Kids’ Handiwork: Cardboard Castle

Last two Sundays ago, my eldest told me, out of the blue, that she wanted to make a castle, using cardboard. I admit I’m not a very crafty person. In fact, I’m all thumbs when it comes to cutting, pasting or sewing!

But, of course I don’t want to say ‘no.’ So I “enlisted” the help of YouTube and wikiHow to aid us in making a haven of sorts for her My Little Pony figures and others. Here’s one of the kids’ handiwork: a cardboard castle.

I will post the links to the tutorials for simple cardboard castle below.

I started taping the flaps of the box together to make higher walls. I drew a door on one side and used a cutter to cut out the door. Using scissors, I cut the top edges of the flaps to make rectangle thingies called battlements that could be seen in some castles. The box looked something like this.

It’s now Ella’s turn to decorate her cardboard castle. Hers had a drawbridge kind of door, without the chains, err… strings. Her little sister’s was the swing-type double doors. She glued long cling wrap and aluminum foil tubes on the corners and used wrapping paper was cut or torn to cover the outer walls. The tubes flanking the drawbridge door has glitters. The finished product looked like this.

Ella wanted the roof to open so she could play from the above, so I glued and taped the top just on the one side of the battlement. This is how the opened roof looked like. It’s foldable! And the picture makes me hungry!

If you plan to make a cardboard castle like these plus the decorations, be prepared for quite a mess: glue on the floor, glitters on legs, scraps of cardboard and wrapping paper all over the living room. That’s where we did ours. If they enjoyed playing with their creations, then it’s worth the chaos. 🙂

Have you made a cardboard castle like this as a kid or with your kids? How did you decorate it?

Here are the links as promised:

http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Castle-out-of-Cardboard-Boxes