344 Shares

Do you have kids who are forever crumpling and mussing your important papers? Then I have a fun art project for you…

Crumple Art Cards!

As your children make the art for these homemade cards they don’t need to worry about keeping their pages neat- they are destined to be crumpled anyway. The crumpling is actually part of the art! This project is a great way to do collaborative art with children of different ages because even when the art styles and abilities are totally different crumpling them will give them a unified artistic feel.

I was inspired to make crumple art with my kids by a fad that went through my third grade class when I was growing up. I have no idea where we got the idea, but the girls in my class spent hours turning pieces of paper into “paper towels” by wadding the papers into a ball and then unfolding them- over and over again. We were fascinated by the soft, cloth-like squares that were the result and that looked dramatically different from their original paper forms.

Homemade Cards

To make a unique homemade card from crumple art, start with a piece of card stock. Fold it in half to make the base of your card. {It would probably be more dramatic to use a color of card stock different from the paper you plan to use; I didn’t think of that until after my project} Cut squares of paper roughly the size and shape of the sides of your card. Give one square to each child to decorate with markers. For children who are old enough, encourage them to cover the entire paper with their coloring. After they have their masterpiece, tell them that you love it so much you want them to wad it into a ball. {You can have some fun with the confusion!} They will need to crumple and undo it about 20 times or more before it is fully soft and supple. Be careful not to crumple it too much; if you see that it is about to tear, it’s time to stop. Show your children that the crumpled art is noticeably smaller than the original {even when you lay it flat}. Talk with them about why that might be. Flatten out the paper as much as possible and glue to a panel of the card. Label each paper with the name of the artist on the frame of card stock around the paper. Enjoy sending the card to someone who will enjoy knowing you all collaborated on it!