Corrugated Cardboard

Cardboard Sakura Pavement Stencils

Cherry blossom petals are on the streets everywhere! Tokyo looks like it's been covered in fairy dust.

I was inspired by this post at Oh Happy Day about creating lawn "heart" stencils with flour.

We tried cherry blossom petals, cardboard and flower shapes, experimenting with both the stencil and the negative of the stencil. It was a beautiful day and Electra and Isis both absolutely loved collecting up the petals and scattering them onto the stencils. The best part was seeing the smiles on the obachans (grandmothers), who were out for a walk.

A great way to enjoy sakura, sunshine, and giggling little girls.

Cardboard Tinkering Toys and Mobiles

Intergalactic Cardboard Space Station? Cubist Crossroads? Alice in Cardboard Wonderland? Just a few possibilities for Cardboard Tinkering Toys.

After experimenting with some tightly rolled up magazine pages, our universe kept expanding. The fun part of tinkering with the cardboard and magazine pieces is that you keep adding pieces to your building set as you go. As you fiddle, you get new ideas for ways that you can connect the magazine paper rods to one another. Add to your building set every time you play. We were able to recycle some of our old cardboard beads and cardboard alphabeads, and I've been saving words and images cut from cardboard boxes as well.

I also loved the possibility for mobiles.......

Here's a closer peak at some of our components. To be able to attach cardboard rods in two different directions, I glued two cardboard circles together with the channels running perpendicular to one another. If you glue four circles together and poke a whole through the center of each one, you can get your magazine rods to attach in four different directions plus you can thread the component piece on another magazine page rod. Other great possibilities include splicing two pieces together to get x-shaped pieces that act as stands and stabilizers.

I love the "found" poetry aspect of using cardboard words in conjunction with the bold cardboard geometric shapes.... Now go play!