Make your little princess and her court a castle to play in.
You've ordered the cake, put together the goodie bags and filled the pinata, but what's a princess party without a castle? Build a simple castle out of cardboard and make it the centerpiece of the party. With a little paint and rhinestones, it will impress the princess partygoers and entertain your daughter for weeks beyond her special day.
Instructions
1. Gather large cardboard boxes from appliance stores. Ask the manager for boxes from refrigerators, washers and dryers. It shouldn't cost anything to get the boxes, as the stores probably recycle them anyway. Ideally, get eight boxes of the same size. Washer and dryer boxes make a perfect toddler-size castle; use refrigerator boxes for bigger kids.
2. Sketch a model of your castle. Make it simple with two side walls and one back wall, connected by four towers in the corners. Make the entry open with an archway connecting the front two towers. Draw tower windows and add a classic curtain-wall design at the tops of the towers; this is the common jigsaw-looking top of castle walls.
3. Lay out your cardboard boxes in the room where castle will be set-up. Following your sketch, place three boxes on their sides for the two side walls and the back wall. Connect them with four boxes standing upright in the corners; these are the towers of the castle.
4. Cut the bottom and top flaps off the boxes with a utility knife. Using your sketch model as a guide: Cut-out the curtain-wall designs and windows of the towers. You can also cut-out secret passages inside the castle walls; or cut-out doors for entry into the towers. Using an eighth box, cut-out an archway that will reach from one front tower to the other.
5. Connect the walls and towers using gray duct tape. Attach the archway and secure it with duct tape.
6. Paint the castle with gray latex-based paint. Protect your flooring with newspaper underneath the castle and pour paint into a paint tray and grab your paint roller. Depending on your daughter's age, get her involved in the painting, too. After the paint is completely dry, use black tempera paint to draw lines on the castle resembling bricks. You can also add decorate touches such as flowers, vines and hearts with different colors of tempera paint.
7. Paint your daughter's name on the archway in pink or purple tempera paint. You can also make the wording more personal, such as "Isabella's Castle." Let your daughter personalize her name on the archway with stick-on rhinestones.
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