Cardboard art has been fascinating me lately. This cardboard portrait of Austin Powers is not only ‘green’ but groovy too! At Birdz of a Feather ~ Craft Rehab, we’re about to get our craft mojo on; yeah baby!

Cardboard Art

I’ve been playing around with ideas on how to utilize pictures and decided to try cardboard art. Specifically, a portrait cut into cardboard. What could be more sustainable than upcycling a piece of corrugated cardboard from a box? It’s also easy on the pocketbook because the cardboard is free!

I found this picture of Austin Powers on the internet and sized it to print 8 1/2″ x 11″. However, you could utilize the same technique and use your own photograph by converting a colour picture to black and white using the threshold settings in photoshop (see ‘Working with Your Own Headshot Photo” further ahead).

The corrugation adds to the contrast, so decide whether you want the lines running vertically or horizontally (I chose vertical for mine).

I first changed the grey in the internet picture to white in photoshop because I wanted a two-tone effect.

Watch the groovy video (and subscribe to our YouTube Channel while you’re at it!) then continue reading to get your craft mojo on!

Materials for Cardboard Art Portrait

* [If you’re looking for some of the things we used, we’ve got you covered (disclosure): Clicking on the affiliate links below means we may receive a commission. But don’t worry, you don’t pay a cent more and it helps us make more unique crafts to share with you! Thanks for helping to support our blog!]

• Corrugated cardboard
• Painters tape
• Home printer
• Craft/X-acto knife
• Sculpting tools (as shown below)
• Pencil
• Curved scissors

Print Black and White Image

Print your picture. I mirror-imaged it first because I initially thought I could flip it upside down on the cardboard and use a pencil to trace the image onto the background. I thought the printer ink would show up if I pressed hard enough but unfortunately that didn’t work out.

I thought of using carbon paper, but couldn’t find it. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t because it would inevitably show up on the finished piece if I didn’t cut accurately. I even tried rubbing pencil on the back and then tracing, but the pencil just smudged everywhere!

Instead, I cut out some of the white areas with a curved pair of scissors, then taped the image to the cardboard with painters tape. I cut right around and through the paper with an X-acto knife. Even though I ended up using the mirror image of the original picture, I wasn’t too fussed about it.

When you place your image on the cardboard, don’t forget to position it so it lines up either horizontally or vertically with the corrugated lines. When done, remove the paper. The image below shows the faint image you’ll get after cutting. It doesn’t look like much now, but it will!

Go Over Again

Ensure that all your cuts have pierced through the top layer. Go over any areas that didn’t get cut through with the X-acto knife, paying particular attention to the corners and small details so you won’t have any problems lifting the top layer.

Remove Top Layer of Cardboard

Start with large areas first and then do the details. Insert the sculpting tool underneath an edge and use it to help lift the top layer of cardboard, exposing the corrugation beneath.

When trying to lift around areas you want to keep, bridge across the area with the sculpting tool, as shown, and slide it along to prevent breakout.

My sculpting tool had a double end (flat and offset). The offset end shown below comes in handy for running along the corrugated lines to remove the glue and help lift the top layer.

Take Your Time with the Cardboard Portrait

Go slow and work on each area at a time.

You may need to use the X-acto knife on occasion too so keep it handy.

Yeah Baby!

A picture of Austin Powers wouldn’t be complete without a catch phrase! I printed out the text on white paper, cut the letters out and arranged them.

I use a pencil to lightly trace around each letter and then cut them with the X-acto knife. Then I use a ruler to help with the straight lines and free-handed the rest.

Consider the font style when making your selection; a non-serif font such as Arial would probably be more legible, but I wanted to experiment.

Your Cardboard Art is Done!

Clean up any stray bits of cardboard and voila!

Now onto using your own headshot!

Make Your Own Cardboard Art

Working with Your Own Photo

This would be a fun project to do if you have photos of members of the family that you want to use instead of pulling something off the internet. It’s just like making a stencil!

You’ll need a high res photo and graphic software program, such as Photoshop. Note that I’m using Photoshop CS5.5; the whereabouts of each feature in your version may be slightly different.

If your picture is not a headshot, just crop it close and make it into one.

Because I couldn’t find a high res shot of Austin, I’m going to demonstrate how to do this with a picture of Kiera Knightly. Here’s the step-by-step:.

Step 1. Open your colour picture in Photoshop. Use the lasso tool (or any other tool you’re comfortable with) to outline the headshot.

Step 2. Go up to the toolbar and click Select / Inverse.

Step 3. Delete the Background.

Step 4. Copy the layer (Ctrl J on a PC or Command J on a Mac). I like to keep the original as-is just so I can always refer back to it if I have to.

Step 5. Click on Image / Adjustments / Threshold in the toolbar.

Step 6. Adjust threshold so you have a good balance of detail. Mine ended up being 103, but yours might differ.

Step 7. On the toolbar, click Filter / Filter Gallery / Cutout.

Step 8. Soften the lines in Cutout by sliding the bars for Number of Levels, Edge Simplicity and Edge Fidelity. I used 2, 0 and 1 for my settings but yours may differ.

Step 9. Finished ‘stencil’ is ready to print.

Get Your Craft Mojo On!

Visit our Craft Rehab category for upcycle crafts and more!

Get your craft mojo on at Birdz of a Feather and subscribe if you don’t want to miss another unique idea! Follow right here for more great crafty projects and home & garden DIYs. You can also follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Here are a few of the things you may have missed if you haven’t yet subscribed:

• Soda Bottle Vertical Garden
• DIY Indoor Water Fountain
• Paint Stick Pallet
• Blue Jean Planter
• Paint Chip Art
• Craft Rehab category to explore more….

Pin Cardboard Art

If you enjoyed this Austin Powers cardboard art project, go ahead and pin it!

SaveSave

Save

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave