The YouTube generation has nurtured an entire generation of Do It Yourself craft artists, like cardboard artist, vlogger, and professional nerd L.A. Nuwame, aka The Homemade Game Guru. His official title? YouTube cardboard craft instructor.
After a successful crowdfunding campaign, Nuwame has self-published his first book, a DIY cardboard craft book called “The Cardboard Bible.”
Nuwame appears in his YouTube profile pic wearing a large afro and standing in front of a homemade TARDIS (the time machine from sci-fi show “Doctor Who”). Compared to YouTube’s biggest stars, Nuwame has relatively modest view numbers — about five million. One of his most popular videos, “Homemade Cardboard Doctor Who TARDIS,” has 61,762 views. But even the niche-iest niches can gain a loyal following on YouTube in 2015, and Nuwame wants his book to teach people around the world about the benefits of using cardboard for “upcycling and personal design.”
According to a press release:
“[Nuwame] believes cardboard is the greatest crafting and building material available to all people worldwide. He also believes every single human being has latent creative potential and if given the right encouragement, we all can create amazing things…The unique cardboard concepts featured in the first edition include a living room C-table, a transforming sword with infinite mix-and-match possibilities, an ab-roller exercise device, a functioning treadmill and a foosball table.”
Cardboard, in addition to being widely available, is also highly recyclable. When cardboard is produced from recycled materials, manufacturers use up to 50% less energy than when using raw material from trees. Recycled cardboard also reduces associated pollution by up to 95%, and massively reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills, about 40% of which is made up of paper and cardboard.
“The Cardboard Bible” is a 112-page, full-color manual with five detailed crafts DIY crafters can craft using only cardboard, glue, and other common art supplies. Plus, Nuwame hopes it will promote upcycling to a new generation.
“The idea of this book is to take a free and abundant material usually wasted and challenge people to challenge themselves to create amazing useful products within the comforts of home,” says Nuwame.
Interested crafters can pick up their own copy of “The Cardboard Bible” on Amazon for $19.99.
