It's SUMMER!! PAPER ROBOTS

You HAVE to check these out. I did a blog post about the paper robots back in 2012, and since then the website that offers the templates has shut down.

I spent several hours this evening searching for a way to find the templates, and finally found them in a comment from a youtube video of someone making the models.




I cannot tell you how great these are. Every single boy I have ever worked with.......

and it's quite a few....... I volunteer in the art department at a KG through High school -- has LOVED them.

One boy got so into it about seven years ago that he never gave it up. He has just graduated and is going  into paper model design as a career.  It all started with the paper robots.

They actually had to ban these for a while at the school where my son went because he and his friend were just playing (well having battles) with them all day. Yes, it's an alternative school so they could play a lot!!

These are good for ages 6yrs (with some help) to adult !!
 

Cherish this link, and make some or all of them! Let me know how many kids get hooked.

*We made ours bigger by enlarging and printing on several sheets.

http://web.archive.org/web/20150219052809/http://paperrobots1999.com/models.html

All credit goes to the genius behind paperrobots1999 who created these.

Here is the list of characters you will find and can print out:

Blank Robot - design your own character
Birdman
Magnus Prime-
Optimus Prime - these transform into trucks!
Ash
Blue Steel
Spider Man
Black Spider Man
Jetfire - transforms into a jet
Megatron
The Bride

Bluesteel

Jetfire in plane mode

                                                                                                    

DIY Star Wars Lightsabers

Star Wars Lightsabers

Things change quickly with kids.  Just when you think they're so into something that will never end, it gets replaced by a new interest. It might be because of a  movie they watch, a video game, or just what is trending with their friends and youtube.
Most recently, the interest in my house is about Star Wars. All six of the movies. Since we do lots of projects with paper and cardboard, we decided to try lightsabers. We were waiting till we could get our hands on some store bought FX lightsabers made by Hasbro, but it's more fun to make your own!

Originally we did a search for paper models to find some good lightsaber hilts. The one we found that looked really good was waay too complicated to make. 
So instead we  made our own.

We started with cardboard rolls from paper towels. 

Paper Craft!

My last blog post was about paper robots. Which I may say are totally awesome!!!!

But let's not stop with the robots. (Though they get played with the most by far)

The Canon website I mentioned and put the link to http://cp.c-ij.com/en/contents/1006/ is where you can find all sorts of things from animals to vehicles to historical buildings and monuments!

We spent days making a model Nascar pictured above. It's kind of fun to get into a really complicated model, as long as it comes with good instructions!

We really like this simple Nascar model (not the one above)  http://papertoys.com/nascar.htm  
 

As our house fills up with baskets of paper models, we started looking for Star Wars themes. We found a nice one for   R2-D2 which we haven't actually made yet. If you've made it let me know how it is!!

While making all these models my son also makes up his own stuff. The picture below is a giant robot he made from a cartoon he was watching at the time. This robot was made in several hours.

The hands on the robot have cylinder/rectangular joints for the fingers.

This was so much fun and we were recycling too!

Keep checking back for more ideas on crafts and helpful tips from experience!!

Paper Robots

                          I discovered Awesome Paper Models

Have you ever wondered how to spend lots and lots of quiet time with your kids?  Last year I discovered a world of paper models.

Paper modeling is fun, yeah -- but when you see these robots it becomes an addiction!!

Paper Robots. They are the absolute best!!! They are basically action figures. The added fun is that you get to design your characters. When you finish a few, no need to buy action figures - paper robots are here !!