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Paper (card) craft is fascinating. You can easily create a new play world using just one piece of A4 card or even an old cereal box. I’ve been making these play scenes for (and with) the kids since the long days of keeping a very young Danny entertained in hospital, but they’re also handy when travelling and for keeping the kids amused on rainy days.





When we were sent our most recent box of craft goodies from Bostik and Craft Merrily, there was a dragon theme so we decided to focus on a medieval castle and dragon.





Here is how we made our Castle Play Scene:







What You’ll Need

The great thing about cardboard play scapes is you don’t need many craft materials to make them.



At the minimum, you need:





Card (I used 1 sheet of white A4 paper, but you could used an old cereal box or other card packaging)

Pencil (sharpener & rubber)

Ruler

Scissors

Coloured felts or pencils

In addition you can also use:

Glue

Scrape pieces of paper and card

Glitter Glue

A selection of craft adornments to decorate

An A5 envelope to store your play scene in

How to Make a Card Castle







1. Fold the A4 piece of paper in half from top to bottom.







2. Draw a line at 15cm to create a square.





























3. Cut along this line and also the fold. Your A4 card will now be in three pieces, 2 15cm squares and a long strip (save this to draw your characters).

4. Draw tooth shaped battlements at the top of your squared card.





5. Cut out the battlements.





6. Halfway horizontally across one square make a vertical slot upwards to the middle of your card.



One the second piece of card, halfway horizontally, make a vertical slot downwards to the middle of you card.





7. Now your two pieces of square card can slot together.



(The cut and slot technique is a great basis for any playscene you want to make- a house, spaceship etc).





8. Cut up the long strip into 4 pieces. This will make three standing characters. Cut the fourth rectangle into three strips.







9. Draw on your characters. We have made a knight, a princess and a dragon. Remind kids that characters with need a flat foot surface to balance best.





10. Similarly to how we made the castle, cut a small slot halfway across the strip (mine was 2 cm) and the same length slot from the bottom of each character. Slot them together and trim your stand if needed.







11. Colour in your play scene and characters.



12. Now stick on any embellishments and add glitter glue if desired. We added some fire and glitter wings to our dragon, a voile and glitter to our princess and glitter to our knight’s sword.





13. Draw or stick on shapes to decorate the castle. We have used a door and windows, but a portcullis, fire, well etc could also be added.





You will find that once you make this once with your kids then they’ll go on to make lots more of their own. For example at Christmas my kids made a card nativity scene.







When not being used, they fold up flat in an envelope so don’t take up much room but provide lots of fun.







Make card play scenes of your child’s favourite stories or topics in history.







The possibilities are endless.



What play scene will you make?





In collaboration with Bostik