Making Crankie Scrolls from Paper & Tyvek

There are so many material options for making the scroll, I decided to divide them up into two pages: one page for scrolls made from paper and Tyvek and another page for scrolls made from fabric.

You will find videos of almost all of these crankies at the "On-line Crankie Fest" page of this website here.

From Seattle, Washington, Dejah Leger makes the scroll from 18" white easel/craft paper. She cuts the black images from construction paper and glues them with an adhesive spray.  After the images are glued on, she covers the scroll with 4" vertical strips of clear contact paper.  The contact paper prevents the images from popping off and also prevents the scroll from tearing. dejahleger.com

Black Tyvek cut images glued to white Tyvek  background.  This is the Elizabeth Whitmore crankie made by Katherine Fahey. katherinefahey.com

Katherine Fahey was the first artist to use Tyvek for the crankie scroll (in 2010).  Now artists all over the world are using it for crankies. We have Katherine to thank!

One of the most common questions I receive is where to get Tyvek and what kind. I buy white Tyvek from Uline, 24" X 150' roll. 7.5 mil, Type 10 G.  I buy black Tyvek from Material Concepts. Both vendors provide great service and a quality product.

From Corvalis, Oregon, John Donoghue uses freezer paper for the scroll!  It is plastic coated on one side and white paper on the other.  He used markers and chalk with a clear coad over the chalk. For horizonal crankies, he used clear packaging table on the back edges. Vertical crankes didn't seem to need the tape.  Light goes through it nicely and it doesn't have the "graniness" of Tyvek. It is at your grocers in in rolls that are 75' X 18" wide, but can be cut to a narrower width witha chop saw.

From Seattle, Washington, Greg Johnson created the Panorama of Washington State. He used atercolors painted on a roll of watercolor paper. As you can see the crankie is backlit and the colors showed up nicely.

From Seattle, Washington, Charmain Slaven drew on white Tyvek with a black Sharpie.  Where are the cranks?  This is a foot powered crankie box. Charmain adapted a crank from a hand drill so that she could play guitar, sing and crank at the same time!  Whoa!!  thetallboys.com

Angela DeCarlis used an player piano roll for the scroll. Piano player paper is  11" wide.  You can see the light shining through the tiny holes. angrladecarlis.com

From Glasgow, Scotland, Naomi Harvey used pen and ink on paper.  The crankie is called Glenlogie, one of the Child ballads. Naomiharveymusic.com. You can watch a video of this on the On-line Crankie Fest page of this website.

Markers and watercolors on tracing paper by Penny Anderson. pendletonanderson.com

From Leverett, MA, Cynthia Kimmel Thomas used markers, paint and papercut images to Illustrat a vellum  scroll.

From Wales, Pamela Wyn Shannon glued black construction paper images on culinary parchment paper for her  Caravan Crankie Lullaby crankie. The parchment paper has a wonderful crackley sound when cranked!

From Pennsylvania, Ellen Gozion cut thousands of paper mosiac images and glued them to rice paper. This is the Pretty Fair Miss crankie. ellengozion.com

Check out the website thistothat.com to learn about different glues.

What kind of glue to use? You want a glue that will remain flexible over the years  so that it won't crank when the scroll rolls up and unrolls.  To glue black Tyvek images to white Tyvek, I have used plain old Elmer's glue or Aqua glue.

I put this question out on the Facebook page Crankies in the Puppet World and Beyond and Felicia Cooper gave me this great resource: thistothat.com.

This page was created in 2013, updated in 2021. Sue Truman ❤