Welcome to Cardboard Costume Challenge 2017!

It's all about inspiration, the exchange of ideas, and the excitement of making something by hand.

There are no contests.

No prizes.

No endorsements.

No sponsorships.

Just look around on the site, Pinterest Board, and around the web and challenge yourself to make your costume from cardboard, and whatever other scraps you can find.

If you would like to share your costume, send us a picture and we'll post it.

We've already started to receive some costumes for 2017.

Have a look at the AWESOME, creative and inspiring cardboard costumes below!

Cardboard train costume by Alex Nadeau

Busy Bee by Camille www.thecardboardcollective.com

Busy Bee by Camille www.thecardboardcollective.com

Busy Bee by Camille www.thecardboardcollective.com

Mask-Making Workshop

In cooperation with Play Park Kujira Yama ( a weekly pop-up adventure playground in Tokyo) I'll be leading a Halloween mask-making workshop culminating with a cardboard pinata we'll decorate the day of the event. Oide!

Who: preschool and elementary aged children and their parents

What: recyclable Halloween hat and mask making

Where: Koganei Musashino Park next to Kujira Yama

When: Friday, October 24th, 2014 from 2pm - 4:30pm

Please bring some light weight cardboard, a stapler and scissors (with your name on them) and okashi/snacks to fill  our pinata!

How to Start a Cardboard Head, Hat or Helmet

These are the beginnings of the head pieces the girls will wear for their butterfly and moth costumes.  We will be attaching antennas and textured cardboard to complete them.

Simple Steps:

1. Cut strips of cardboard about 1.5" wide and longer than you need to wrap around your head.

2. Measure cut and glue a strip of cardboard together so it fits around your head.

3. Attach 2 more cardboard strips so that they cross over the mid point of your head.

4. Add additional strips as desired.

5. Use this base for attaching ears, horns, antennas, or a mask.

DIY Cardboard Camera

There are so many adorable ideas for cardboard cameras on the internet, but this one comes from the first post I ever published on The Cardboard Collective about cardboard beads. When I got my new camera, I had the paper camera brochure left over, and glued it to some cardboard. We strung it with some cardboard beads on paper twine to make one of the more popular items in the girl's jewelery box.

Recently I joined up with about 15 other mothers from my daughter's yochien (Japanese preschool) and we made cardboard camera necklaces for all the kids at her school. The cameras were a prize from our fishing booth at the summer festival.

It was SO fun to see the kids snapping photos of each other. Since most of the parents were also walking around with their cameras slung around their necks, there was the slight excited air of a press conference announcing the magic of summer; more kiddie pools and popsicles to come....

Some of the kids know I helped make the cardboard cameras, so it was cute when they pretended to take my picture. A sweet way of trying to communicate and be playful with me. Of course I love kids AND cardboard, so I was pretty smitten the entire day.

Say "チーズ!"

Starry Cardboard Birthday Crown

An easy beautiful birthday crown that my daughter put together on her big day. She wants to wear it again next year, and I agree it turned out beautifully. There is definitely a Glinda, Good Witch of the North quality there.

If you can't find gold cardboard, try jarred gold paint and pizza box lids........

Paper Bag Hat

I'm literally AND figuratively wearing a new hat these days.

Two actually. The first one is a partnership with the Japanese company eco+waza, which puts out a magazine and sells eco-friendly products from Japan. I'm designing cardboard projects for their packaging, (a cardboard box) and I'll be posting a few of the projects here on The Cardboard Collective in the coming months.

The second is a project working as the Japan correspondent for Playscapes, a blog about the world's best playgrounds. As you know I'm raising two eager young playground testers, and love play and design, so what better job is there? Find the most beautiful, inspiring and creative playgrounds near you HERE.

As for the paper bag hat that I'm wearing, I created it from a brown Kraft paper bag with this pattern by Angellea Designs. As a fledgling pattern designer myself, I have to say this pattern is just excellent. I made paper hats for the girls too, and they are going to provide perfect full sun coverage when we're out foraging for summer berries this year. Although this hat isn't water resistant, a sun hat is meant to be worn in the sun, and what hat could be lighter and easier to fold up?

I didn't do anything special to sew the paper hat other than use the longest stitch length on my machine and add a bias paper trim to the edge. They sew up really fast, since there's no lining, and hey they're just fun.

Cardboard Playground circa 1967

Big Play back top Rescan

LIFE Magazine - November 3, 1967 (Volume 63, Number 18) Page 3

LIFE Magazine - November 3, 1967 (Volume 63, Number 18) Page 2

LIFE Magazine - November 3, 1967 (Volume 63, Number 18) Page 1

LIFE Magazine - November 3, 1967 (Volume 63, Number 18) Modern Living -- The Big Play in Paper, from Giraffes to Gazebos

Wow, check out this 1967 LIFE magazine article entitled, "The Big Play in Paper", that was lovingly rescued and scanned by my friend Miss Meryl Ann Butler during a recent Spring cleaning.

Meryl Ann and I met while taking online classes from Diane Gilleland at Crafty Pod, (I learned almost everything I know about blogging from those classes) and I got to know Meryl Ann by her spit-your-tea-out-hilarious sense of humor and from the really helpful stuff she posted in the forums (she has a long and distinguished career in the craft industry.) She is the author of the book 90 Minute Quilts among, many others and she has an intensely joyful, vibrant style with a personality to match.

Meryl Ann recently sent me an email message explaining that:

"This clipping was in my "morgue file" which was a file we had in the olden days before electronic files… with clippings of images that might inspire future artwork. My file had thousands of clippings, and I just threw most of it away a couple of days ago - a hard thing to do, since I had collected images for a long time - well, at least from 1967, lol!  I only saved a couple of them, and of course the second I saw this I thought of you, Amber!"

How very thoughtful, and how entirely awesome. Enjoy a trip back to the glory days of cardboard......................we'll relive them again soon?

A Cardboard Glue Comb & Sneak Peak

I'm in the final stages of pattern testing my first cardboard furniture pattern! While my husband sweetly refers to this step as the first pancake, I feel like I have flipped so many many pancakes already!

Last week I was on a mad search to find a glue comb (oddly a tool that is uncommon in the U.S.) to put in (yay!) my new Amazon Affiliates shop. A putty knife was the closest stand-in I could recommend. Then my brilliant pattern-testing mother told me about the piece of cardboard she cut from the handle of a box to make into a glue spreader.

Wonderful, I thought, one less product; one less thing to buy. But I was surprised at how well this solution really worked when I modified it slightly by removing a strip of paper to expose the corrugations. Identical glue stripe-ing!

If you make a second glue comb you can use the two combs to clean each other before the glue dries, otherwise  just trim off the end and then cut another strip to make more corrugations.

OK, I'm in the home stretch now, hopefully I'll have the pattern up any day now (whew!), and here's a little sneak peak for all of you who follow the blog:

A Cardboard Toolbox for Kids

As a family of makers, a kids' cardboard toolbox was next up on our cardboard making list. I found a smaller box with smaller handholds for the toolbox with real tools, real nuts and bolts and other real stuff, for real cardboard projects...

Child sized tools: embellishment hammer, round tipped serrated cutting blade, spackling blade, screwdriver and safety scissors

Assorted screws, bolts, nuts and washers

Here's a peek at our first project. I originally saw this idea in what I believe was a February 2012 issue of Family Fun Magazine. They used dry wall screws and a rock for pounding, which would work too.

We enjoyed the opportunity to do some parallel "making". It was great to all be focused on different cardboard projects while we pounded, sawed and glued to our heart's content.

The accordion cardboard drop cloth is a great addition to this ensemble. I blogged about it last fall here.

Do you have a cardboard tool kit or set of tools for your kids? I'd love to hear how others are making cardboard construction play accessible for kids of all ages...

Make a Cardboard Toolbox

Two years ago I found a beautiful old wooden sheep shearing box at Camberwell Market during a trip to Australia with my family.

It was beautifully worn and even had tiny little strands of wool still caught in some of the corners. I quickly filled it up with my favorite sewing tools and supplies, and have enjoyed toting it around immensely ever since.

I have long thought about trying to replicate the design in cardboard for my cardboard tools. When I started working with banana boxes last year I realized I had found a possible solution.

I spent several weeks in late December and early January creating a variety of designs and assembly techniques that incorporated the pre-made features from the banana box like the pre-punched handholds.

I truly believe that this (essentially paper) toolbox could last a lifetime before being recycled.  It's easy to build, strong, durable, and functional. Maybe someone will buy mine at a flea market some day. Wouldn't that be a dream! (Although maybe now that I've built about 10 extras, I might get on that sooner than later...)

The act of constructing a cardboard toolbox instantly transforms you from a passive Cardboard Aficionado into an energized Cardboard Maker- be prepared for this dynamic life change!

You'll need:

• Approx. 30 minutes of your time

• 1 banana box

• cutting tool

• ruler

• pencil

• large binder clips or small clamps

• white glue (I prefer low VOC eco glue

Cardboard Karma Chameleon

A few more tweaks and this guy's ready to dance!

How are your costumes coming?

We have a little less than a week left!

Can't wait to see YOUR creation! Upload to Flickr or just shoot me an email with your costume photo attached to thecardboardcollectiveblog@gmail.com

Adapting a sewing pattern for cardboard

It's often handy to work from a pattern if you're feeling squeamish about designing a headpiece for your costume from scratch. Sewing patterns are a great option if you can get your hands on an appropriate pattern for the costume you're making. Here I've adapted a simple child's hood pattern into a headpiece that is big enough to fit an adult.

1. Trace your pattern pieces onto cardboard and cut them out.

2. Texturize your cardboard by crumpling it up and twisting it, this will give your cardboard a more leather-like texture and make it easier to work with.

3. Cut thin flexible strips of strips of cardboard about 1.5 to 2 in. wide by whatever length you will need (I like boxes that are similar in weight to pizza boxes) and glue these strips one side at a time to the two pieces that you are trying to join. Regular white glue and clamps or clothespins work great for this.

4. Continue adding your cardboard seams as you put all your pattern pieces together. trim as needed.

5. Now you can begin to modify your piece for your individual costume. Here I added more pieces with the same technique by gluing thin strips of cardboard for the seam and then attaching a forehead and jaw piece.

Links to a few handy patterns suitable for costume making:

Vest pattern by the Mother Huddle

Hood pattern by Fabric link

Children's fitted hood/hat pattern by Martha Stewart Living

Baby cowboy boots pattern by Nap Time Crafters (You could adapt this pattern for making any kind of boot-like shoe covers.)

Our Cardboard Swiss Cheese Chalet

A new watermelon box creation!  A hideout for my two little pipsqueaks.

This little place was a lot of fun to build, and I love the idea of a hideout that's triangular in shape.  I spent about 2 days working on this project off and on, because I had to take breaks when my arm got tired of sawing through all that cardboard.

The watermelon box I started with already had lots of holes in it, so I enlarged some of them to create my  "Swiss cheese matrix" on all three sides.

I started by figuring out the rough dimensions of the little fort by folding the box in different places until I found what worked best for a roomy wedge of cheese.

This box had about eight creased corners, so I cut cardboard strips about 6 inches wide and glued them over the unwanted creased portions so the cardboard wouldn't bend in the places I didn't want it to.

After securing the cardboard and cutting out all the holes from the sides, I put a nut and bolt with a washer in the side to keep everything together and make it easy to disassemble.

Last step was creating a top piece out of lighter cardboard so that the girls could open it easily.

I added a coat of yellow paint, but I think it would be just as nice plain brown.  I also thought  pink washi tape would liven up the holes, but you can see where that's all going to end up.

I'm looking forward to the day when they'll be building their own little cardboard nests... And hey, did I tell you where some of our other watermelon box scraps have ended up?

These came shipped in a cardboard box that we picked up at the local post office.

They're not ours to keep.  We're just babysitting for grandma...

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!

Hello world!

We're shouting out to you from the suburbs of Tokyo! An amazing city that we are learning a little bit more about every day. I live here with my husband, and two daughters, in what I call a tiny Tokyo apartment. Actually by Japanese standards it wouldn't be considered tiny, but compared to living spaces back home in Michigan, it's small. The inspiration for this blog is a book I read one day at one of the wonderful city sponsored play houses for children aged 0-3. I don't yet know exactly how to translate the name of the book because I am still a "young Jedi" of the Japanese language, but, in short it's a book all about making cardboard furniture for children. To be sure I have always been obsessed with cardboard and already had many many pages in my scrapping journal devoted to this humble, yet noble material, but this book was a real springboard for me.

After figuring out how to order this book on Amazon Japan in Japanese with the help of a few friends, my husband and I set out to make our first set of table and chairs. To our surprise they were perfectly sized, light enough for a 1 year old to move around, recycled and recyclable, adorable and amazingly sturdy. Is there anything more divine? And the best part was that I felt an incredible sense of joy and (still do) every time I look at those table and chairs. Mostly because my husband and I lovingly made them, but also because we built something really durable and fun without having a garage, a basement, a workshop, or even a car.

I hope that this blog will inspire you to make something out of cardboard for yourself or your child, that reduces your impact on the earth, and brings you an incredible amount of joy.

I now have my cardboard goggles on. Prepare for brilliance.