Newspaper Wigs

A paper wig using a cardboard base. Beautiful paper wigs of all sizes and shapes here and here.

Cardboard & Newsprint Unicorn Costume

To make the costume you'll need:

• white paper egg cartons

• white newsprint or tissue paper (rainbow colors would be great!)

• toilet paper tubes

• metallic cardboard, (or rainbow paint your regular cardboard)

• stapler

Simple Steps:

1. cut a rectangular strip of cardboard about 4 inches wide and 10 inches long

2. fringe newsprint, then fold the ends over the cardboard and staple

3. cut ears from egg cartons and attach with stapler

4. create cone shaped horn from metallic cardboard and staple down

5. cut toilet paper tubes so that they can fit over your wrists and ankles like a cuff

6. fringe more newsprint and staple to cuffs (place tape over staples to avoid irritation)

7. shape the ends of the toilet paper tubes to look like hooves.

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.