The Ultimate Cardboard Castle

This past week I saw a large castle in a store for $100 dollars. June saw all the Princesses on it and was immediately drawn to it. I don't blame her, when I was little I would have DIED for it! It was very cute but I knew that she would play with it maybe once or twice a week once the "newness" wore off. This was also  huge and would take up a lot of space. So I decided to make a castle I could really make over and over again if I needed for for about $2. I had boxes I was going to throw away that I saved from 1 week. 1 shoe box, 1 kleenex box, 1 paper towel tube and 1 toilet paper tube, and 2 fruit snack boxes. I spent $1 on spray paint, and the other $1 is in hot glue, 1 piece of card stock and a light layer of clear coat spray. THAT IS IT! And it turned out DARLING! If it gets ruined or broken, WHO CARES! I can make another one, I could make 50 more for the price of the one in the store. Check it out! You have to admit it's pretty great for being just boxes. Talk about Trash to Treasure! Just a couple hours of creativity and you will have a cute castle that has storage in the bottom! Look at that!

All the garbage cardboard used to make this masterpiece!

I set it up how I wanted, to look like a castle with different heights and "layers." I knew I wanted the shoe box on the bottom so the castle could be on the lid and the figures could be stored "inside" the castle bottom.

I cut the front of the kleenex box for the "main entrance" I was lucky with this kleenex box already being white and having vines up it! I wasn't too worried about covering it really well with the white spray paint! I liked it!

With the smaller fruit snack box I cut into the top and "folded" it inside the box to create another place for figures to stand in the castle. I made a window on each side. I duct taped the flap inside as you can see, and I even went through the bottom of the box and duct taped it INSIDE .

With the large fruit snack box I used it as the cone roofs on the towers and the "stairs," I cut a strip and....

folded it like an accordion

I then hot glued it to the kleenex flap I made earlier

I cut the one toilet paper tube by about 1/3 and put the small piece on one side and the 2/3 piece on the other of the fruit snacks box. I hot glued both down VERY well.

With the large fruit snacks box I again cut out strips and made cone roofs for the tops

When I was finished with the "Rapunzel Tower" and had it hot glued down, as well as hot gluing all the boxes to the lid, someone was SO excited she had to play with it right THEN! So we took a break and I spray painted it while she was taking a nap.

1 can of white spray paint, I put about 2-3 coats on and 1 clear coat of spray.

I was silly and decided to draw with a silver sharpie some stones on the walls. You can't see them unless you're looking for them. It was just a small touch.

I took one piece of white card stock and started cutting out the "square design" they have on most castles. 

I would eye ball and make slits into the paper, then cut every other one, like so. Then I would cut about 1/2 an inch down and make strips of this "square design." 

All the strips of "square design" I got from 1 piece of card stock

I then hot glued it all around the card board edges. It was the PERFECT touch I needed to really make it look like a castle instead of a pile of boxes.

I made 3 flags for the cone roofs I cut them out on a fold.

I hot glued a tooth pick in the fold, and glued the paper together.

I took a piece of paper that fit in the back of the kleenex box and the fruit snack box and put stickers of Disney princesses as "wallpaper!" ha ha.

I hot glued the flags to the top and I was DONE! YAY! How cute is that!? Just right for her figures!

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