Children are born creators. They love to make something unusual for their games. Surely they will be fascinated by the manufacture of paper and cardboard crafts, because in this way you can create many useful things. In addition, all materials are available, easily cut, glued, painted. Therefore, stock up on cardboard and connect your imagination.
Necessary materials
For work you will need scissors, glue, colored paper, felt-tip pens or paints. In some cases, scotch tape, scraps of fabric, plastic covers and other waste material. Cardboard itself can be bought at any stationery store. It can be colored, corrugated, velvet. Foil shiny sheets look unusual. From them you can create excellent crowns or jewelry for a young fashionista.
You can make crafts from colored cardboard, or you can use improvised material. You will find it useful:
- boxes for household appliances, furniture, products (you can borrow them at a nearby store);
- bushings for toilet paper;
- boxes of cereals, cereals, sweets;
- disposable plates;
- egg packaging;
- boxes for food liquids (tetrapacks).
Animals made of cardboard
Of the usual boxes left after shopping, you can make a whole zoo. Such crafts from paper and cardboard with their own hands are able to perform even preschoolers. Based on the silhouette of the selected animal and a stand in the form of paws. All details are cut, painted or pasted over with colored paper. Slots are made in the body, where the foot-stands are inserted. After the parts are fastened, you can start the game.
However, you can make an animal in another way. On a sheet of cardboard draw a large rectangle, which will subsequently become the body. On both sides, draw two legs of the same length and width to it. Decorate the workpiece, bend in half. The result should be a torso standing on cardboard legs. Separately, the muzzle, tail, which are attached using a small cardboard strip, are cut out.
Funny characters from the bushings.
A baby elephant, a bunny, a wolf, a snowman, as well as funny people can be made from an unnecessary cardboard sleeve. To begin, paste over it with colored paper, draw a cheerful face. If desired, the muzzle can be made separately, as well as the ears, paws, mane, as well as other necessary details. They are glued to the base. In addition to colored paper, threads, feathers, fabric, beads and other materials can be used to decorate cardboard crafts for children.
Sometimes it is advisable to give the animal the desired shape with scissors. So, mastering the dinosaurs, make rounded cuts between the legs, dividing them. Cut the neck with the head, tail, towering above the sides of the prehistoric beast. Now bend the parts, giving them the desired shape. Pull the tail back, head down.
From the sleeves you can also create scenery for acting out fairy tales. If you paint them with brown paint and stick on the green crown, the trees will come out. If you cut doors and windows on the sleeve and place a paper cone on top, you get a house.
The second life of egg packaging
Kids can make simple crafts from cardboard using unnecessary egg cells. If you paint them with blue paint and attach the mast with a sail, a whole flotilla of toy boats will come out. Cutting the package in half and gluing the eyes and antennae in front, we get a caterpillar. It can be painted in any color you like. If the cells are cut and fastened with a wire, the caterpillar can move, crawl.
To make a crocodile, you need two boxes: one for 10 eggs, the other for 6. First they are painted with green paint, then connected with wire. From colored paper make eyes, teeth, combs on the back.
From single convex cells, children can make ladybugs, and turtles, and a penguin, and fish. The main thing is to paint them in the desired color and glue small parts cut from colored paper. And the cells can be interconnected, which opens up inexhaustible opportunities for creativity and design.
Disposable Plate Masks
It is not necessary to have a beautiful costume to turn into a bunny, a bear or a fairy-tale princess. A carnival mask is enough, which children can easily make from disposable tableware. All that is required: make slits for the eyes and attach an elastic band to the sides. Now the cardboard crafts need to be painted, add details from colored paper. A lion needs a mane, an elephant needs ears and a trunk, and a bird needs a beak.
It is permissible to decorate the mask with feathers, rhinestones, sparkles. If you wish, you can work with scissors so that the child has the lower part of the face open. Masks with a voluminous nose look unusual. It can be made from a rhombus, bent in half, a plastic cup, a pompom, a paper form for cupcakes. With such crafts, it’s much easier to play a fairy tale at home, inviting your child’s friends to visit. They will serve well in kindergarten.
Tetrapack machines
The box left over from drunk juice or milk can easily be turned into a bus. To do this, paste it with colored paper, make windows for the driver and passengers, doors, headlights. To make a truck, the upper part is cut off, retreating from the front edge by 6-8 cm. The result is a machine with a protruding cab, and a body is made from the cut blank. They put it inside the truck, during the game it can rise and fall if necessary.
The wheels of the car may be cardboard, but then they will not be able to spin. Another option is to take caps from plastic bottles. The axis is made of a wooden skewer or rod, on which a straw is put on from the juice. We insert it through the holes in the car body. We make holes in the covers, fasten them to the axis, fix with universal glue.
If you put the tetrapack on its side and cut a hole in the upper part, instead of the machine you will get a boat. This cardboard craft can be painted blue, put the mast, pull the sails with thread.
Furniture for dolls
Using matchboxes, girls will be able to furnish a toy house. Cardboard craft technology is extremely simple. Several boxes are connected to each other, making them a sofa, chair or table. Then they are pasted over with colored paper, self-adhesive film, adhesive tape of the desired color. Sometimes it will be more appropriate to use pieces of fabric, velvet. Furniture created in this way is in no way inferior to the store.
From matchboxes chests of drawers with drawers, caskets, shelves are obtained. To make the latter, remove the cover. We decorate the boxes themselves and mount them on the wall of the house. Inside, you can stick a foil to make a mirror, or an image of a vase with flowers.
Small boxes of medicines, tea, perfumes, cosmetics can be used to make cabinets, a refrigerator, an oven, a washing machine. The main thing is to show imagination.
Car parking
Of the large boxes, the boys are happy to make garages for toy cars. The easiest one can be made by taking pizza packaging. Mark the inner surface with masking tape, cut open and close gates on the side.
Multi-storey car parks look much more interesting. They will need covers from shoe boxes that are mounted on top of each other using toilet paper sleeves. Such a craft made of cardboard suggests the presence of descents. Holes for cars are cut in the floor of the upper floors, and they move downhill to the lower tier.
From thick cardboard with the help of adults, a child can create complex parking lots with numerous exits and a highway. For such a craft, an engineering flair is required. The scheme is first drawn on paper, then the details are cut out, fastened with adhesive tape and Moment glue. Lastly, the parking lot is decorated, marking is applied.
Houses for everyone
Large cardboard boxes are an excellent material for creating a full-fledged home. Both dolls and children can live in it. Parents are placed in the largest buildings.
The dollhouse is made of several boxes, each of which becomes a separate room. The inner surface is glued with colored paper, the remains of wallpaper. Be sure to cut through the windows, sometimes the door. The furniture is arranged, curtains from the remains of fabric are hung up.
Boys can make a knight's castle. To do this, straight square teeth are cut out on top of the box, opening gates or a folding bridge are cut out, towers are made of cardboard bushes glued together. The finished lock is glued with foil for strength.
Do-it-yourself cardboard craftsmanship develops imagination, spatial thinking in children, teaches you to bring your business to the end, to work carefully. The resulting toys are much more useful than the store ones, as the soul is invested in them. That is why the kids are more likely to play with homemade dolls, houses, cars, and do not lose interest in them for longer.