Cardboard Boxes

People say that cats love cardboard boxes but let me tell you, cats hate cardboard boxes compared to how much I love them.

I collect them, I store things in them, I never want to throw them out just in case they might be useful for something.

My favourite thing to do with cardboard boxes is to build with them.

Earlier this year the X-Man had a pirate birthday party. So I got myself a couple of big boxes and spent about nine hours transforming them into something awesome.

Here they are, the Jellyguts and the Squidbones, pirate vessels ready to set sail. That's Venus poking her head out of the front of the Jellyguts.

One of the boxes was from Nana's new heater. The other was a fridge box salvaged from the skip out the back of a local whitegoods shop. I cut them open, turned them inside out and taped them back up, making a long point at one end. Then I cut portholes and flaps for extra fun, and drew all the details on with a couple of big black markers. The flags are made from long cardboard tubes and large sheets of black paper. If you look very closely you'll see one of those skulls is missing a tooth, the same tooth that Venus was missing at the time.

At the time I thought they were a bit small and that really only two or maybe three kids at a time would fit in each one. I forgot to factor in the size of your average three to five year old. When the pirate ships came out to play the Jellyguts was immediately occupied by three mermaids, and Squidbones, the bigger boat, managed to hold no less than five boys at any one time. In fact, the hatch that I had cut into the top of the ship which was 30cm square (the one Venus is standing in) had two small boys sticking out of it most of the time.

There were black balloons which quickly became cannon balls and there was an awful lot of swashbuckling going on. 

I think the best thing about building things out of cardboard boxes is that they are easily transformed, and when the kids first clapped eyes on them, they all started to shout "Pirate ships! Pirate ships!" None of them looked and saw cardboard boxes.

Then when Venus decided to have a witches and wizards birthday party, and by "decided to" I mean Ms Awesome and I suggested it to her and she said "Yes! Yes! Yes!", I got a bit ambitious. I'd seen some fairly impressive pictures on the internet and I became convinced I could build my little girl a witch's castle. Out of cardboard boxes. Of course. Doesn't everyone?

In the end I used three dishwasher boxes, two fridge boxes, one cot box (thanks, Auntie Marvellous) and one TV cabinet box (thanks, Auntie Leanne), and I produced a castle that exceeded my expectations.

Here are the raw cardboard boxes. I cut them all open and turned them inside out, so I could paint on the plain side and not have to worry about painting over text.

Here are some of the boxes in progress. You can see one of the turrets and one of the smaller buildings. I worked out that with the boxes I had I could manage two turrets with an arch, and two smaller individual buildings. I wanted to paint stones on all of them but just ran out of time, so the smaller buildings have their stones drawn on instead.

The finished turrets and archway. I knew they'd look good, but I never expected them to look as good as this. I added a string of artificial roses across the archway to soften it a bit. I cut plenty of peekholes in all the buildings. One of the turrets has a "secret tunnel" and the two smaller buildings have doors.

I rearranged my loungeroom so that the pieces of the castle formed a rough square inside the room. I can't tell you what the guests all said when they first saw it, but I know my kids were impressed when we installed it the day before the party. I can also tell you that those two little buildings were extremely popular. At the time Grandpa told me that all the kids were climbing in and out of those things constantly, playing peekaboo with each other and their parents and generally having a whale of a time. Again, that little house on the left had five kids crammed in it at one point, and they were all having a blast.

This project took about twenty four hours to complete over the space of five days. I learned a lot in that time. I learned that painting takes a lot longer than you think it will, and that you really really really need to think about the size of your work before you build it downstairs in the rumpus room. The large turret on the left was too tall to stand up in the room where I was secretly working away, so it had to be partially disassembled, moved, rebuilt, and then the painting had to be finished upstairs. In addition to that the small building on the left was just wider than our doorways, as it turned out. So getting the whole thing upstairs was quite an adventure.

Having all these experiences behind me, I'm beginning to think I can make just about anything out of cardboard boxes. Mars is having a Star Wars party in about three weeks. I wonder what I can build between now and then... I'll let you know.