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Papertoy Monsters, a fun cardboard creature making book

Mark Frauenfelder at 1:52 pm Mon, Jan 17, 2011

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My seven-year-old daughter and I spent a couple of hours this weekend putting together a few cardboard creatures from a new book called Papertoy Monsters. It comes with 50 die-cut templates of different kinds of colorful and whimsical monsters. You just pop them out, fold along the lines, and glue them together.

papertoy-monsters.jpg

We started with the monsters designated as "easy" and then moved on to the "intermediate" monsters. I think we are ready to tackle some of the "advanced" monsters next.

After the jump you can take a closer look at some of the creatures we made.

Papertoy Monsters

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papertoy-monsters-2.jpg

papertoy-monsters-3.jpg

papertoy-monsters-4.jpg

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papertoy-monsters-6.jpg

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Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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  • Anonymous

    The dude in the Y-front underoos is my fave.

  • Hobbinski

    This looks so good I just ordered it! I, like i_prefer_yeti, am wondering what glue to use. In the pictures it appears that some sort of glue stick is being used. Any recommendations? Thanks!

  • ArtF

    Hey if you like paper toys check out my website Uncleghastly.blogspot.com
    and
    nicepapertoys.com

    lots of great stuff!

  • i_prefer_yeti

    I have just purchased said book. I look forward to hours of frustrated gluing, folding, re-gluing, stapling, fits of screaming, tearful pleadings, and other fun with my son. I particularly like the idea of immolating our bastard creations.

    Thanks Mark!

  • Mark Frauenfelder

    We used a gluestick. It was the only glue we had in the house. But it did the trick even better than glue, I’d say.

  • mmechanic

    I brought home the copy the publisher sent to Mother Jones to see if my 8-year-old would like it. Like it? He was totally OBSESSED! He woke up at six the next morning to start making the monsters. He quotes their goofy characteristics, and he brought the book to school the next day for show and tell. When my wife arrived for pickup, he was under one of the play structures, surrounded by a crowd of envious kids. A few of the monsters were easy enough for my six year old girl. So, um, yeah. If you have a seven-to-nine year old, this one’s a winner.

    • i_prefer_yeti

      sweet! Hey! What glue did you use?

      • mmechanic

        Kids were using a gluestick, and then Elmer’s

  • Anonymous

    gluesticks are the way to go for this type of work, IMHO. They are much lower moisture than Elmer’s so there’s no warping or wrinkling, and it’s almost impossible to over apply – no runs, no drips, no errors!

  • Anonymous

    So cool that the parts are actually die cut for punching out.

    By comparison makes the you-cut-it-out book creators/publishers look cheap and lazy!

  • Anonymous

    So cool that the parts are actually die cut for punching out.

    By comparison makes the you-cut-it-out book creators/publishers look cheap and lazy!

  • The Hamster King

    We had an MLK Day lunch at GReats today. Afterward we walked over to the Giant Robot store to browse and picked up this book. My ten-year-old daughter was still poring over it when she went to bed. Funny to see it on Boing Boing the same day we stumbled on it!