If you can build a foosball table, a desk or an entire full-scale chapel out of cardboard, perhaps it’s not too surprising that this notoriously flimsy material can form the basis of a working Fender Stratocaster guitar. Signal Snowboards previously teamed up with Ernest Packaging to create a corrugated cardboard surfboard, and now they’ve built a custom Strat that even impressed the expert guitar techs at Fender.

The way the cardboard is assembled and shaped makes it surprisingly structurally sound, which is a good thing considering the strings put about 250 pounds of torque on the neck of the guitar. Once it was all glued together, Signal took it to Fender and had their techs cut it into shape and add three 50s single coil pickups, a Stat scratch plate and other Fender components. When held up to light, the body and neck of the corrugated Fender is nearly see-through.

Check out this video to watch the entire building process and listen to the cardboard Fender in action. “The fact that it plays at all is kid of remarkable, honestly,” says Dennis Galuszka, Fender Master Builder. “It’s cardboard.”

Who doesn’t love art that breaks the mold? Recycled art and design, green art and extraordinary art from everyday objects all stimulate the imagination in ways ordinary works can rarely achieve – and cardboard art is no exception. Recycled and environment friendly, the following artwork is not just an expression of the artists’ points of view but is also a statement about the nature of art itself.

Alex Uribe

(source: Alex Uribe)

Inspired by nature, Alex Uribe creates sculptures exclusively from recycled, corrugated cardboard, both in large and small scale. Featured here are Uribe’s figurative, organic shapes, exploring abstract ideas rather than realism. Just as interesting are Uribe’s exposition of the female form as seen in Koura, Lucia, and Jodi.

Sylvie Reno

(source: Sylvie Reno)

Forty Kalashnikovs in 15 days, by hand, would be a daunting task for most people. She is not afraid, or angry, or bitter, for Sylvie Reno it’s just another day in her studio. She does, however, find relief in her compulsion and obsession with installations consisting mostly of repetitive work. Dozens of Kalashnikovs, a handful of automatic pistols, and more knives than Dexter will ever need, she says she has no imagination, we think she’s not being entirely honest.

Mark Langan

(sources: Mark Langan, Inhabitat)

Looking at the beautifully complex pieces above, we would never have guessed that Langan’s exposure to corrugated cardboard art was purely accidental. Tearing apart some old cardboard boxes, Langan saw the beautifully corrugated innards of the boxes and thought to himself, “…if I were to slice, stack, and glue pieces to each other, some very interesting effects could be created.” With over 15 finished works (and counting) and the seemingly impossible intricacy of his work, there is no wonder he is one of the most popular and well-respected artists of his type.

Dag Weiser

(source: Dag Weiser)

Unlike many of the other artists and sculptors listed here, Dag Weiser doesn’t work exclusively with cardboard. He has works in oil painting on canvas, pastel, ink, bronze, and recycled art from found objects. Weiser’s fascination with cardboard is a relatively recent one. Since he started working with cardboard, however, he has worked on extensive installations and elaborate props and sets. Above is a 1983 installation for a neighborhood Halloween trick-or-treat celebration.

Chris Gilmour

(source: Chris Gilmour)

In contrast to Alex Uribe’s abstract, nature-inspired, organic sculptures, Gilmour’s work is more geometric and usually consists of popular manufactured goods recognizable by the average person. It is also notable that Gilmour uses colored cardboard or paints the final piece to complete the transformation from a piece of cardboard to a finished product.