1-2-3 Come Do Some Crimping With Me

Crimping? What's crimping? It's a wonderful way to add that finishing touch to your students' crafts. Alicia, over at Jam Paper, contacted me and asked if I would be willing to design some sort of craft activity using their paper.   Of course! (They have "every color and every size!" including brown which is rather unusual and perfect for fall.)

I checked out their site and found that they also carried an awesome tool called a "corru-gator"  which crimps paper!  Well the creative juices kicked in and my brain went into over drive, with all of the fun things I could do with one. The more I pondered, the more excited I got.  I hope you will too. 

I chose the "wave" pattern for it's versatility. (One with straight lines, that crimps like corrugated cardboard, is also available.)  I'm sure scrapbookers are well aware of these fun gadgets, but I wanted to figure out ways a teacher could use one in the classroom. 

One of the reasons that this is great for school, is that it has a width of 8 1/2 inches, so it will fit a regular sheet of paper, (smaller sizes too) as well as card stock thickness, so you can add texture to just about any project.

The corru-gator is a safe and easy-to-use-tool even for little ones.  Inserting a sheet of paper and cranking the roller, is wonderful fine motor practice that is a super-fun way to strengthen finger muscles, which is so important for pre-writing skills and scissor cutting capability.

A child's excitement at seeing their finished project being cranked out, with a cool texured look, is priceless.  "Wow! Look what I made."  

Because students will want to add that "finishing touch" to whatever you deem appropriate, use the tool as an incentive to keep students focussed, by allowing them to use the crimper after they have completed their project. 

What kinds of projects? Oh the possibilities... Here are just a few that I thought of:

Students can crimp a file folder (portfolio) or pocket folder to keep their work in.  The "Flip For Facts" file folder activities that I've posted also look more interesting after they're crimped too.  Make sure you use plenty of glue on projects to be crimped and that they are completely dry.

Crimp shapes, letters and numbers to add a bit of pizzazz. Use Elison die cut letters and have students glue them together to make a name plate then crimp it, or simply have them write and color their names and then add the texture. 

When students make a special card for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, or Father's Day, allow them to crimp it to add that "wow" factor or have them crimp the envelope for something different.

Crimp your plain colored bulletin board borders to add some 3D pop.  Have students design a bookmark and then crimp it. 

Crimp a writing prompt topper, or even the written page.  I crimped the entire haunted house 5 senses craftivity to add an extra touch of creepy. As I've discussed before, tossing in a bit of hands-on art to go along with a writing prompt, simply gets students more motivated. 

Completed projects make awesome displays, which help build self-esteem. 

Crimping only takes a minute and the unusual results will surely get all sorts of comments.  Everyone wanted to know how we made these cool tri-colored apples.

A myriad of themed craft activities are also perfect for crimping.  Here are just a few:

For Fall: crimp apples, pumpkins, scarecrows, bats, spiders, candy corn, skeletons, & monsters.

Studying fire safety? As you can see by the photograph, flames look awesome crinkled and definitely add that finishing touch!

Are you studying leaves?  Paper leaves look wonderful crimped.

I designed this fall dangler then added the texture for an interesting 3D effect.

Trees are also the perfect craft to crinkle.  

My students partnered up and traced their arm and hand with fingers spread to make an apple tree and then ran it through the corru-gator.  

The pumpkin sliders gained extra pizzazz by being "munched and crunched". (My Y5's have named this cool tool "The Muncher Cruncher".)

Our pumpkin Venn Friends turned out especially cool with a little crimping.

I LOVE that the size of this tool accommodates an entire project. 

The scarecrow's face and hat, look extra special when crimped, which gave it more of a burlap look. I also ran yellow paper through a shredder to make the hair.

Thinking ahead to WINTER: Crimp Christmas trees, ornaments, snowmen, snow scenes, and mittens.

Do you celebrate 100 Day?  Have students draw a self portrait of how they think they'll look if they get to be 100-years-old, then crimp for instant wrinkles, or simply crimp a real photo of them.

For Groundhog Day, crimp children's groundhog craftivities to give those animals some "fur".  Are you studying shadows? Using a light source, trace your students' profile, trim and crimp. 

For Valentine's Day add texture to paper hearts.  If you study Abraham Lincoln, crimp a log cabin.

Moving on to Spring: Crimp rain, the water cycle, a Seuss hat, butterflies, caterpillars, shamrocks, flowers, grass, eggs, baskets, bunnies, lions, and lambs.

As you can see I'm pretty excited about the educational potential of this fun gadget, and at $24.50 it's certainly an affordable tool to add to your teaching bag of tricks. 

To take a look at the corru-gators over at Jam Paper, click on the link.  They also have a large variety of paper choices, as well as other office supplies. 

If you're going to do the Frankenstein envelope activity with your kiddos that I posted a few days ago, they also sell the green envelopes. Your kiddos could also crimp their completed envelope monsters too.

Speaking of envelopes, if you do a Chinese New Year Theme in February, and want to get some red coin envelopes to do a few of my Chinese New Year activities with, they sell the perfect 3 x 5.5 size.

Well that's it for today.  I'm going to play around a bit more with this fun gadget to see what else I can come up with. 

If you've thought of another way to use the tool, or an activity you plan to do with your kiddos, I'd enjoy hearing from you: diane@teachwithme.com  or feel free to leave a comment below.

"There is a great distance between said and done." - Puerto Rican proverb