Boxes; Children's literature; Handicraft; Paper work; Toys
Find some deep box with its cover. It really matters little whether the
box is round or square-sided. A round box will make a high tower-like
castle similar to the one in the picture. A square one will make one
more like a fortress. It scarcely matters which you choose. Take the
cover from your box. This is to form the castle ramparts later. High up
in the box rim cut one or two long tower windows. Cut a door at the base
of the rim. Next cut the ramparts in the box cover. (For cutting
ramparts, see Diagram Three, _F_, page 172.) Glue these to the top of
your castle box—and the castle is made!
The Princess who lives in the Castle is a penny doll dressed in a silver
robe (made of tinfoil). My Princess has golden hair. It is long and
beautiful. You can see it in the picture.
The Knight is a leaden soldier. His spear is a bit of wire. His shield
is a brass button, polished and shining.
You can easily find the proper kind of dragon at a little Japanese shop.
Mine was made of crockery and cost ten cents, but you will surely find
among the cotton animals that are sold three for five cents something
far better than my crockery dragon. There are the most dragon-like of
cotton animals at the Japanese stores where I buy penny toys. Sometimes
they are spidery and sometimes they are like crocodiles—only they aren’t
crocodiles but DRAGONS. When you go to a Japanese shop and look for
penny animals you will know exactly what I mean. They are all queer, and
will work into any fanciful fairy tale that you wish to play with your
castle.
Don’t forget to make the dragon a lair, when you have bought him. It may
be just a box with a hole in it for the mouth of a den, but if you have
some pretty stones and pebbles, you can build a _real_ lair on the
play-room floor with these.
Almost any fairy tale may be acted out with the Knight and the Princess.
Little toys which you have among your playthings may help out. I know
you will have a good time playing at fairyland. I did.
I built me a Hansel and Gretel house, too. This was to help with my
fairyland play.
Hansel and Gretel were two tumble toys—a boy and a girl. Their home was
in a Boxville Cottage. When they went to the woods and found the Witch’s
House, I made that. It was in a forest of clothes-pins like the trees
made for Camp Box.
I made the fairyland house of the Witch from a deep oblong box. I cut
two windows in one rim and a door between them, as you see it in the
picture of the fairyland house.
To the sides of the house, I pasted some little crackers and goodies.
The roof of the house was of crackers. It was very fairy.
I used some pretzels for a fence around it.
There were some small celluloid dolls among my playthings, and I made
fairies of them. You can see one that is a Daisy. Her dress is an
artificial flower off my old hat. I took the center out of the daisy and
made a skirt of the petals. The fairy’s wings were cut from white
tissue-paper. They were glued to the back of her body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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