CARDBOARD CASTLE CRAFT

What could be more glamorous than a beautiful fairy princess castle? This is an easy craft, which has been a favourite craft with kids for years. It’s not difficult, my 7 -10-year-old students did all their own work on it but you may need to do a few steps for the younger ones, as there is a fair bit of cutting involved. (I did a lot of them for my four-year-old Goddess). Please excuse the photos – I’m on my L plates.

FAIRY CASTLE MATERIALS

Craft glue, glue stick, scissors, tape, stapler, a large piece of green cardboard, a large piece of other cardboard (this is for the castle, we used pink) and matching paper, cardboard roll (I prefer the long ones to toilet paper rolls so you have more freedom to adjust the height of the turrets), wonderful sparkly decorations.

FAIRY CASTLE METHOD

1. Cut green cardboard in a kind of wavy circle a bit larger than a dinner plate (this is the ‘grass’ base).

2. Cut about 1/3 of the pink (or other coloured cardboard – from here on referred to as ‘castle cardboard’) off and put this aside.
3. Take the larger piece of castle cardboard and put the short ends together so they meet, then staple in place.
4. Cut a large “door” and a smaller “window” is this piece as per picture.

5. Make little cuts around the bottom of the castle so you can fold them and glue them into place on the ‘grass’.
6. Cut a circle slightly larger than the castle with the 1/3 of cardboard you had put aside. This will form the roof. You don’t want it too big as overhang will get in the way of the turrets.

7. Cut tiny slats around the circle so you can bend them and glue to the top of the castle.
8. Cut your cardboard tube to the various lengths you want for the turrets (we made four).
9. Next, cut ‘windows’ in the turrets.
10. Trace around the tube openings using leftover castle cardboard to make ‘floors’ for the turrets

11. For each turret, cut a slightly larger circle than the tube opening from your leftover castle cardboard. Make a cut halfway into this circle and pull ends in opposite directions to make a gentle cone and staple together to form the ’roofs’

12. I had my little goddess cover the tubes in glue stick then roll the matching paper around them. (I then helped her locate and cut a hole in the paper for the ‘windows’). You could paint the turrets but I was too impatient to wait for it to dry.
13. Next, we attached the turret bases and roofs then attached them to the castle with glue and some sticky tape.
14. I used a tiny piece of leftover cardboard to make a little frame around the castle window.
15. The next bit was the best – decorating! We used those little white things that come with takeaway pizza as tiny tables for the fairy princess yard and gum nuts for the seats. Cocktail umbrellas will protect those fairy princesses from the sun and if you look closely you’ll see they have a clothesline out the back. This is such a great way to encourage imagination and creativity! Then we grabbed lots of glitter, sequins and shiny gems and literally threw them at the castle after putting on lots of glue.
16. As you can see my little Goddess is delighted with the result.

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Happy crafting, and have a gleeful week, Tamuria