Printable Treehouse Playset

I was captivated by this printable treehouse playset offered on the Brother Creative Center website. My children would have really been into something like this when they were younger. The three level treehouse has a room (complete with furniture!) on each level. Think of it as a stackable dollhouse. The six residents of the dollhouse are deer, rabbits, and owls. Hats off to Brother for creating such an imaginative papercraft!

Other Papercraft Playsets:

Pirate Ship
Santa's House
Star Trek Bridge
Dukes of Hazzard
Ecofriendly Pop-up Dollhouse

Easy Printable Pirate Ship Playset

The old family.disney.com website (later known as "Spoonful") had lots of great papercraft projects parents could do with children. But alas, the Spoonful website shut down in 2014. One of the Spoonful projects I liked, was this easy printable pirate ship. The playset included a 3D ship, cannons, and some 2D pirate figures (including a few skeleton crew members!) An archived copy of the playset's PDF template (along with instructions) may be found at this: download link. Besides paper, what else is required to build this ship are some drinking straws to hold the sails to the masts.

Other Spoonful Paper Projects:

Princess Paper Dolls
18" Jack Skellington Figure
3D Nemo Papercraft
Wonderland Easter Diorama
Teardrop Mickey

Balancing Monkey Paper Toy

I love when 3D papercraft can also be an actual toy! Case in point is this balancing monkey paper toy by Salazad. The official title of this toy is "Monyi the Acrobat Monkey". What makes this balancing act work is placing a penny in each of Monyi's fruit baskets. The PDF template for this papertoy may be downloaded at Salazad.com.

Other Fun Papercraft:

Russian Nesting Dolls
Rolling Ball Kinetic Sculpture
Minecraft Automata
Playful Circus Wagon
Cranky Automata Animals

Papercraft Matryoshka Dolls

The first matryoshka dolls were produced by a Russian woodworker in 1890. Since that time, these type of nesting dolls have become an enduring symbol of Russian culture. Canon Creative Park has created a functional, printable papercraft version of a matryoshka doll, complete with detailed instructions. The PDF files necessary to build the doll may be downloaded for free here.  Outside of Russia, these type of dolls go by other names including "babushka dolls" and "stacking dolls".

Other Printable Toys:

Robo Battle Pigs
Tron Light Cycle Game
Disney Villains Bowling
Colorful Cootie Catchers
Minecraft Chess

Printable Rolling Ball Kinetic Sculpture

Artist Andrew Frueh describes his papercraft Ball & Ramp system as a "folded-paper rolling ball sculpture toy". Rolling ball sculptures are a form of kinetic art that make use of gravity to roll small balls through a series of ramps and other contraptions. Frueh's glue-less system makes use of three basic components: a ramp, a cone, and a basket. Free PDF templates for the components may be downloaded from the Ball & Ramp website. As Ball & Ramp is an open-source toy, it will be exciting to see how the toy grows and evolves with input from creative people around the world.