Cardboard-Clay Puppet Magic

Our weaving wilderness friends have been hard at work with life sized puppet making. After constructing the basic forms of our critters we spent some time recycling cardboard into paper clay to seal and refine them. Last session we hand shredded cardboard and soaked the bits to begin our clay making process.

Once soaked the cardboard was ready for blending, straining, and mixing up. You can find many beginner friendly recipes online, though ours included cardboard, wood glue, and flour.

We then delicately applied thin patties of cardboard clay to our sculptures, concealing layers of plastic, tape, and cardboard. Adding this “skin” coat really transformed our pieces from composites of recycled packaging materials into fantastic forest-dwelling critters.