THE BEST Cardboard

(Gore) The guys from Cardboard Movie Co. love to do low-budget remakes of popular movies. We’re particularly impressed with their redo of Ridley Scott’s science fiction horror classic, Alien, which somehow manages to balance on the thin line between quality filmmaking and ridiculously low budget effects.

Raphaël makes incredibly detailed papercraft models for his YouTube channel Epic Cardboard Props. In this clip he walks us through the process of building a miniature of Han and Chewie’s ship. He’s also made a cardboard Death Star and an X-Wing Fighter, among other things. He sells DIY templates for his models here.

You’d think that cardboard wouldn’t be a great homebuilding material, but Fiction Factory says their tiny cardboard house is durable enough for permanent structures. The tiny house is assembled using layers of premium “goldboard” which is wrapped around a special mold, then covered with glue, a protective film, and wooden slats.

Cardboard builder The S shows off one of his more entertaining creations, a motor-driven cardboard weapon that fires Mentos. Its magazine holds up to 1000 of the chewy mint candies, enough to eradicate even the worst dragon breath from a distance.

So you want a Ferrari, but you only have $100 to spend. Financial limitations didn’t stop these young men from Vietnam from getting what they wanted. Using cardboard, fiberglass, a metal frame, and a whole lot of effort, they built a rough approximation of an Ferrari FXX-K… and it actually can drive. They also made a Lamborghini.

With the goal of providing an inexpensive way to help people work from home, Denmark-based designers Stykka created a home office desk that you assemble from cardboard and zip ties. You can purchase it as a kit in regular or standing heights, or download a template to make your own from sheets of cardboard.

Cloud’s Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII is one of the coolest weapons in gaming history. While a real world version would be too heavy to effectively wield, one made from cardboard is totally manageable. Watch as Crafty Transformer turns a bunch of corrugated paper into a lightweight replica of the iconic combat tool.

Sean Yan Muk of SeansCrafts loves to make stuff out of ordinary household materials. This time out, he created a pair of impressively accurate Nike Air Force 1 sneakers out of cardboard, then wore the pair into footwear stores to check out the reactions when he asked if they had them in stock.

It might not be strong enough to stop an actual bear, but this pointy-toothed trap made from cardboard, a ruler, skewers, and rubber bands can definitely bust some balloons. Mr. Hot Glue’s Family walks us through the build of his silly contraption with an equally silly video clip.

The Q takes a gamble with this build – a fully-functional slot machine built from cardboard, popsicle sticks, and hot glue. We love the detail he included on the reels to make it look like the real deal. Stick around for a few other fun DIY builds in this compilation video.

We have fond childhood memories of playing one of those tabletop hockey games and trying to smash the puck into our friend’s goal. Maker Sean Yan Muk of SeansCrafts decided to build himself a version of the classic game using cardboard, curtain rods, popsicle sticks, springs, and toy soldiers.

Sean’s Crafts loves to build things out of cardboard, rubber bands, and other low-budget household items. Here, he shows off a homebrew weapon he built that can hold and fire up to six NERF foam darts. Its revolver doesn’t automatically turn, but it’s still pretty nifty.

You can pick up a cheap paper shredder for about 20 bucks, but what fun is that when you can build your own? The Q shows off a homebrew shredder that does the trick using sharpened metal discs. It’s missing the safety mechanisms that production shredders offer, so DIY at your own risk.

Kousheek Chakraborty and Satya Schiavina of Technovation show off a nifty design for a longboard with an quarter iso-grid cardboard center sandwiched between two layers of acrylic. While it looks reasonably stable for slow cruising, we’re not sure you’d want to do tricks on it. Check out the full build log on Instructables.

Off-road vehicles are designed to be capable of handling extremely rugged terrain. But builder Liberman’s remote-controlled cardboard and popsicle stick model of a Jeep Wrangler is anything but durable. Sure, it looks really cool, but riding through wet and muddy ruts means it’s gonna need frequent tire changes.

Maker The Q built this awesome larger-than-life, fully-articulated LEGO minifig costume using cardboard and hot glue. With more than three weeks left until Halloween, you should have plenty of time to try and replicate the design yourself. Are you up to the challenge?

Crafty Transformer takes the cardboard boxes he receives Amazon orders in and converts them into awesome weapons and machines inspired by video games. Among our favorites are the Gundam wrench mace, the Yu-Gi-Oh! duel disk, and the Monster Hunter bowgun.

The Q has built some pretty nifty mechanical contraptions from cardboard, and here’s another. Watch as he turns a mix of cardbaord, paper, rubber bands, springs, and popsicle sticks into a working model of a 7-segment numeric display, like you might find on alarm clock.

Sure, you can go out and buy an off-the-shelf replica of Iron Man’s infinity gauntlet from Avengers: Endgame, but there’s something so satisfying about building your own. Seanscrafts shows us his DIY gauntlet he made using cardboard, a glove, hot glue, and paints.

Have you ever gotten a box from Amazon that’s way too big for the item packed inside? The CMC Cartonwrap 1000 solves this problem by scanning the item to be packed inside, then making a custom-sized box for it. It’s not ideal for fragile items, though it looks like they’re working on that.

YouTuber GaffeGuy built himself a massive revolver out of cardboard. The finished papercraft weapon measures in at about 10 feet in length. He claims it can actually fire, but he saved showing that off for the last couple of seconds of the video.

Like many other makers, SKM loves to build things from cardboard. This time, he used what appears to be an off-the-shelf template to create a model of Iron Man’s iconic helmet, though this one is guaranteed to offer absolutely no level of protection to its wearer.

The Q show off another one of their awesome low-budget builds, a robot arm that’s made primarily from cardboard and popsicle sticks, and controlled by plastic syringes filled with colored liquid. If there’s anyone we’d want to be stranded on a desert island with, it’s these guys.

It might look like a stool, but this is actually a book. Designed by Mike Mak, Bookniture’s cardboard honeycomb structure can hold over a ton, and folds up into a book for storage when not in use. Measures 13.5″h x 14″ dia when in use, 13″h x 7″w x 1.5″d when folded.

While SKM’s cardboard typewriter doesn’t actually work, it’s still an impressive build, with lots of neat details, a cantilevered keyboard, a turning roller, and a hidden compartment that lets it output a pre-typed page for fun.

Serial maker The Q used over 530 square feet of cardboard and more than 100 hot glue sticks to build this 1/3rd scale model of a Formula 1 race car. After he finished building the structure, he went on to give the car a proper racing livery.