Boxes; Children's literature; Handicraft; Paper work; Toys
Really, I am very proud of the piano. It is not every doll-house that
can have a piano—but you can make one, for it is easy. You will need a
shallow letter-paper box and a narrow box such as fountain pens come in
from the store where they are bought. Paste one long side of the narrow
box across the front or back of the letter-paper box after you have
stood the letter-paper box upright. The narrow box should be placed
about where you think the keyboard belongs. (See Diagram Six, _F_, page
179, for making a piano from two boxes.) The music-rest is a bit of
folded box rim glued to the central part of the piano above the
keyboard. The keyboard is marked off with ink upon a strip of white
paper and pasted upon the top of the narrow box. You can easily draw the
first part of some music that you know, and place it on a tiny sheet of
white paper to make a “piece” for the piano’s music-rest.
A mantel for the living-room may be made from a flat letter-paper box.
Stand the box upon one long rim and place its printed side to the back.
Cut from the front a mantel opening like the opening for a fireplace.
(See Diagram Six, _G_, page 180.)
The Morris chair is made like any other chair. (See Diagram Six, _C_,
page 177, for cutting a chair from a box.) It has two bent box rims
glued to each side to make the arm rests, and the cardboard is cut
rounding from the front rim of the box in cutting its legs.
I made a very cute little cupboard for my doll-house dining-room. It was
easily made. You can make one out of any shallow box that is like a
spool box, by cutting out all of its front rim excepting a narrow margin
left all the way around its front cover. I cut some strips of cardboard
and fitted them across the inside of this box and glued them to make
shelves. Lace-paper made the shelf-paper. Metal corks from bottles and
cold-cream tubes made mugs and silver-ware. Plates for the dining-room
were circles cut from cardboard.
A sideboard may be made from half of a letter-paper box, cutting this in
half lengthwise. Then cut this half the box as if you were making a high
bench. Do not cut far up in the box rim to make the legs. Cut them
curving at the front. Outline a drawer and cupboard doors upon the
front, and paste a plate-rack at back. It is the cover of a narrow box
glued behind the buffet.
Of all my doll-house furniture, I like the kitchen best. It looks so
homelike. If I were a little doll, I know I should love to go into that
kitchen and make candy on the stove. It would be such fun!
The stove is made from an oblong candy box cut like a bench. At two
sides of its front, I cut oven doors and put round-headed
paper-fasteners through them to make knobs. The prongs of each
paper-fastener, bent, make latch for oven doors. At the back of each
oven door, right inside the box, I pasted a small box and made a real
little oven. I could put dishes in it!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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