Transcend material reality
Create a mixed-media imagination box using found objects, drawings, and textures. Build a story-filled portal to explore imaginative worlds and senses.
Step-by-step guide to create a mixed-media imagination box
CBeebies Grown-ups: Problem Solving - Help your child to apply their thinking to the real world
Step 1
Pick a theme or short story idea for your imagination box so you know what world you want to build.
Step 2
Choose your small cardboard box and collect a handful of found objects to use inside and outside the box.
Step 3
Clear a flat workspace and lay down scrap paper to protect the table.
Step 4
With adult help cut a window or opening in one side of the box to make your portal.
Step 5
Colour or paint the inside back wall of the box to create a background for your scene.
Step 6
Glue fabric scraps leaves and other textures to different inside walls to add touchable areas.
Step 7
Draw small characters scenery or items on plain paper and cut them out.
Step 8
Attach your paper drawings and found objects inside the box using glue or tape to arrange the scene.
Step 9
Tie a bit of string or yarn to a small object and hang it inside to make a moving element.
Step 10
Decorate the outside of the box with colouring materials to make the portal look magical.
Step 11
Write a short title or one-sentence story on a small paper and glue it near the portal entrance.
Step 12
Look through the portal and rearrange any pieces until your world feels just right.
Step 13
Share your finished imagination box on DIY.org
Final steps
You're almost there! Complete all the steps, bring your creation to life, post it, and conquer the challenge!
Help!?
I can't find a small cardboard box or fabric scraps — what can I use instead?
Use a shoebox or clean cereal box in place of the small cardboard box and substitute tissue paper, paper napkins, old t-shirts or magazine pages glued to the inside walls instead of fabric scraps.
My paper drawings and found objects keep falling off inside the box — how can I fix that?
Try stronger tacky craft glue or (with adult help) a hot glue gun to attach pieces to the painted back wall, and reinforce heavier items with clear tape or a small dab of glue where the object meets the box.
How can I adapt this imagination box activity for different ages?
For toddlers, skip cutting the portal and use pre-cut windows, large chunky found objects and washable glue with close supervision, for school-age kids let them cut the portal with adult help and paint details, and for older kids add fine-detail drawing, hanging string elements or small LED lights and write a one-sentence story to glue by the portal.
How can we extend or personalize our finished imagination box?
Enhance it by decorating the outside portal with LED fairy lights, tucking a phone behind the painted back wall to play a themed soundscape, adding scented leaves or textured fabrics inside, or making a stop-motion film by photographing the scene through the portal to share on DIY.org.
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Facts about mixed-media art and sensory play
🧰 Assemblage artists like Joseph Cornell and Robert Rauschenberg built tiny worlds inside boxes using found objects.
🏺 Cabinets of curiosities from the 1500s–1700s were real-life wonder-boxes — early ancestors of dioramas and imagination boxes.
🎨 Collage techniques were popularized by Picasso and Braque in the early 1900s when they glued everyday materials onto canvases.
🌀 Marcel Duchamp's readymades (like a 1917 urinal turned artwork) helped artists see ordinary objects as creative building blocks.
🧩 Mixed-media art can stitch together paper, fabric, paint, and found bits to make one imaginative piece.
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