Gabriel's Castle

My nephew, Gabriel, was so excited to start his art project--a colorful castle for his playmobile guys to play in. The first thing we did was come up with a design. We gathered toilet paper and paper towel tubes, and any other boxes we could find. We also bought cork to use and found some popsicle sticks in the craft box.

This is how it turned out. Notice the toys playing in the castle, including the guard dog!

The tubes were either made entirely of cork or they were wrapped with construction paper. They were glued securely to the back and sides of the square box. The King's throne was made from the popsicle sticks and painted. Then, jewels were added. We glued cork to the drawbridge. Ross thought it was sand!;)

To secure the yarn coming from the drawbridge, we glued two pieces of wood with a notch in it on the back side of the castle. (Wooden animals used to stand on these pieces.) Every time Gabriel wants to pull up or let down the drawbridge, he just has to secure it on to the notches.

Gabriel was super excited about this new toy that his mom and I helped him put together. With everyone's creativity, this castle turned out so well. This idea was found in the Family Fun Crafts book, but we did quite a few different things to it. All in all, it was such a great project!