We made another castle!!! We started making it on April 30th (Dia del Nin~o) and have been working at it off an on for a few days. I tried explaining how I made it because I didn't really do that last time and lots of friends asked about it, so here it is in case someone else wants to have fun with cardboard, paper, and paint :)! But feel free to just scroll through the pictures if you are not interested in my long-winded explanations haha <3
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| It wasn't done yet, but it was already getting lots of play time. Here it is with the ponies, the lego and McDonalds princesses, their airplane, and a system of channels akin to that inside the castle of the book "Journey" (Miss E's favorite book of all times) |
I had a few goals for this one: I wanted it to be stackable (so it can be reconfigured in many different ways). I wanted it to fold so that it would fit on this particular side table but also unfold into a large play space. And I wanted it to have a smoother, slightly less shabby chic look. I accomplished the first two goals, but the last goal I'm iffy on because in all honesty, I think the towers could have come out less patchy, but I decided to reinforce them (by patching them up). Since I wanted the towers to be different sizes, I made three of the towers out of cereal boxes; but if you are interested in making it look smoother, I recommend using only pre-made tubes, such as oatmeal containers or similar tube shaped containers.
You can certainly have fun with your design, but mine was a trifold, 2 large towers, and two little towers.
Tools and Materials
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| Peel the oatmeal paper off before painting. Cereal boxes, diaper boxes and directly printed boxes like that can be painted. |
You will need 4 cereal boxes (or you can use smaller boxes for the cones/roofs), one medium diaper box, and 1 large oatmeal container for doing it exactly like I did. Or, if you'd like, you can do better use oatmeal containers in different sizes (sometimes they sell raisins, grits, and other grain-ish foods) for the towers. I also used grocery paper bags, decorative paper, cutting tools (scissors, box cutter knife) and white glue. You can "wallpaper" all of it, but I wanted to paint it. I had about a 1/3 of a sample-sized paint container (they cost like 3 bucks and one should be more than enough for one castle, maybe two!) and used that plus gold paint I already had ~for a completely recycled and free project! yay! If you have to get gold paint and pink paint that will cost 5-10 bucks, depending on where and what you buy. Kitchen clamps and/or tape are optional for holding things together while they dry.
Process:
This is a much simpler design than my first one :)! If this is the first time you make a structure like this, I recommend using an already thought out design because it helps save time and make it all much simpler.
The trifold
I just cut the box into a trifold, cut the tops off of all 3 sides, and left the bottom of the box intact on two sides. I cut it to a certain size because I wanted it to fit that side table, but you can just stick to the size of the box if you want (for a bigger castle).
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| This is the trifold with the tops and bottoms intact. I later cut the tops off, except for the far right side, which I decided to use as the top ledge for one of the towers. |
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| Evita told me where to put the doors and windows- yup, this design was hers too! |
I cut it to size, then cut the doors. The front doors are a double door I made by cutting a rounded T shape and folding the sides. The window and single doors throughout the structure are made by cutting out the door but leaving a "hinge" side that I just folded instead of cutting. Like so:
I also added a rectangle to the panel on the far right, which served as a lower ledge, making sure to fit the large tower when the whole thing is folded.
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| The trifold with the lower ledge started. |
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| I cut the lower ledge from the side of the box, but you can just cut 3 rectangles the same width and glue them on the side if it's simpler. |
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| I originally wanted it to flip into the castle or out like this, but while the kids were playing it was obvious they liked it better inside, where it was stable against the side panel. |
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| So I just folded it against the side panel and adhered it with "tape" I made from strips of grocery bag paper and glue. |
The towers
Because I wanted to make the towers stackable (
either small tower can go on either ledge or on the roofless tower, the largest roofless tower has to fit inside the folded box and the large-sih but slimmer tower with a roof goes on the lower ledge) I felt like I needed specifically sized tubes for the small towers (
my small towers are tubes thicker than paper towel tubes but less thick than a small raisin container I have) so I was afraid of using small containers; but I think they could have been made with containers and am totally considering replacing the towers I made. We'll see. If you want to make your own towers, glue two sides from a cereal box to make one thicker piece of cardboard (
I glued them printed sides facing each other to get a nice brown color on either side of the finished panel). Once it dries, you can cut and roll up rectangles for your towers. You gotta hold things together for a while while they dry, or use little kitchen clamps (the kind that they sell for closing up chip bags, for example) if you want to make it easier on yourself. Don't ask your kids to help with holding things while they dry. My kids at least cant stay still that long. LoL. I made my large tower with a roof to be slightly thinner than the roofless tower made from a container, and I made it with a rectangle the size of a cereal box. Then the smaller towers are about half that size.
Visual, simpler and shorter explanation of all the above:
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| I only used this double panel method with the largeish tower, and wish I had done this with the turrets to, so I wouldn't have needed to reinforce and made them patchy. |
The pointed roofs of the roofed tower and the two turrets (yes I'm just now finding out there is a name for them. LoL) whatever they are called, are very simple cones made from large half circles. I drew a circle with the lid of a large 10 or 12 inch pan and cut it in half, then curled it together and glued ~for the large tower. Then I cut a circle the size of a small saucepan, cut it in half, and curled each half to shape for two smaller cones for the turrets. I chose to glue them to the towers for sturdiness but you can leave them unglued if your children are more gentle than mine.
Here's more info, with visuals, if you'd like.
Decoration:
I painted most surfaces (using plan acrylic- super cheap and safe for kids); added paper to some (like the doors); and added a paper bow at Miss E's request. She then decided her castle needed a butterfly sticker. You can make paper trees for the courtyard, small furniture, make a drawbridge and/or a moat, add a coat of arms, bridges, slides, banners, flags... so much fun stuff to be had! Ours was made at Miss E's request, so it is pink, but you can paint
yours different colors and make it more neutral or even masculine.
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| I cut the paper to size and she helped me glue it to the doors. |
Involving the kids:
My kids (2 and 4ish) helped with ideas: "Put the windows here." "Make a hole at the top of the (roofless) tower (really the bottom of the container) so my pony can go in the roofless tower doors then up to the balcony by the turret." "Paint it pink" "Put a bow on it" and so on.
They also helped paint (goodness... do have them wear something old you won't mind getting some paint on, or better yet, have a paint shirt handy at all times!)
And they gave me ideas as they played with the half finished product. All kinds of fun. My kids were sitting with me, watching, a whole lot of the time, and I took advantage to explain the process to them and point out shapes and cool vocabulary.
Older kids can help glue and cut too!
Hope you have lots of fun making a castle with your kids :)!
