Photo Booth Castle for Highlands Kids: We wanted a photo-booth for our Summer Blast (VBS) promotion day. Our theme is more or less medieval, so I thought a castle might be fun. This is how I made Castle Kids.
Inspired by a location in my story, I used cardboard, paper towel rolls, and foam board (all recycled of course) to construct my 28th cardboard castle I've
Trunk-or-Treat happened to fall on the day of our birthday girl this year. She wanted a birthday party and the other three wanted to go to trunk-or-treat. As you often do with a family of six, we compromised and decided to host a trunk that was birthday-girl themed. She was already heavily into princess-mode for her costume so the trunk plans quickly became a birthday castle. We needed materials that were temporary, easy to move, and not too expensive since it was likely to be a one-use castle. We had just moved so we had a LOT of boxes. Cardboard castle, here we come! Supplies: Cardboard boxes Heavy duty scissors Box cutter Paint (You could also just let the kids draw on the boxes with markers, crayons, or whatever you have on hand) 1×4 board to hold up door streamers (You could use cardboard for this, or a wooden dowel. We often use what we already have so use your imagination.) Door streamers Stickers Stuffed animals or characters for the windows The plan was to have the castle extend out from the minivan so trick-or-treaters would walk into the castle to get their candy. In the picture below, imagine the fireplace is the open back of the minivan. We headed to Home Depot and got lucky with some pink and purple oops paint. If you haven’t heard of this, it’s returned paint from either a mistake or someone buying too much for their project. It’s a lot less expensive if you can find the color you want. I kept the boxes separate so they would be easier to transport. My painting crew went to work and we were on our way! Once the boxes were painted, and we put it all together, the painters decided they wanted to add more detail. They added vines and flowers with some extra white paint we had in the garage. They also found a few heart and butterfly stickers. Then we cut a 1×4 board and secured it through holes in each tower so we had a place to hang our streamers. I figured this might also be helpful to stabilize the castle in case of a windy evening. The name sign is a painted cardboard oval and letters with purple tape wrapped around them. I wish I had gotten more pictures to show how it attached to our van. We ran the painted cardboard walls up to the back of the open minivan. In the background, you can see a few extra painted cardboard towers that we set on top of the liftgate and that became the roof. Here are our trick-or-treaters before the event began. The princess wasn’t even in costume yet. Then our dinosaur met another dinosaur at the party! It’s always nice to meet a same-species friend at a party.
Cardboard castles are a good craft choice any day for the children. They are easy to make, fun, and requires just a few items around the house.
If you have not made a Cardboard Castle Playhouse for your kids yet, what are you waiting for? They will love these choices. This is a perfect DIY project!
Use this printable template to make a cool paper or cardboard castle! Add drawbridge, parapets, and portcullis. Fun to make and fun to play with!
Lately, it feels like the most first world problem in my life is too many cardboard boxes! Between moving to a new home and the convenience of online shopping (lookin’ at you, Amazon Prime!), my recyc
26 Coolest Cardboard Houses for kids! Find amazing yet creative ideas how to make cardboard houses for kids. Low cost, easy to make and kids approved ideas.
This DIY Cardboard Castle is the answer to your "I'm bored" dilemma! How much fun would your kids have playing in this beauty? The best part? You can get them involved in the building process.
There are many secrets kept from children surrounding that one holiday, Christmas, but perhaps the biggest secret withheld from children t...
I’ve been extremely busy making all sorts of things; too busy, uncomfortably busy, but with things I love to do which makes me very lucky. I had lots of fun this past weekend building a cardb…
My third graders are doing simple machines in science class, which matches up perfectly with the next unit I wanted to do with them! I've been wanting to build castles with a grade, so I figured this would be the perfect class to do it with...we could incorporate simple machines in our draw bridge! I've seen numerous examples of these floating around Pinterest, but most of them use just cardboard tubes of different sizes to create a princess-like castle. I did a little research on castles (because let's be honest...I know very little about castles), and I used various sources from pppst.com to create a handout (I'll have to attach that tomorrow...I left my hard drive at school). On the first day of the project, students partnered up and read about the parts of a castle and then tried to match the name of each part to its picture on the back of the handout. It has taken us approximately two days to put these castles together so far. From here, we will gesso the cardboard (the shiny, printed side of the cereal boxes, not the brown side) and add the texture to the walls. Students will be able to paint medieval scenes on the inside of their walls and they will have to brainstorm how to make their drawbridge work. Finally, we'll make the cones to put on the tops of their towers. This is my castle that I made. I used regular cardboard and paper towel tubes. I found that it was VERY difficult to cut the cardboard using my own scissors and I knew the students wouldn't be able to cut it with their scissors, so I had them all bring in cereal boxes. Each student used one large cereal box to make their castle walls. We cut out the front and back of each box, and then cut those in half. Students cut out the little "teeth" on their walls, and then folded the sides to create a little flap to make it easier to hot glue them to the cardboard. Once glued, they had to trim down their towers if they were too tall to make them a little more proportionate. This is the first time I've let 3rd graders use hot glue guns and it was VERY successful! Some of them were leery of using the glue guns, so I helped them, but everyone else did quite well! We had no burned fingers! Once a student finished constructing his or her castle, they helped others catch up...it was great watching their teamwork today! My cart of castles! Class B still needs one more period to finish constructing all of their castles. I just BARELY had enough paper towel tubes to do this project...I've been stock piling them for a while and I have one grandparent who has faithfully sent me two garbage bags full of them since the beginning of the year. Now, I just need a project to deplete the toilet paper tubes that I have left...
Cardboard castles are a good craft choice any day for the children. They are easy to make, fun, and requires just a few items around the house.
Get ready for the most fun you can possibly have with a cardboard box! Learn how to turn your everyday recycling into an easy DIY castle