers for Kids

My daughters are young and their needs are always changing. They wear a pair of shoes for 6 months then need a new pair.

They use a little chair, or a booster seat for a year or a month or 2 and then we have to replace it and either throw out the old one, find a friend who happens to need the same thing at the same moment we want to get rid of it, or put it on Craig's List. (We have no charity shops here in Tokyo and limited recycling opportunities for large items.)

I find this kind of turnover exhausting. I wanted to create a dresser system for the girls that accomplished 3 things:

1. Recyclable so that we could recycle the whole thing, or just parts of it as the girls' needs changed. I didn't want the guilt of throwing away something that was perfectly good and I didn't want the extra work of finding someone to take on our old stuff.

2. Facilitates Independence. I wanted a piece of furniture that was easy to use and functional so the girls could easily pick out their own clothes and put them away starting from an early age (about 18 months-2 years ).

3. Beautiful. I believe that the things in our life should be beautiful and functional. I want my daughters to value beauty, design, the arts, and momma moxie, so we tried to accomplish all of those things when we made the dressers. If you like hot pink and pattern as much as I do I hope you agree on our definition of beautiful....

To make the dressers, we collected kiwi boxes over the course of a few weeks, as well as beautiful papers; a mix of washi papers, origami paper, paper bags and Gallery Opening flyers.

I then decoupaged the papers onto the fronts of the boxes with water and white glue. I made a door in each box by cutting two sides about a ruler's width from the edges of the box, and and then scored the bottom to create the door opening.

The doors of the dressers always stay shut and close easily. In a year and a half of using these boxes, the doors have never flopped open or gotten flimsy.

The girls can easily open and close the drawers. By decorating each box differently they quickly have memorized what kind of clothing each box holds. (Only Dad is still struggling with this.)

Another benefit of these dressers is that they are not a hazard if they fall over in the event of an earthquake - an important consideration living here in Japan.

If you're wondering where you can get kiwi boxes, check out your local produce department. This past summer I wrote a post about how to find free cardboard here. We also use these boxes for storing our toys, puzzles, and art supplies. Yes, kiwi boxes are a definite favorite here in our apartment.

MakeDo Cardboard Igloos

On Saturday we were excited to host another Cardboard Play Day at the American School in Japan with an enthusiastic group of young builders.

Kids living in dense urban areas like Tokyo usually don't have a backyard or nearby place where they can muck around.

Providing the space and materials for cardboard tinkering is akin to tree house building for city kids (as well as a beefy upgrade from blanket and sofa cushion forts.)

We had the most gorgeous day of pre-winter weather that you could hope for and a great turn out of kids and parents.

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I really enjoyed working side by side with the kids this time, holding pieces of cardboard together for them and taking their direction as they figured out how to attach shelving, install "TVs" and keep intruders out of their igloos.

The kids faced the perils of dome collapse and near exhaustion from sawing cardboard doors and windows all day, but we still we had to kick them out by 2:00 so we could cleanup and go home...

Looking forward to putting on another cardboard play day again really soon!

Cardboard Mermaid Costume

There wasn't much time during the frenetic week leading up to Halloween to share the details of the cardboard mermaid costume with you, so those of you who have been wondering what happened to the pile of brown cardboard fish scales, well here they are in technicolor:

The mermaid costume was my favorite of the cardboard costumes I made for my family and myself because it involved a whole different approach to working with cardboard- threading together many cardboard pieces to create a kind of flexible cardboard skin. The costume is very securely held together, so one of the problems, in fact, was that is was a little hard for my daughter to move around in.

Remember the sage advice I passed on to you at the beginning of the challenge about creating a costume that you could sit down in? Well, we had a few problems in that department....

You can see the back of the costume here, which was covered with a cape for warmth, as well as to hide the paper cords. It's possible to create a costume that is seamless, but because we had to take my daughter in and out of the costume a lot, I didn't work too hard to make it all fit together perfectly. I'm thinking of adapting this costume into a downloadable PDF someday, so I'm going to keep expanding on some of the new ideas I tried while making the cardboard mermaid gown.

We painted the scales with regular watercolors, which worked beautifully and gave the costume soft, romantic coloring. I loved the fact that every scale was a little bit different because of the blending of the blues,  greens and yellows.

The great thing was that the costume was well loved, and my daughter just beamed on Halloween night, scooting carefully around from house to house with her sister Little Red Riding Hood.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Cardboard Wolf

I finished the wolf mask!

Just in time for some shopping and a little adventure to the Kawasaki Halloween event!

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Sadly, we had to come home early and didn't get to see the parade, just the costume contest. We thought our costumes were pretty clever until we saw the Rocky Horror Christmas group costume. Amazing!

Halloween may be a relatively new holiday in Japan, but in the land of anime and cosplay, dressing up is taken pretty seriously.

5 minute Cardboard Petticoat

While I realize not every costume can be best created out of cardboard, I wanted to inspire you with a little idea for some covert cardboard.

At one point I tried to construct a full blown petticoat out of cardboard, but after more than one failure, I thought there must be a better way.....

Surely this is a trick that every mother should have up their sleeve? A kind of Julie Andrews move akin to pulling the drapes off the wall and stitching up a dress, except you'll pull a strip of cardboard out of your recycling and make an ever-puffy twirly skirt.....hopefully while singing?

Just staples and a long strip of cardboard is all you need. Make sure that the corrugations in the cardboard run parallel to the skirt's hem and you'll get a smoother contour.

How to make cardboard bug eyes

These cardboard apple box liners have so much potential. I love their color and texture which works perfectly for insect or reptilian costumes. I've seen these liners in pink, yellow, purple, white and brown. Ask the stockist at your grocery store's produce department if you can take a few home.

This a costume component easily made by any child who can handle scissors, so a perfect start for a kid's first self made costume.

How great would these be for a bed bug costume?

Mr. Pumpkin Head

[stop motion animation: The Cardboard Collective family / music: our friends Lullatone]

I wanted to squeeze one little Halloween decoration project in before we roll up our sleeves for the Cardboard Costume Challenge on October 1st!

SO, here's a project that is inspired by two of my favorite Japanese artists Tatsuya Kameyama  and Atsuko Nakagawa who go by the collective name tupera tupera.

We got the work x create books by tupera tupera for my daughter when she was about 2 years old, and they were the best sticker books ever. You can still buy them in the US through Muji's website here. (FYI I have no affiliation with Muji, just a fan)

These sticker books were so beautifully designed, I couldn't stop looking at them myself, and so I got to thinking about making something that the girls could use to change the faces over and over again.

About a year ago, I came up with a project called the Cardboard Marquee that basically utilizes this same concept for making two pieces of corrugated cardboard "stick" to each other. You might have missed it since I had about 2 followers then (neither of which was my mom BTW).....

To make this project you're going to need to secure plenty of pieces of corrugated cardboard that "link up." You need to test your cardboard pieces for compatibility unless you have cardboard from identical boxes.

Go for the strongest cardboard with the widest corrugations that you can find (and still cut through with the tools that you have on hand.)

This is basically a cardboard version of a felt-board, so don't expect these pieces to have a death grip. They are perfect for little kids to play with, but sometimes the flutes/corrugations get a little flat, so if that happens, I suggest poking a chopstick or skewer inside them to help reshape the channels.

Get your big piece of cardboard and strip one side of the paper covering the corrugation. This will take a little work, and I usually use a chopstick to help pry up the paper. When you're done, cut out and paint your pumpkin shape.

To make the facial features, I first cut them out of magazine pages and other recycled papers that I have and then glue them onto the cardboard. It's very important that you always have everything lined up with your cardboard channels vertically, so you don't get say, a lazy eye, unless that's what you're going for.

Strip the paper off the back of your facial features and you're ready for a truly dynamic and fun Halloween decoration for young and old!

Wohooo!

Using Cardboard to Make Easy Toddler Art Stations

When it comes to making art, there are a few challenges we face in our home:

1. We share a small living space.

2. We have a baby in our midst who is prone to trouble and spilling.

3. We want to protect our furniture, favorite stuff, and floors from damage.

4. We want to devote as much time to fun and interesting experiences as we can. (and as little to clean-up, and maintenance as we can)

5. We want to try to solve our problems in frugal, creative and kind-to-the-planet ways.

So, I want to share these two methods that we use in our home for making art projects more spontaneous, less of a chore to cleanup, very versatile, and 100% recyclable!

The first item we use is a kind of art caddy that keeps brushes, paints and water cups organized and spill-safe. They are really quick to make, and very adaptable.

First just gather your supplies: a small cardboard box, pencil, serrated knife, and all of the items that you want to organize in the caddy.

Arrange the items as you would like them, and then just trace around each piece.

Use the serrated knife to cut just inside the area you traced. I left about a 1 mm gap for this project.

Fit your items into the caddy and you're ready to go!

The second item we use is a fold-up cardboard work mat which can double as an easel.

If something spills on the cardboard I can easily wipe up the excess and let the mat dry. We can also let some of our spills decorate the mat to create a whole new piece of art in the process! That's why I think this cardboard mat is a really great solution. It's easy to store and you can recycle it or make a new one when your kids outgrow it. It's also costs only pennies to make. Let's get started!

You'll want to customize this project to the dimensions of the table where your child (or children) works. I originally made my pieces about 8.5 in. in width, but after using the mat, I added two pieces that were about 12 in. in width so that we could incorporate two easel panels that would accommodate a piece of computer paper that was oriented vertically.

When you put the panels together, tape every other seam, then flip the while thing over and tape the remaining seams. This makes the work mat easy to fold up in an accordion - style.

To affix the paper to the easel you have a few options. Here I just used tacks, but you can also use strong magnets on the front and back or a little bit of washi tape.

You could also punch holes in the cardboard and string some elastic through, which would still allow you to fold up the mat without added bulk.

Electra is hard at work on her first homemade gift for grandma's upcoming birthday! A set of hand-painted (+ other interesting stuff she found and glued-on) note cards.

Happy Creating!

Pop-Up Cardboard Garden

UPDATE: Our first big harvest! That little cucumber grew up!

Electra has had her cardboard garden for over a month and a half now, and seeing that the cardboard is still in great shape after 6 weeks of rain, watering and sunshine, I thought it was OK to officially let it be known that our pop-up cardboard garden is a keeper.

When I was on a cardboard finding expedition at my local grocery store, the produce manager asked me if I was interested in any of the watermelon boxes they had out behind the store. Watermelon boxes, I thought, why didn't I think of that before?

Watermelon boxes are made of triple-walled cardboard with a slight waxy finish, and they are super sturdy, even when exposed to rain. This garden isn't intended to last for more than a summer season, but the cardboard should easily last that long. After we finish picking our tomatoes the plan is to distribute the soil onto the other needy beds in our front yard,  and pack up our watermelon box for curbside recycling.

I used a serrated bread knife that I got from a nearby thrift shop to cut the box down to 12.5" high. Then I just positioned the box in a bright and sunny area of our front yard.

My husband kindly screened several wheelbarrow loads of compost from our backyard and added it to the garden. The last step was cutting off the little triangles of cardboard on the sides that center the watermelon box onto pallets for shipping.

We decided this would be the perfect first garden for Electra so I let her pick out all of her own plants at the local greenhouse. I encouraged her to choose a variety of vegetables, flowers and herbs. She chose cucumbers, tomatoes, chives, basil, cilantro, rosemary, zinnias and her favorite, geraniums.

She LOVED handling and smelling her plants and breaking up their roots to get them ready for planting.

Here she is watering the new crop, and facing a few skeptic neighbors who were sure we were preparing for failure.

We watered the garden as needed trying to let it dry out as much as possible to encourage deep root growth and preserve the box. I notice after one month of watering the box is starting to break down a little where the bottom  seam is touching the soil. It looks like it's not to much of a problem at this point, so I'm leaving well enough alone.

After a big rain the cardboard gets a little damp and softens. It will harden up as it dries out, so try not to disturb the cardboard too much when it's wet. I'm not promising invincibility here folks, but this IS a means of getting a few more cherry tomatoes into your little ones hands, and a great way to kindle a budding love of gardening.

Isn't this tiny cucumber the cutest thing you've ever seen? Seeing it all nestled up next to the side of the triple wall cardboard just about breaks my heart.

Cardboard Playdate

(Cardboard Pull Toy at 0123 Harappa)

After a week of sewing my heart out for the Elsie Marley blog KCWC (Kids Clothing Week Challenge) I'm ready for a break and the opportunity to get back to my cardboard projects.  I had a great time sewing and even had a blouse that I made for Electra featured on Elsie Marley's Blog. It was a great opportunity to engage in a Sew Along, and I'm hoping we can do something similar  here on The Cardboard Collective someday (of course with cardboard).

Today I took the girls to a favorite public indoor play place in Tokyo called 0123 Harappa. Harappa is a place for kids aged 0-3 and their parents to play with developmentally appropriate toys, socialize with other children and parents, and basically have fun.

Harappa has lots of activities for kids including a library area, an art area with clay, paper, crayons and glue, an are just for small babies who are not crawling yet, a house and dress up area, an open area for ride on toys, blocks, slides, small climbing gyms and so much more.

I wanted you to see some of the great ways that the staff at Harappa uses cardboard. They have made some incredible creations, and they're always changing! Here are a few of the things that they've made that I hope will inspire those with young children.

I've got to find out how they are cutting Japanese cardboard letters with such precision!

Peek-a-boo Wall murals. Hand painted cardboard.

Animal ball toss. They've put a rounded piece of cardboard inside so the ball rolls back to you quickly and easily.

My favorite. An amazing "Where Do These Animals Live?" wall puzzle (The pieces are magnetized and everything is hand painted.)

Cardboard Cylinder Walls for hiding small objects in. I didn't see too many kids playing with this, but I know if we had one of these in our home the girls would absolutely love it.

Even this adorable cardboard lion memo pad and pencil holder!

You can see why we love this place.

Sandwiches are Beautiful ..... Sandwich Books are Fine!

The latest addition to our cardboard book library; a very delicious book about how to make a B.L.T. (Bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich. This book was easy to make and I had help from Electra painting the pages. We used the same process that I wrote about earlier in the How to Make Cardboard Books post. I used a type of tape made from white paper that could be painted for the binding. I touched up the spots where the book was adjoined after the whole thing was assembled. The coolest part was finding white cardboard for the bread that gave the look of "brown crust" when you cut the pages out. This is literally a recipe book for getting your child or toddler cooking in the kitchen!

Mmmmmm cardboard!

Big Fat Cardboard Book Booster Seat

When Isis took over the highchair, Electra needed a booster seat so she could sit in one of the big chairs at the kitchen table. We put together a big fat cardboard book for her to sit on. We found a box with a Japanese castle on it, so you could even say this seat is throne-like.

I sewed an elastic band to keep the pages from opening up when she was getting into and out of the chair. The beauty of it? It doubles as a leaf press!