top of each box end. (Leave sides without marks.)
From the center top point on each end cut down diagonally to right and
left, to form the peaked part of the building under the roof. (See
Diagram Three, _CC_, page 170.)
Then, cut the long sides of the box to meet these, lengthwise. Remove
the cardboard at the top of each long side.
Now, in the point at one end of the lower half of the greenhouse
building, cut out windows. Cut them to fit your box building. (See
Diagram One, _A_, page 166, for windows.) Back of each, paste some
transparent waxed sandwich paper. If you like, cut a triangular window
in the point of the building which is to be under the roof.
Between the lower two windows, cut a door to fit—one inch wide and two
inches high should be a good size. (For cutting a door, see Diagram Two,
_A_, page 167.)
You may make the roof two inches longer and four inches wider than the
size of the base of your box. Cut this roof from your cardboard. Fold it
through the center of its long sides to make a gable roof. (See Diagram
Three, _C_, page 170.)
In each side of this roof, cut out windows. Paste back of their openings
some waxed sandwich paper.
Glue the roof to the lower half of the building.
Any small boxes that you have will form flower-boxes when filled with
small artificial flowers. They may go into the greenhouse.
To make the pergola, you will need the lower half of a white shoe-box.
Take the box and stand it upon its rims, base at top, opening below.
Cut out the cardboard that was the bottom of the box, leaving a narrow
rim around this between corners on the side that was this box bottom.
Then, cut off each end of the box, leaving the margin around corners and
top rim like this first cutting in the box.
In the two long rims of the box cut pillars on each side. (See Diagram
Seven, page 181.)
Cut two long cardboard strips from some Bristol-board—each two inches
longer than the length of your box. Glue one strip each over the top of
the pergola, lengthwise, over the long sides of the box.
Cut five inch-wide strips of cardboard two inches longer than the width
of your box, and glue each across the opening made by cutting the top
from the pergola box. Each strip should be evenly crossed between
opposite pillars.
If you have any pretty artificial flowers left from your garden and
greenhouse, twine them around the pillars of your finished pergola.
I have a gardener for my garden. His name is Karl Shepherd. He came to
me in a box of toy lambs that I bought at the ten-cent store. I called
him Karl because he looked so German. Perhaps, among your playthings,
you have a little figure like him. Look and see. I am sure you will find
a gardener.
Here’s the little Boxville Garden,
Just as cunning as can be;
Bring your scissors and the paste jar!
It is made with boxes—see!
There shall be a pretty greenhouse,
There shall be an arbor, too;
Paths and flower-beds we’ll lay out—
Oh, there will be fun for you!
[Illustration: Boxville Greenhouse is cut from the half of a deep box
such as hardware merchants use on their shelves. It has a roof made from
cardboard. The glass is waxed paper.]
[Illustration: The Pergola is made from the lower half of a white
shoe-box. Strips of white cardboard are glued across the top.]
[Illustration: The Boat-house or Yacht Club is made from the half of a
deep box about eight inches long. Its roof and floor are shoe-box
covers. The flagstaff is a pencil.]
[Illustration: Boxcraft Houseboat is made from the lower half of a plain
shoe-box. Two shoe-box covers make the rest of the boat.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOXVILLE BOAT-HOUSE OR YACHT CLUB
=Material Required to Make a Boxville Boat-house=: the lower half of a
deep box about six inches long, and also two shoe-box covers.
Boxville Boat-house is made from an oblong box about two-thirds the size
of a shoe-box. Its wharf is a shoe-box cover, and its roof is another
shoe-box cover.
If you wish to cut a lake from a sheet of silver paper, the boat-house
or yacht club is the very thing for this play. Any water toys, such as
swans, ducks, fish, or frogs, may swim on Silver Paper Lake, and from
your yacht club, parties of fishermen may angle for magnetized fish. The
boat-house may be a part of the summer attractions of Hotel Bandbox in
season.
To make a boat-house building, you will first need to turn your box over
upon its rims so that its bottom becomes its top.
Draw a three-inch square on one short end of your box. Let its base come
to the extreme edge of the box rim. This square is to be the door you
see in the picture. Draw a vertical line down the center of this square.
This gives two doors for the doorway. (To cut double door, see Diagram
Two, _B_, page 167.) Cut across the top line and down the center to the
outer rim. Bend outward the two halves of the doorway.
The boat-house is to have windows, and each window is to have an awning
over it. To make windows with awnings, first draw on each long side of
your box, two one-inch squares. Each square should be drawn about an
inch and a half from a corner of the box. Each square should be half-way
between top and bottom of the building. (For windows with awnings, see
Diagram One, _C_, page 166.) Cut down both side lines and across the
base line. Bend the cut cardboard outward and upward to form an awning.
Color this awning with red stripes, using your crayons or water-color
paints.
When all windows are cut, then you may place your little building at the
rear of the shoe-box cover which forms the wharf.
Over the top of your building, fit another shoe-box cover to form a
projecting roof over the wharf.
A long pencil will be a fine flagstaff. Run its point through the front
of the boat-house roof, and glue to the top of the pencil a triangular
piece of colored paper to make the pennant.
My little Boxville people
Have a club-house where they go
When they want to do some fishing,
Or they want to take a row.
It stands beside a paper lake,
Upon my play-room floor;
It has some pretty awnings,
And a dock, beside a door!
Upon the lake float water toys.
I put moss by the shore
And pebbles: they make splendid rocks!
Some day I’ll find some more!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE HOUSEBOAT “BOXCRAFT”
=Material Required to Make a Houseboat=: the covers of two large
shoe-boxes, and the lower half of a child’s shoe-box.
Here is a jolly houseboat, the very thing to sail on Silver Paper Lake.
Little dolls may spend their vacation upon it. Would you like to make a
houseboat to play with? It is not difficult.
First, take the two shoe-box covers and glue them top to top. Place them
on the floor flat. There is the lower half of the houseboat.
Upon both long sides of your small shoe-box, draw three one-inch
squares, keeping the two at either end of the same side equally distant
from the nearest corner of the box, and making the third window on each
side half-way between them. (To cut windows with awnings, see Diagram
One, _C_, page 166.) Cut the window squares at both sides and along
their base lines. Bend the cardboard outward and upward to make the
awnings. Color these with red stripes, using either chalks or
water-color paints.
On the front and rear ends of the houseboat, you will need a door and
window. Make an upright oblong space for the door. Mark it out with
pencil about three inches high from the rim of the box. Make a window
beside each door. (To cut door space, see Diagram Two, _A_, page 167.)
Cut top line and down one side. Bend the door outward on the third side
as if it were on a hinge.
A flagstaff for the houseboat is made by pressing the point of a long
pencil down through the top of the houseboat in front. A paper pennant
may be glued to the side of the pencil.
A piece of string will make a tow-line for the houseboat. Fasten it to
any little donkey or toy horse you have, and start penny dolls on a
voyage around the play-room floor. The houseboat, of course, is not
meant to sail upon dangerous water. It might be safely anchored on the
shore of Mirror Lake or Silver Paper Lake.
I built a little houseboat with some windows and a door,
And I made an inland voyage all around the play-room floor!
At last I moored my houseboat beside my little chair:
There was a carpet hassock that was an island there.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAMP BOX ON MIRROR LAKE
=Material Required to Make Camp Box=: a yard or two of green crape paper
for grass and foliage of trees, two or three clothes-pins to make
tree-trunks, a sheet of silver paper or a cheap ten-cent mirror to form
a “lake,” the halves of shallow letter-paper boxes to make tents, and
any pebbles, moss, or shells you have among your treasures.
It is great fun to make a Mirror Lake Camp—almost as much fun as being
in a real camp! Mirror Lake Camp may be made on the play-room floor.
First, if you have some green crape paper, lay it flat on the floor.
This is the grass.
Next, if you have some silver paper, cut out a circle of it, and paste
it to the crape paper to form a lake. Instead of the silver paper, you
may substitute a cheap mirror. Place this under the crape paper and cut
out a circle above it.
[Illustration: Camp Box on Mirror Lake. Its tents are made from the
halves of shallow boxes. Trees are made of clothes-pins.]
[Illustration: The Boxville Gipsy Cart is made from a
correspondence-card box.]
You will need a grove of trees near the shore of your lake. These trees
are made by standing some clothes-pins on end with forks in the air. Cut
some green paper and press it in between the forks. It makes the foliage
of trees.
The tents are made from the half of a shallow white box like a
letter-paper box. To make a tent, cut through each long side rim of your
box as far as the top or bottom of the cover, as the case may be. Bend
the box downward to each side of this cutting, making a tent roof,
slanting to each side downward. (For cutting a tent, see Diagram Three,
_E_, page 171.)
You may have as many tents in your camp as you like. Perhaps your tin
soldiers might like an encampment on the shores of Mirror Lake. Small
oblong box covers will make smaller tents for these. When it is summer,
maybe it would be nice, on some warm, sunny day, to take the tents
outdoors under the trees on the lawn and make a really true camp on the
really true grass, with real growing things for trees in a woods.
Perhaps so!
Cut bits of twigs and use these for trees. Pebbles will help to make a
rocky shore for a _real_ water lake that is a shallow pie-plate filled
with water. Its sides should be covered with moss or short grass. Of
course, after playing out-of-doors with the camp buildings, you will
have to pick them up, when playtime is over, for the cardboard tents
will be spoiled if you let them stay out over night. I know it because I
tried it! I had a really darling little doll and I let her stay out in a
tent after my play was finished. It rained in the night and she was all
spoiled—and I had to make a new tent, too. I think you’ll like to know
about this so you won’t try it. It really is better to pick up after
play, I think!
I made a grove of clothes-pin trees,
And had a splendid time with these!
My china rabbits ran in play
Beneath the trees the whole long day!
I made some little camp tents, too—
It was a jolly thing to do!
Some penny dolls a picnic laid
Beneath the green crape-paper shade.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GIPSY CART OF BOXVILLE HIGHWAY
=Material Required to Make a Toy Gipsy Cart=: a deep oblong box such as
correspondence cards are packed in, also five square inches of
cardboard, four round-headed paper-fasteners, and two small boxes.
Do you think it would be fun to make a gipsy wagon like the one in the
picture? It is a very simple thing to make.
First, find a box such as correspondence cards come in from the
stationery store. Take its high cover off, and cut from the lower part
of the box almost all of the deep inner rim, leaving only about a
half-inch of it all around. Put the cover back over this, and glue the
two parts of the box together. The box is to be the gipsy wagon now. A
door will need to be cut at one end of the box, and windows will need to
be made on the sides of the box rim.
Turn the box over so that its base becomes the top of your wagon. Make
the outline of a door with pencil on one end of the box. To make it,
mark off an upright oblong space an inch wide and two inches and a half
high. Have its base come at the very edge of box rim. (To cut door, see
Diagram Two, _A_, page 167.) Cut one side line from the base of the box
up to the top line, and cut along the top line of the upright figure you
have drawn. Bend the cardboard outward to make a little door. See, it
will open or close as you bend it.
Next, make the windows on the sides of the cart. You may make these with
or without shutters. If you make them without shutters, you will only
need to cut two one-inch squares in each side of your box. Each should
be evenly distant from a corner. (To cut plain windows, see Diagram One,
_A_, page 166.)
If, however, you wish to have shutters on the windows of your wagon, cut
these squares at top and base. Then cut a line through each center,
vertically, from top to base. This gives you the shutters. Press them
back against the outside of the cart. (For making blinds, see Diagram
One, _B_, page 166.)
Window-shutters and door may be painted. Dry them while you make wheels
for the cart. Color them with water-color paints. Make them green or
red.
The wheels are circles cut from stiff cardboard. Find your compass to
help draw them round. If you have no compass, use the outline of a small
round saucer about two inches and a half in diameter to guide you in
drawing the four wheels in outline. Draw a hub and spokes on each, if
you like.
When you have drawn them, cut each out, and press through the axle of
each one a round-headed paper-fastener. Bend its prongs to either side
after you have pressed the wheel into place on the cart. The wheels may
be glued, if you have no paper-fasteners to use for making axles.
Your cart will need a seat for the driver. This is made from the lower
half of a small, narrow box about two inches in length. Cut off the
short end rims, and glue one long rim to your wagon in front, so that it
makes the dashboard and floor of the front of the cart under the seat.
Paste a small pill-box on this to make the seat itself.
At the rear of your cart, you may make some steps by folding a strip of
box rim twice and fastening it under the door with mucilage.
Shafts for the cart are two narrow strips of cardboard pasted to the
forward part of the wagon.
There! The gipsy cart is finished. Penny dolls or tumble toys will be
the gipsies.
Here come the gipsies a-jogging up the road!
They’re going up to Boxville. The horse has quite a load!
Good fortune’s coming to you, and it isn’t far away:
We’re going with the penny dolls a-gipsying in play!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SHEPHERD’S HUT AND THE SHEEPFOLD
=Material Required for Making the Shepherd’s Hut=: a yard or two of
green crape paper, some corrugated cardboard, half a small square box
about four inches high, and, if you have it, silver paper to make a
lake.
Here in the picture you see the shepherd’s cottage. I had a little flock
of white woolly lambs given me. They came in a box, with a shepherd boy
and his dog to tend them.
One day, I decided to build a cottage for the shepherd and make a
sheepfold for his flock. You can make one for your toy lambs, too, and,
if you like, I will tell you how to do it.
First, lay some green crape paper upon the floor to make grass. There
must be grass, you know. Of course, if you have no green crape paper,
you will need to pretend that the carpet of the floor is grass. Perhaps
it will answer just as well. But, if you have the paper, you can make a
hill or two behind the place where you intend to build. It is made by
putting some blocks or books under the paper.
Next, I made a long fence by cutting some corrugated cardboard into long
strips. Three rows made the width of this long fence. After you have cut
your fence, stand it upon its rim. By bending the strip at one end, you
can make a gate. The fence is made of very heavy corrugated cardboard,
such as comes wrapped around very heavy things. There is a lighter kind
that you may also use. From this kind, I made my sheep-pen. It came
wrapped around a small glass jar.
To make the sheep-pen, cut a long strip of the corrugated cardboard. Cut
it crosswise instead of lengthwise, and slip through each undulation in
the cardboard the end of a toothpick. This gives the effect of a picket
fence.
The shepherd’s but is made from the lower half of a deep box. Its roof
is a piece of corrugated cardboard cut long and bent through the middle
downward.
To make the house, turn your box over so that the bottom becomes the top
and the box rests upon its rims.
Measure the size of its ends, and cut two triangular pieces of cardboard
to fit over them and form gables. Glue each to an end of the house. (For
cutting triangular roof supports, see Diagram Three, _BB_, page 169.)
Cut a door and a window in the front of your house. Both must first be
outlined on the box in pencil. Mark the door an inch wide and two inches
high, an oblong with base at the edge of the box rim. (For door, see
Diagram Two, _A_, page 167.) Cut the top line and down one long side.
Bend the door outward as if it were on a hinge. One-inch squares may be
cut in the box rim to make windows. (For cutting a window, see Diagram
One, _A_, page 166.) Cut the square on all four sides.
Place a window under the roof in the point of the gable, if you like.
The roof of the cottage is made by measuring, first, the size of the
building you wish to cover. Measure this on your corrugated cardboard,
and add three inches to its length and breadth. Fold the corrugated
cardboard together to make a pointed roof. (See Diagram Three, _C_, page
170.) Glue this to the building, and the little shepherd’s hut is
finished.
You may make a landscape of mountains behind it, where the sheep may go
to graze. These are blocks or boxes covered with crape paper. Do not use
glue or paste in doing this. The paper is merely folded over them.
A pretty stream may be made from an irregularly cut strip of silver
paper. The woolly sheep love to drink at a stream, I am sure. You can
see the lake I made for my landscape. It was a mirror. A rocky ledge on
the mountain-side or by the lake is made with pretty pebbles such as you
may find in the country.
Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow;
A little shepherd guarded it in sheepfold, don’t you know!
It didn’t go to Boxville School, it grazed about in play
Upon the green crape-paper field that Mary made one day.
[Illustration: Sheepfold and Shepherd’s Cote. Corrugated cardboard is
used for roof and fences.]
[Illustration: The Bridge over Mirror Lake. It is made from a long
shallow box with a cover.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUILDING A BOX BRIDGE
=Material Required to Make a Box Bridge=: a long cardboard box with
cover, a strip of cardboard about ten inches long.
When you look at the picture of Box Bridge, you will easily see, I
think, how it is made. It may be used in many ways for play. Your toy
railway system may have a bridge as well as a freight station and
tunnel. A box bridge may connect opposite shores of Silver Paper Lake,
and the delivery wagon from Boxville’s General Store may jog happily
over the bridge to deliver goods at Boxville Cottage. Guests from Hotel
Bandbox may fish from the bridge. I am sure you will find many other
things to play with it, so I will tell you how to make one, even though
it does seem as if you _might_ almost make one without directions!
Take the box that you wish to use for a bridge. Remove its cover.
Turn the lower half of the box over so that the bottom of the box
becomes top. Cut a semicircular piece from each long rim. This makes the
long arch of the bridge. (See Diagram Four, _A_, page 173.)
Next, take the box cover and turn it so that its top is next to the top
of the bridge. The lengthwise rims of the box will be a railing for the
roadway over it. Cut each end rim at the corner, and let these end rims
be pasted each to a strip of cardboard cut to fit the width of the box,
and join the bridge roadway to the road along the floor where you are
playing. Each strip of cardboard glued to an end of the bridge may be
about five inches long.
If you wish to make more than one bridge, you may easily do so. The
shape of your box, whether deep or shallow, will make a different kind
of bridge. The landscape of your Boxville may be as full of silver paper
streams and foot-bridges, railway bridges, covered bridges,
toll-bridges, as you please!
London Bridge may fall down,
But my Box Bridge stands true!
I’d rather own a Boxville Bridge
That stands up—wouldn’t you?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUILDING A TOY WINDMILL
=Material Required for Making a Windmill=: a box made with curved sides
about five inches deep, a half-sheet of cardboard, and a long pencil.
From any deep box with round sides, you may make a windmill. You will
not need the cover of the box. Remove it, and turn the lower half of the
box over to stand upon its upper rim so that its top becomes its base.
Cut a small door about an inch high in the edge of the lower box rim,
just as you see it in the picture of my box windmill.
On its rim, farther up, cut a narrow window. A half-inch square cut out
in the box rim will make this.
The roof of the windmill is round and pointed. It is to be made from
cardboard. To make it, take your compass and draw a circle twice the
size of the round base of your box—or about that. Cut this circle out of
the cardboard, and from it remove a quarter piece like a large slice cut
from a pie. (See Diagram Three, _D_, page 171.)
Next, lap one edge of your three-quarter circle over its opposite side.
Glue it so. This gives the round, pointed roof. Paint it, if you wish,
with your paints. Color it bright red or brown.
Sails for windmill need to be cut from a paper pattern. This pattern
must be made from soft paper that may be folded easily. Pad paper will
answer. Cut a square of pad paper that is half the height of your
windmill. Fold this square together to make halves—then again to make
quarter-sections. Cut in the folded quarter-section the figure shown for
shaping windmill sails. (See Diagram Five, _Z_, page 174.) Then unfold
your paper, and, placing it upon cardboard, outline all around its edge
with pencil. Then, cut the outline out. This is the sail piece for your
windmill. (For shape of pattern for windmill sails, see Diagram Five,
_ZZ_.)
Make a hole through its center. Press through it the point of a long
pencil.
Make two holes in your box, near the top, below the roof—one hole
exactly opposite the other. Run the pencil point through these holes.
There! The sails are in place!
[Illustration: The Windmill is made from a round box. Its roof and sails
are cardboard.]
[Illustration: The Boxville Barn and Farmyard. The roof of the barn is
made of two shoe-box covers. The fence for the Barnyard is made of a box
rim.]
Where is your toy cart? Shall it go cantering over Box Bridge to the
mill with some corn from Boxville Farm? What a windy day it must be when
the windmill sails turn so fast!
I built a little windmill,
Its sails went round an’ round;
The miller was a tumble toy,
The mill, a box I found.
The roof is made of paper,
The sails are paper, too:
It is easy work to make one,
And it’s lots of fun to do!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOXVILLE BARN AND FARMYARD
=Material Required to Make a Barn and Farmyard=: the lower half of a
large shoe-box and two shoe-box covers that fit it, a ten-inch square of
cardboard, and the rims cut from a shallow box.
Farms are such very interesting places that I am sure you will enjoy
knowing how to make one with a big barn and a farmyard where your toy
animals may be kept.
You may easily make a barn like the one in the picture. You will need to
have a shoe-box to make the building. Two shoe-box covers make its
gabled roof. Some cardboard is needed from which to cut supports for the
roof.
Begin by turning your box over upon its rim so that its top becomes the
base of the barn.