This article is being shared from Laurie, The Tip Lady!
I’ve made several fun toys and activities for kids using cardboard but nothing like these amazing projects. You’ll be blown away by these 32 things to make using a cardboard box. They are DIY activities, games, and imagination building props to encourage your child to play for hours.
Cardboard Box City
1. Cardboard Box City – A darling Sweetopia made for a birthday party complete with shopping center, dental office, beauty boutique, and pastry shop.
2. Cardboard Box Party - This party is seriously so creative with box cars, buses, and even a castle.
3. Cardboard City – Australian artist, Annalise Rees, plays with space and drawing in her two and three dimensional ‘drawn’ house-scapes.
4. Castle One and Castle Two - Two amazing cardboard castles made for a window display for a store owner. They are seriously so impressive and would make an amazing castle for a little boy who loves to play with knight figurines or amazing spray painted in black and used for Halloween decor.
5. Barn for the Farm – A darling barn made for a 1st birthday party in a farm theme complete with a silk flower window.
6. A townhouse Village - A sweet little townhouse village for little animals made from a cardboard box, paint, sharpies, clear vinyl, ribbon, and scraps of paper and packaging.
7. DIY Kids: Ice Cream Shop – This wonderfully social, imaginary play led me to the recent construction of our next DIY Kids Project… I present to you, the Ice Cream Shop.
Cardboard Toys
8. Cardboard Mailbox – A fun way to create your own post office at home and a fun activity for kids.
9. Cardboard Box Shape Sorter - Put together this smart cardboard shape sorter to help your toddler learn shapes and sizes.
10. Cardboard Dog House – Whimsy-girl constructed a dog house out of a cardboard box – so cute with the roof shingles!
11. Cardboard Box iPod Costume - With a lil paint, minimal artistic talent and a few supplies you will find around your home, you can easily create an iPod costume for your budding music man.
12. Recycled Three Little Pigs Puppet Theater – A darling theatre made out of a box with a fun dry-erase board topper to write the title of the play.
13. Play Dressing Table from a Cardboard Box – Two boxes made into a play dressing table and wrapped in wrapped up in some bright pink self adhesive book covering.
14. Puppet Theater - A refrigerator box turned into a fun puppet theater.
15. Cardboard Box Marble Run - A fun activity for kids that uses several pieces of cardboard taped together to make a fun marble run.
16. DIY: Castle Story Box – A darling Jack in the Beanstalk castle to inspire imaginary play.
17. Cardboard Guitars - Pictured instructions on how to make your own guitars out of a box.
Cardboard Gift Ideas
18. Cardboard Flowers – These would make a lovely gift for grandma or auntie, or if there are any dads reading, it would be a pretty sweet mother’s day gift too.
Cardboard Kitchen
19. Cardboard-Box Oven Craft – Make this lovely cardboard oven with materials from around your home.
20. Cardboard Pizza Making - A fun activity for kids using cardboard and colored paper and other supplies around your home.
21. Cardboard Bedroom Suite - An absolutely darling room decorated with a box dresser, headboard, frame and lamp.
22. Night Owl Birthday Party – This party is so fab! Look how she used cardboard and made the table look like a bed!
Cardboard Transportation
23. Riding Box Cars Tutorial – This is a fun activity that the kids can get involved in making. And boys will love this too!
24. Creative Cars made out of boxes – Make your own race car out of a cardboard box, tape, and other easy supplies.
25. Cardboard Spaceship – A fantastic spaceship with an extra partition glued on to the back to allow for intergalactic personnel transport. {snicker}
26. Giant Rocket ship – Using a potato box as the base for the structure, all the cardboard was brought home after a trip to Costco. It took about 15 sheets of the corrugated cardboard that they have in between the pallets of diaper boxes/toilet rolls/cereal boxes.
27. Train made out of Boxes - A fun and interactive party decor for a train themed outdoor birthday party. Choochoo!
28. Homemade Toy Car Wash – A car wash made for the toy cars out of a box and stuff out of the recycling bin and a pack of those foam sheets.
29. Scooter made from a box - This scooter is seriously so impressive! What kiddo wouldn’t want their own life-sized scooter made out of a box!
30. Cardboard Fire Engine Truck Tutorial - A darling prop and boy-sized toy for a Fire Truck themed birthday party.
31. Cardboard Canoe - Use hot glue and duct tape to bring the ends together at a point to create the canoe shape out of a box.
32. If you want to make a few fun projects, be sure to check out this great article on How to Work With Cardboard. The Ikat Bag shows tons of amazing tutorials on things to make with cardboard. Click on any of the images at the bottom of her post to be taken to that tutorial on how to make it.
If you have a homemade tutorial over on your blog, we’d love to see it! Feel free to submit it to leave your link in the comments or on the Tip Junkie Facebook page. Or if you’re looking for a specific gift, let me know! I’ll be happy to find it for you.
