Monday, March 19, 2012

Random Cardboard Facts




Here I am, swinging violently between sewing and cardboard again. Today's post is about some interesting cardboard facts I learned this past week. How did I find out all this stuff? When I get bored, I surf the web and read about cardboard, that's how. And you thought your life was strange.

Random Cardboard Fact #1
is this video on how cardboard boxes are made. I'm annoyed at myself for not finding this earlier and sharing it with you all. My kids love watching videos of how things are made. And my dream vacation(s) all involve visiting some kind of factory - chocolate, cheese, fabric, bubble gum, crayons, Legos, die cut moulds, non-stick pots, light bulbs, silicon chips, anything. And cardboard, of course.




Random Cardboard Fact #2 is this stamp you often see on the bottoms of cardboard boxes.
If you've never noticed these before, it means you don't love cardboard boxes enough. Anyway, I've seen them but I've never actually understood what they meant. Found this website that explains it all.

See - these are from a couple of amazon boxes - different numbers mean different strengths.

This is from another shipping box, whose strength is measured in the other unit of strength, as explained on the website:

And this is a printed box (i.e. not brown) - same information, but without the circle.


And here's another page on their site that tells you about the structures of different sorts of corrugated cardboard. It's similar to what I wrote about in that cardboard post, but they have nicer illustrations.


How did I find this website? It was advertised on the back of a truck in front of us while we were out driving last week. Fate? More like a miraculous sign. Before you scoff, answer this: how many of you have found yourselves behind trucks with cardboard websites on them? Eh? Eh? Incidentally, we tailed the truck in the hopes of finding out where it was heading (a cardboard warehouse, please, please, please......). It was like a slow-speed car chase, but with everyone obeying traffic rules. And then we lost it at a red light. Curses. Maybe it wasn't a sign from heaven after all.


Anyway, from all this delectable cardboard information, we can learn two important things:

  1. How to choose strong cardboard if you are the sort that prefers to look at numbers rather than touch the actual thing. Maybe the same kind of dichotomy exists in cardboard people as it does in fabric people - you know, the sort that enjoy buying fabric according to the content statistics (95% cotton, 5% rayon etc) vs. the sort to whom numbers mean nothing, and prefer to pull and poke the actual stuff.
  2. Where to find cardboard warehouses and cardboard suppliers so you can trespass secretly lurk in the car park in the hopes of finding an employee to make friends with.

Random Cardboard Fact #3
Cardboard People are slobs. Here's an undoctored shot of my sewing room when I'm at the cardboard end of my creative spectrum. 


Frightening, yes? Even I hate it. Let's take the tour:

  • A: Perler bead station, which the children have abandoned because they couldn't stand to be in the same room with Manic Mother
  • B: Fabric closet - very neat compared the cardboard explosion on the floor
  • C: Random side craft (woodworking) - wood glue, wood filler, C clamps, nails, drill bits etc
  • D: Cardboard explosion
  • E: Arsenal of cardboard boxes
  • F: Glue gun with safety catch on i.e. unplugged
  • G: Finished cardboard projects (school lockers for 18-inch dolls)

This is what it looks like between projects, by the way. It's even worse when a project is actually going on. Speaking of projects, there's one coming up tomorrow. Here's a teaser shot:

Wanna guess?


7 comments:

  1. LOVE this post from one fellow cardboard lover to another....

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  2. Ha ha! The room looks exactly like mine, then the toy is done! :)

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  3. It's a love letter press (or krumkakke? or something like that).

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  4. My guess was cupcake stand too.

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  5. Double tiered cake stand with handle.

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