Make a Toy Out of Urban Paper

If you like tinkering with paper but don't have the patience for the rigors of origami, there's paper toys.  This book, Urban Paper by Matt Hawkins, in particular has ready-to-cut patterns (26 all in all) for amazing designer toys, and a DVD to boot.  The DVD includes both finished and blank templates, a tutorial, interviews with the toy designers, and 33 bonus templates).

(At Amazon, Urban Paper sells for just $14.  Get it here.)

* * *

Sure, paper toys have got none of origami's purist only-from-a-single-sheet-of-square-paper quality, but designing and structuring these nifty paper models can be a real challenge.  

And while some origamists are wary about publicly distributing their diagrams as if their precious models were a closely-guarded secret, paper toymakers seem bent on the opposite: disseminate everywhere is the motto.

Which is why you can easily download the patterns (think the dotted line drawings you cut out of the back of cereal and pretzel boxes) and print them on good sturdy paper.  With just a few snips of the scissors here and there, some folds where indicated, and a dollop of glue to keep the thing together, you get something crazy like this:

Whimsical, cartoonish, and unapologetically fun, these pop-art -inspired paper toys are bold lines and colors and demeanor all throughout.