So, the other day, I found myself with a stack of old magazines. You know how it is, they just pile up. And an idea popped into my head – could I actually make something like a rugby ball out of them? Not for a proper game, of course, but just for a bit of a challenge, a bit of fun.
My first instinct, like most people I reckon, was just to grab a bunch of pages and scrunch them up. Real simple, right? Well, that didn’t quite work out. Ended up with something that looked more like a lumpy, misshapen potato. Definitely not the sleek oval I was picturing. It was clear that just winging it wasn’t going to cut it.
I figured I needed a bit more of a plan. So, I started by tearing out individual pages. Lots of them. My thinking was, if I could get some control over the individual bits, I could build up the shape I wanted.
Laying the Groundwork
My next step was to start rolling these pages. I tried to roll them up as tight as I could, making these dense little paper logs. My first few attempts weren’t great – they kept unravelling. A bit frustrating, I won’t lie.
Then I grabbed some clear sticky tape. That stuff is a lifesaver for these kinds of projects. I’d roll a few pages, tape ’em up. Then roll some more around that core, tape again. Slowly, very slowly, I started to build up a central mass. The key, I realized, was to keep adding layers, always trying to nudge the shape towards that familiar oval.
It was a bit of a messy process. My fingers got sticky, paper bits were everywhere. And getting that curve right? That was the real trick. You can’t just make a paper football by squashing a paper sphere, it doesn’t work like that. You have to build the curve in as you go.
- I’d add more paper to the middle sections to make it fatter there.
- Then I’d taper the ends by using less paper and pulling the tape tighter.
- Lots of patting and shaping with my hands.
It took a fair bit of fiddling. More than once, I almost gave up and just threw the whole sticky mess in the bin. But I’m a stubborn sort. I kept at it, adding layers, adjusting the tape, trying to smooth out the lumps. I even tried using a few rubber bands at one point to help compress things, but tape seemed to be the better option for the final hold.
After a good while, probably longer than I’d care to admit, I had something that, well, it definitely looked homemade, but you could tell it was supposed to be a rugby ball. It was surprisingly solid too, from all that compressed paper. Not something you’d want to kick full force, but good enough for a gentle toss in the garden.
This whole little experiment got me thinking, funnily enough. It reminded me of my first workshop, years ago. I had next to no budget for proper materials half the time. We were always cobbling things together, making do with offcuts and whatever we could scrounge. One time, we had to build this display stand, a really fancy-looking one for a trade show, and the client only gave us half the cash needed for the specified wood. We ended up using a cheaper pine for the guts of it, then veneered it with the expensive stuff just on the visible surfaces. Looked a million bucks, cost peanuts. No one was ever the wiser.
It’s a bit like that, isn’t it? Sometimes you just gotta work with what you’ve got. This magazine rugby ball isn’t going to win any design awards, but there’s a certain satisfaction in making something with your own hands from basic stuff. It’s a good reminder that you don’t always need the fanciest tools or materials to get a result. Sometimes, a bit of patience and some old magazines are all it takes. Or maybe I just needed to clear out that magazine pile, and this was a good excuse. Either way, it kept me busy for an afternoon.
