Theater Open Today: 10:15 AM - 4:15 PM

Holiday Magic, Cardboard Style

Step inside a winter wonderland with a twist: everything is made of cardboard! Cardboard: Build Outside the Box is now Cardboard: The Workshop. 

We don't want to brag but The Workshop might be the best place for gift-making, second to the North Pole. Come inside and see how to make a holiday present, an ornament, a menorah and more—all out of cardboard. Then, wrap it up with cardboard wrapping paper that you design and get ready to give the best gift.

Cardboard: The Workshop invites you to step outside the box and into the holiday spirit.

Cardboard: The Workshop is free with admission

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Crafting Tomorrow's Solutions from Today's Material

Cardboard is one of the most versatile materials. With one simple cut, fold or piece of tape, cardboard turns into anything you want it to be — all you have to do is use your imagination. Cardboard: The Workshop invites you to explore the exhibit’s different sections that encourage you to design and create with cardboard in ways you never thought possible.

  • Master the art of cardboard by making stained glass creations and sculptures
  • Create your own ornament and holiday decorations
  • Engineer the future by designing what cars and rockets will look like in 50 years before watching them fly
  • Make a holiday present and wrap it up with DIY cardboard wrapping paper
  • Create holiday cardboard characters for a shadow puppet theater that you stage and produce
  • Construct the Toledo of Tomorrow by creating our community’s future infrastructure out of cardboard

Get ready to unbox your creativity and discover how one simple material can inspire boundless creativity.

Sustainability Meets Creativity

Cardboard has more capabilities than what we normally see it as. Because it's made of paper fibers, cardboard can be manipulated into different shapes and configurations allowing creations from your imagination to take shape.

Cardboard combines your creativity with the sustainability of cardboard into one exhibit. By using recycled cardboard, the exhibit helps reduce the demand for new resources, conserves energy and enhances the science center's sustainability efforts.

In partnership with Welch Packaging, all discarded cardboard in the exhibit will be properly recycled. Welch Packaging will also join the science center to teach kids how to create with cardboard, reuse cardboard and help our planet by recycling cardboard.

Cardboard is free with admission.