Digitprop – Papercraft and Stuff

As social creatures, we have the amazing ability to project a soul into virtually anything that has two eyes and a mouth. This opens up a world of possibilities when it comes to dolls. And sometimes the simplest dolls are the most loved ones. So I set out to create a couple of papercrafted fingerdolls. Voila the fingerdoll bear:

This one is very easy to make, and the only minor difficulty you may encounter is the relatively small size.

Here is the PDF template.

It is a dear tradition in our family to get the kids an advent calendar. Now, for this year I wanted to make something myself rather than buy a run-off-the-mill calendar. And of course, being an advent calendar, it should be related to the story of Christmas.

Voila, enter the DIY nativity scene advent calendar:

The calendar consists of 24 match boxes, each covered with a cut-out figure. Here is the complete tableau:

The match boxes themselves contain candy (in small quantities – I’m all for keeping materialism to reasonable limits, especially around Christmas).

Now, you may wonder why the boxes aren’t numbered, just like they should be for an advent calendar. You can of course do that, but for this year I will do it differently for my kids: Each day, they get one of the boxes (the ones shown, plus enough additional sheep and shepherds to get the 24 complete).

In this way, the nativity scene is gradually revealed, until on Christmas, it will be complete. Which in my mind is much nicer than just having it sitting in the living room long before Christmas.

If you want to make this yourself, the good news is that it’s extremely straightforward: Just print the PDF template on sturdy cardboard, cut it out, and glue it to (empty) match boxes. The template is for boxes that are roughly 35 x 50 mm in size. Fill the boxes with sweets, and you are good to go.

Who says mad scientists aren’t good for anything? Take this guy – while working on his master plan to take over the world, he is happily holding your business card:

But that’s not enough, nooo – he can hold a whole stack of business cards on his back:

This is him when he is accidentally not holding a card – but still doing science:

Just like Dr. Frankenstein with his monster, you can make a card holding mad scientist yourself (provided you have a sheet of cardboard at hand). Here is the PDF template. And if mad scientists just aren’t your style, check out the business card holding butler.

Here is one of the most pressing first world problems: Where to store your business cards. The solution: A very committed butler to hold them:

He will patiently stay put on your desk and show your business card to visitors. Even better: On his back, he holds a whole stack of them cards.

And here he is without a card:

You can make one, too, out of a sheet of cardboard. Here is the template as a PDF file. If the butler is too bourgeois for your taste, check out the mad scientist.

Seems the piggy bank is slowly becoming a series, now that we have a wood version and the Manhattan map version. Be sure to collect them all. Here is the blue planet piggy bank:

Here is the PDF template.

Turns out the piggy bank template is quite versatile.Here is a Manhattan map edition:

The map is from the OpenStreetMap project.

Here is the PDF template.

I’ve made a nice little template for a papercraft piggy bank. Exactly the right thing if you want to save up for a special occasion. Or to wrap up a monetary gift. It’s admittedly rather light, being made of paper and such. So to give it more weight, at least visually, I wrapped it in a wood texture:

Here are more views:

The textures are sourced from Flickr (Creative Commons, of course) users L.C. Nøttaasen and planetoftheweb – thanks, guys, for making these available!

If you make this, make sure that the coin slot has the right size for your currency. The one in the template is suitable for Euro coins (as long as we still have them, haha). Here is the rear view:

So how do you get at your money in the end? There is a built-in perforated lid at the bottom – just tear it open and voila: Happy shopping spree. It’s even resealable… sort of.

If you want to make this yourself, here is the PDF template.

Meet Randy the office rat. He’s a pretty nice guy – if you know him better.

In fact, Randy’s the coworker of your dreams. If you dream of coworkers like Randy, that is.

And the best thing about Randy? It just so happens you can build him yourself.

Here is the template in PDF format.

This is fairly simple and doesn’t require glueing, although some precision cutting: A paper rocket made of interlocking parts:

It’s not the most stable toy, and in fact is more something to look at than to play with. However, I like the kind of minimalistic charm of it. Here is how to assemble it:
First, you have to print both sides onto carboard, i.e. you print the front first, then turn the page and insert it into the printer again and print the back. This will not be 100% aligned (the quality of the alignment depends on the paper feed mechanism of your printer). The template accounts for that by adding some bleed to the shapes. Nevertheless, it’s a good idea to try to align the paper as accurately as possible. After printing and cutting, you should have five shapes:

Interlock the two rocket shaped parts like so:

That was the easy part. Now use the three disks to stabilize everything. This is an “automatically” interlocking system. The biggest disk goes into the middle, the second biggest to the bottom and the smallest to the apex of the rocket. Interlocking the disks is a bit tricky and requires some bending of the material. You will have to carefully bend the cardboard back once everything is in place. Start with the middle incision and slide it into the bottom-most incision in the rocket:

Make sure that the disk is parallel to the rocket shape, not angled, i.e. at this stage it needs to be vertically aligned, not horizontally:

Once it is in place, you have to carefully bend it upwards  on one side and downwards on the other, until the incisions on the disk and the opposing rocket part interlock:

Now carefully bend the disk into it’s original, flat shape, and you are all set:

Do it for the other two disks as well, and voila: Your own personal paper rocket, ready to take to the stars:

Here is the template in PDF format:

• Front page
• Back page

This little project is quite a contrast to the previously made P-Body- Not surprisingly, actually, as this was commissioned by a 4-year old girl. And girlish it is indeed:

A nice little cottage.

This can be used as a toy, or just for decoration.

The original template is a little small for playing, so you may consider scaling this up. The good news is that this is really easy to build. The template is fairly self-explanatory and should be doable even for young children (say, starting from 6-8 years? My four year old isn’t quite ready yet, though).

When I say, it’s little, I mean it. Here it is on a CD for size comparison:

Here is a different color scheme, less kitsch, more swedish cottage:

They go together quite well, and in fact with a little patience you can build a small town out of them. If there is sufficient interest in other color schemes, I will consider adding more. And probably new house types as well. Let’s see.

Here are the templates as PDFs, both for the white and red version:

White cottage (PDF)

Red cottage (PDF)