Purim is just around the corner and I'm thinking about castles — castles made out of recycled cardboard tubes and a shoebox, of course! I've always wanted to make a castle, and realized that a colorful castle crafted by mom or the kids or both, could be a fantastic centerpiece for the Purim sueda (meal). There's so many ways to go with this one as far as materials and size. And if you don't need a centerpiece so how about a castle mishloach manos? Just build your castle on the lid of the shoe box and voila! I think I may just have to use that idea myself, for the kid's teachers that is, who deserve something really special, and are expecting something creative! I guess that's the price one pays when you don't hide your crafty ways!
And the great thing about this castle is that is looks great from all sides, assuming you take that a bit into consideration when building it! Here's a view from the back, and yes the pieces aren't perfect or straight, as my son pointed out to me this morning, but I did that on purpose, because ya know perfection isn't everything!
You'll Need:
- cardboard tubes of all kinds, also mailing tubes which tend to be much wider!
- round cans or just about anything thick and round, how about a piece of pvc pipe?
- a shoe box
- wrapping paper
- colored paper
- sheer patterned disposable table runner fabric, it's stiff and easy to work with
- glittered craft foam
- hot glue and/or high tack craft glue like Alene's
- mod podge
- wooden skewers
How To:
Follow my directions, but since your castle won't be exactly like mine, don't be afraid to re-invent this project a bit!
- Cover the bottom of your shoe box with some fun patterned wrapping paper. If you'll be making a castle gift box, so cover the bottom of the shoe box and the lid separately, and continue to build your castle on the lid.
- Cover the bottom of the shoebox (namely the base for your castle) with a solid piece of paper, using mod podge or diluted white glue, as the patterned wrapping paper might be a bit too distracting.
- Cover toilet paper tubes, some cut down to half their size and some stacked two together (or more) with the sheer sparkled (gold in my case) table runner material.
- Cover your largest tube, (mine is actually a box that held a bottle of scotch, so glad to finally use it!) with a bright piece of solid colored paper and make some window or castle like details of some kinds by applying other colors of cut outs with mod podge.
- Make some window and door details for the shoe box portion of your castle and affix with mod podge.
- Now it's time to make roofs and details using the sparkled craft foam! Roofs are basically circles with a slit in them, and then you overlap the pieces on either side of the slit to form a little cone shape, and adhere with hot glue. Attach the roofs with hot glue or high tack glue. Attach look out tower details (forgot what those are called) to the tallest tubes, as well as some peep holes and tiny windows, using hot glue or high tack glue.
- Glue everything together, both to the base and to each other where possible, make a few flags and you're done!
- Sit back and enjoy gazing at your wonderful castle and give yourself a pat on the back, you really are royalty if you managed to make this palace with everything else that's going on before Purim!
