Make Your Own Cardboard Castle {Recycling}

When we went to visit my sister for Thanksgiving, my son played for hours with a cardboard castle that my nephew had built.  I promised him that we'd make our own.  And he didn't forget my promise.   I procrastinated for a while because we didn't have enough boxes saved, but when they starting flowing from their corner in the dining room to other parts of the house I knew it was time to quit stalling and just make it.

No tutorial here.  In fact, I think the less you think about it the better.  Just start taping boxes together.  I used duct tape for one and masking tape for the other and the masking tape actually worked better.

Some things I learned:

• Cut the windows and doors BEFORE you tape the boxes together.
• Too much tape is better than not enough.
• The duct tape did not hold together as well as I thought it would, so I reinforced with some hot glue between the boxes.
• The only paint I found that would cover the boxes was acrylic.  The darker the color, the better it covered.

She's "helping" me.

My son wanted his in different colors:

The princess castle:

One of the many castles my nephew built:

 

The ONE detail I came up with:

Flag from a popsicle stick and ribbon

Just a FEW of the details my nephew came up with:

Paper clip drawbridge

Egg carton balcony

What would you call those jagged things? I don't know, but I love them.

That flag.  And he used TWO shades of paint.

Isn't he amazing??

Although my castles do not even come close to those of my nephew, my kids liked them anyway.  I would say they got played with as much as, if not more, than the most popular Christmas gift this year.  So either I don't know how to buy good Christmas gifts, or kids really do prefer playing with the boxes rather than the toys themselves.