THE JOLLY BOOK OF BOXCRAFT

Boxville.

THE

JOLLY BOOK OF

BOXCRAFT

BY

PATTEN BEARD

With Sixty-eight Photographic Illustrations By G. S. North from

Models Made and Arranged by the Author and with

Twenty-three Diagrams by E. D. Pattee

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1914, by

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

All rights reserved

THIS BOOK

IS DEDICATED TO

ALL LITTLE CHILDREN

AND TO

“NIMBLEFINGERS,” “HAPPY THOUGHT”

AND “PLAY”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

“The Jolly Book of Boxcraft” has been enlarged and rewritten from work started in May, 1909. This work was purchased by St. Nicholas, Little Folks, Good Housekeeping, The Congregationalist and Christian World, The Designer, Holland’s Magazine, The Housekeeper, The Ladies’ Home Journal, The New York Herald, and The New York Tribune. Thanks are due to them for the courtesy of using material which was included in their articles.

The author feels that it is only right to acknowledge her indebtedness to the children themselves who have lent their toys and helped in many little ways of their own toward the making of this book. Special thanks are due to Elizabeth Hendricks, Raymon Guthrie, Henry Jarrett, Stanley Hoyt, and Wesley Meehan, playfellows.

CONTENTS

NOTE

In view of the large number of illustrations in this volume and of the necessity for grouping them, it is necessary for an occasional illustration to appear at the end of its chapter, or at the end of the preceding chapter. It is desirable therefore that the list of illustrations be consulted frequently.

ILLUSTRATIONS

DIAGRAMS

INTRODUCTION

THE BOXCRAFT ROAD

Near Jollyplay in Boxland, on Boxcraft Road to Fun,

There lies a children’s village—a very happy one.

Its buildings are all boxes—the hotel and the store,

The school-house and the station, and many others more!

The name of it is Boxville. Its villagers are toys,

And those who build in Boxville are merry girls and boys.

You, too, may go to Boxland to make a house for play—

Look! Here, you’ll see the guide-post! Before you lies the way.

Take cardboard boxes with you—maybe, some paste or glue,

A pencil, and a paint-box,—and take your scissors too.

I’ll tell you all about it. We’ll start—the turning’s here—

It was a fairy told me about this village, dear!

THE JOLLY BOOK OF BOXCRAFT

The Jolly Book of Boxcraft

BOXCRAFT

Material Required to Make Boxcraft: cardboard boxes, paste, scissors, crayons or water-color paints; perhaps a ruler, and pencil will help.

Do you believe in fairies? I do. I know three of them, and they are quite as wonderful as Cinderella’s fairy godmother. She could make a coach and pair out of nothing at all but a pumpkin and some mice, but the fairies that I know can do even better than that! They can make a whole toy shop full of toys from nothing at all but some cardboard boxes.

The fairies that I know are called Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play. They have so much magic that they can transform even dull days and make them jolly ones. All three of them came to see me one very rainy day, and each of them sat upon a cardboard box while they all told me in chorus about the fairy art of boxcraft.

“Have you ever noticed how much an ordinary shoe-box looks like a little building with a flat roof?” Happy Thought inquired.

“All you have to do to make it a house,” Nimblefingers put in, “is to cut doors and windows in its sides.”

“And then, when you have made the house, you have all kinds of fun with it,” laughed Play.

“Boxes will make chimneys for your house,” Happy Thought pursued. “Boxes will make furniture—beds, tables, chairs, mantels, pianos, benches—everything!”

“You need only to cut the box rims to make them,” Nimblefingers interrupted.

“And when they are made—oh, think of the things you can use them for!” chuckled Play.

“A whole village can be made—cottages, school, store, church, railway station, bridges, tunnels—everything,” Happy Thought went on.

“And all that you need to do it will be a pair of scissors, a pencil, some paints, and maybe some paste. I’ll show you how,” Nimblefingers volunteered.

“When the village is made, all your toys can play in it! Haven’t you some roly-poly tumble toys, and some penny dolls, and toy animals?” Play demanded. “I know you must have.”

“And the village is not all that you can make from nothing at all but some cardboard boxes. You may make almost any kind of a toy: a theater for dolls, a merry-go-round, an Indian wigwam, and games, and games, and GAMES!”

So, the fairies, Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play, told me how to make all these magic toys from nothing at all but cardboard boxes, and they asked me to tell the children about it, so that they might know how to change dull days into bright and happy ones when they had learned of the magic.

Cardboard boxes are to be found everywhere. They are in your home and in everybody’s home. Butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, milliners, druggists, jewelers, stationers, grocers, drygoods firms, shoe stores, book stores, toy stores, all keep them. Everywhere, everywhere there are cardboard boxes—big boxes, little boxes, middling-sized boxes; wide boxes, narrow boxes, deep boxes, shallow boxes; round boxes, oblong boxes, square boxes! Boxes, boxes, BOXES everywhere! All you need to do is to ask for them.

People at home are throwing them away. The butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers, the milliners, the druggists, the jewelers, the stationers, the grocers, and the dry goods firms, as well as all the others, are constantly sending boxes to your home. The shoe stores, and the book stores, and the toy stores, and ever so many others, are throwing boxes away just because nobody seems to realize what magic there lies in them for the children.

When Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play first told me about boxcraft, I did not find any trouble in securing the kind of box that I needed for the toy-making. I found that the merchants were very glad to give me boxes when I asked for them. They smiled when I asked. They did not know that a toy circus tent could be made from a round hat-box. They did not know that a whole village might be erected out of six shoe-boxes!

Boxville Cottage is made from a shoe-box.

Boxville Cottage is furnished with Boxcraft Materials.

Boxcraft Materials.

An unfinished Boxcraft Toy.

Among the boxes given me were three very large ones. One was deep and wide. It came from the milliner’s. It was not a bandbox, but a box used to pack hats away in. In it I kept all the boxes that came to me. The small ones I packed inside the large ones. It was a simple matter, after that, to find what I needed when I wished to make a table, or a chair, or a punch show, or a school-house.

Another box that was given me was wide and flat. Into it I put all pretty papers that came my way—lace-paper, pinwheel paper, sheets of waxed sandwich paper and glacine book covers, crape paper, spools, cotton, pencils. Everything that could lie flat went into this wide, flat box, to be stored till needed. This box packed into the first box easily.

The third box was broad, and square, and deep. Into it I packed the playthings I had made after I had finished playing with them. It fitted into the side of the first box above the wide and flat one. All these could be put out of sight in my play-closet when night came and it was time to pick up.

These boxes I called my treasure boxes. I hope you will find three like them and keep your boxcraft materials as I kept mine, for Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play told me about the plan, and I think it is a splendid one.

If you have some pretty samples of wall-paper, you can easily cover your treasure boxes with them. There might be some wall-paper like that in your play-room. If so, this would be the very thing. Then, the boxes may be placed anywhere you choose in your room.

These treasure boxes are not meant to hold large toys. It is the little toys that you will like best to use in boxcraft play. The toy figures and the animals will pack into very small space. The corrugated cardboard for roofs, the green crape paper for grass, the pretty shells, pebbles, and artificial flowers for garden building, take but small space.

The tools for your boxcraft, scissors, and paste, and paint-box, may go into the large, deep treasure box too.

Here in this book you will find the toys that the fairies have shown me how to make. There are many, many more. You can try the magic craft of the fairies for yourself in your own way. If your boxes are not always exactly like mine, make them answer by adapting the general plan of the toy to the box which you have. Learn to make much out of little. That is the motto of boxcraft play. THAT is what Cinderella’s fairy godmother did when she changed a pumpkin into a golden coach. That is what fairies always do! They find magic in little things—so suppose you try it too!

Sing a song of boxes and busy fingers too,

Some scissors, and a paint-box, and just a bit of glue!

Sing a song of playtime for happy girls and boys,

A-snipping with their scissors, a-making boxcraft toys!

List of Materials which May Be Used in Boxcraft

Cardboard boxes. (To make buildings and toys.)

Corrugated cardboard. (To make roofs and fences.)

Plain cardboard. (To use in cutting side walls, roofs, wheels for carriages.)

Glacine paper book-covers. (To use in making window-glass for buildings.)

Colored pinwheel papers and tissue papers. (To use in decorating houses.)

Spools. (To make standards for trees and bushes in landscape building, to make flower-stands, cannon, stools, tables, legs for dolls’ beds, men for playing boxcraft games.)

Round-headed paper-fasteners of brass. (To make door-knobs and door-latches for buildings. To fasten handles to baskets. To fasten wheels to vehicles.)

Pencils. (To use for pillars for buildings. To use for making game-boards.)

Tools Used in Boxcraft Play

Just a pair of scissors, some paste, and a box of crayons or water-color paints.

THE LITTLE WHITE COTTAGE OF BOXVILLE

Material Required for Making a Little Cottage: one shoe-box with its cover, a twelve-inch square of cardboard, three small boxes, and a bit of glacine paper to make window-glass.

Here is the little Cottage of Boxville. I think The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe might better have chosen to live in a shoe-box like this than to have made her home in an old boot! The cottage certainly seems cozy, and far more comfortable than a shoe would be. I know that her children would have preferred a dwelling like this. I am sure you like it better yourself, so I am going to tell you how you may build one just like it.

Find a shoe-box and take its cover off. Set the box upon its side with the bottom of the box facing you. This is to be the front of the cottage.

Upon the front you will need to draw two windows and a door. Take your ruler and a pencil. Measure a window space two inches from either end of the box. Make each window space two inches wide and two inches high. Half-way between these, draw a door space with its base at the base of the box. Make the door space two inches wide and three inches and a half tall.

Down the center of each window space from top to base of the square, draw a line which divides it into half. This forms the window-blinds, which you will need to cut open. (To make window with blinds, see [Diagram One, B], page 166.) Cut top line. Cut down the center line and cut across the base of the square. Fold the sections of cardboard outward against the sides of your box, and you will have made a window with blinds.

Half-way between windows is the door space. (To cut door, see [Diagram Two, A], page 167.) Cut across the top line of your square, down one side and across the base. Fold the cardboard outward, and you will have made a door that you can open and close at will.

If you happen to have a round-headed paper-fastener that has two pointed prongs that are meant to press through papers to keep them together, take it and press its prongs through the little door where a door-knob should be. Bend the prongs together to one side and you will have a door-latch. By turning the round knob, you may fasten the door or open it, as you like.

The roof of the cottage is supported upon two pieces of cardboard cut to fit each end of the box. (See [Diagram Three, A], page 168.) To make these, take your cardboard and cut a piece the width of one end of your box and four inches higher. Make a second piece of cardboard like it to fit the other end of your box. Glue both on the box, one on each end. Then, with scissors, cut each piece off diagonally downward from the top at the rear of the box to the front of the box. This cuts off a corner and makes a sloping rest for each end of the cottage. Upon these the cover of the shoe-box is slipped to make half of a sloping roof. (See [Diagram Three, AA], page 168, showing box cover placed upon side-wall pieces.)

Slip your box cover over the two points, when both are thoroughly dry. See, it makes the best kind of a roof for your cottage!

If you wish to add a chimney, any long, narrow box that is small enough to form the right proportion to the roof may be used. Measure its base upon the cottage roof near the top. Cut the cardboard of the roof so that the box end may be slipped through it and stand erect, and you have a chimney. If you use a box which has a sliding cover like a drawer, its outside will be like a real little chimney. You may mark off bricks upon it with a pencil, and color it bright red. A wad of cotton will form the smoke for a chimney.

I painted blinds and door of the cottage that you see in the picture. Blinds were green and the door was brown. You may use almost any kind of paint to do this. The colors from your water-color painting-box will answer. You may use crayons too, if you like. Other paint takes somewhat longer to dry. It is not so well adapted to the building.

In front of my cottage, I made a garden with some artificial flowers that had once been on my summer hat in a wreath. You may easily make a garden for your cottage, or you may have tubs of flowers like the one in the picture. It is the lower half of a pill-box filled with forget-me-nots.

The cottage is furnished with furniture cut from small boxes. These may be three inches long or smaller. My furniture is all painted, but you need not paint yours unless you care to do so.

The bed is made from a box and its cover. To make it, first take the lower half of your box and turn it over so that its rims are below instead of on top. At each corner cut a leg for the bed, and remove cardboard from between these cuttings, so that it leaves at each corner of the rim a two-sided leg. (To cut bench form, see [Diagram Six, A], page 175.) When you have cut this lower half of the bed, take the cover of your box and turn it so that its rims come upward instead of downward. Remove the rims from each long side, and you will have left the head and footboard of the bed. Glue this piece to the lower half you first cut, and the bed will be finished. Sheets and pillow may be cut from tissue or lace-paper.

A chair is made from the lower half of any small box. Beginning at the center of one long rim of the box, cut the rim off half-way around. The part with rim removed will be the back of the chair. The other will be the seat and legs. Legs are cut to right and left of each forward corner. Cardboard is evenly removed from between them. Rear legs are cut in each rim at the side of the box in the same way, except that these rear legs have but one cut needed. They are not cornered as the front legs are. (For cutting a chair, see [Diagram Six, C], page 177.)

A table for the cottage is made from a spool by standing the spool on end. Over its top is placed the half of a small round box. (A square box cover may answer quite as well.) The table may be made from an ordinary spool, or two twist spools glued end to end. (For table, see [Diagram Six, DD], page 178.)

A mantel with fireplace for the cottage may be cut from a small box three inches high. Stand the box on end and cut from its rear, near the base, an opening like that of a fireplace. (For cutting a mantel with fireplace, see [Diagram Six, G], page 180.) Use the back of the box, as it has no printing upon it. If your box is painted, it will not matter whether or not you make your cutting in the front, as the print will not show when cleverly painted over.

In my cottage there lived a tumble toy lady. Her name was Polly Ann. You can see her in the picture with her china dog. You may use roly-poly tumble toys or penny dolls to play with in the cottage. Figures cut from magazine pictures are fun to use, too. Color them with your paints or crayons.

Besides tumble toys, Noah’s Ark figures, and picture people cut from magazines, villagers for Boxville cottages may be found at any penny store where children trade. These are small dressed dolls, one cent apiece!

In candy shops where party favors are sold, all manner of small figures may be bought. These are odd little men or women—just the very ones to use in playing Boxville plays. At every holiday season, new ones appear! You can always find them.

I built a tiny cottage with two windows and a door,

I called it Boxville Cottage and I placed it on the floor:

All ’round about my cottage, a cardboard village grew—

I’ll tell you how to make it, so that you can make one too!

THE BOXVILLE STORE

Material Required for Making a Boxville Store: one shoe-box with two shoe-box covers, two long pencils, two spools, waxed paper, and small boxes.

The village store of Boxville is made from a shoe-box. One shoe-box cover makes the porch it rests upon. Another forms the roof of the store.

If you wish to make a village store, also, place a shoe-box upon its side, and then the bottom of the box will become the front of your store.

You will need to have a large shop window in front. Make this first. Two inches from the right-hand end of the box, mark with your pencil a wide oblong space five inches by three. Cut out this window space on all four sides. (For cutting a window space, see [Diagram One, A], page 166.)

Cut a piece of waxed paper a little larger than the size of your window. Paste this inside the box building over the window space to make glass. Cut strips of pinwheel paper and paste them around the window on the outside of the box to make window-casings.

Now you are ready to make a door for your store. Draw a door space on your box with your pencil. Make it two inches from the left-hand end of the box. Make it four inches high and two inches wide. (To cut single door, see [Diagram Two, A], page 167.) Cut across the top line, down the side line that is next the window, and across the base. When you bend the cardboard you have cut, you will have a door that will open and close. Color the door, if you like. It may be painted brown.

After this, you are ready to place the roof on your store; but first, lay one of the box covers upon its rims on your work-table and put the little store upon it, well back, so there will be a porch in front. Then, take your other shoe-box cover and fit it over the top of the box building so that it projects over the porch in front. Two long pencils, with ends run into the openings of two spools, make pillars to place at either corner of the porch.

The step up to the porch is any small box you may have.

Inside the store, a long hat-pin box makes a counter. Flowers, leaves, pretty pebbles, shells, and little toys such as you may find among your own playthings may be displayed upon the counter.

A roly-poly tumble toy will make a clerk for the store, or, if you like, you may find both clerk and customers in magazine pictures, and you can mount them on thin cardboard and cut them out. There is no end to the plays you can invent when your store is finished. Polly Ann of shoe-box cottage, Boxville, has just come to the store to buy a loaf of bread. There it is—that pretty brown pebble! Those green leaves are vegetables! The beads in that box are apples! The shells are little cakes!

To Boxville! To Boxville! To have a lot of fun!

I’m going to the general store to buy a penny bun!

The bun is just a pebble on the counter of the store,

And the penny’s made of paper, so, perhaps, I’ll make some more!

The Village Store made of a shoe-box and two shoe-box covers.

Inside view of the Village Store. The counter is a hat-pin box.

The District School of Boxville. It is made from a shoe-box.

Inside view of the Boxville School. The desks are all cut from small
oblong boxes. The benches are boxes also; and the stove is a spool
with a pencil for a stovepipe.

THE DISTRICT SCHOOL OF BOXVILLE

Material Required for Building a Toy School: one shoe-box with its cover, a half-sheet of cardboard, three small boxes about three inches long, the cover of some narrow little box which has an inner drawer, a pencil, a spool, and a box two inches long.

Did you ever before see a toy school-house? I don’t believe you have ever seen anything like Boxville School, so I am going to tell you how you may build one like it.

First, you will need a shoe-box to form the house itself. Its cover is the roof. To this, at either end of the box, are glued two side walls which hold the roof in place, slanting. The cover of some tiny narrow box which is made with an inner drawer is the chimney. Inside, the desks are made from the lower parts of three boxes about three inches long. Their three covers make the benches. A teacher’s desk may be made from any small box you have. Its cover is teacher’s chair. A spool forms the stove, and a pencil is the stovepipe.

Begin by taking the cover from your shoe-box. Place the box upon the table before you so that it stands upon one long side, with its bottom part facing you, open at the back. The base of your box, which now faces you, will be the part of the school which will need to have windows made in it.

These two windows must have blinds. The window spaces must be located on the face of the box, which fronts you. From these the blinds are cut. Two inches from either end of your box, mark upon the part which faces you two oblongs, each three inches high and two inches wide. Mark a vertical line down the center of each window space. This forms the blinds, which you will need to cut. (For cutting blinds, see [Diagram One, B], page 166.) Cut the top line, down the center line, and across the base line. Press the two sections of cardboard outward against the sides of the box building, and you will have made the window with blinds. Color these blinds, if you choose. Use crayons or water-color paints.

Next, you will need to make the cardboard side walls which support the box-cover roof. Take your sheet of cardboard and measure with pencil outline upon it the shape of one end of your box. Add to this four inches at the top, and cut this piece from the cardboard with its added height.

Make a second piece of cardboard identical with the first. Glue each to one end of the box upright. Cut from each the front upper corner point. (See [Diagram Three, A], page 168, which shows the shape of the side walls when cut.)

Cut a door in one of these side walls, near its central part, where you see the door in the picture of Boxville School. To make this, first take pencil and ruler and make an oblong four inches high and two inches wide. (To cut door, see [Diagram Two, A], page 167.) Cut top line, down one side line, and across the base line. Fold the door outward. The cardboard under the door in the side wall may be cut out the shape of the door space. If you do this, your door will bend open more easily.

If you happen to have a round-headed paper-fastener, press its pointed prongs through the little door where a door-knob should go. The round head of the paper-fastener will form a door-knob. Its prongs, bent to one side, form the latch. It will catch the door securely when the “door-knob” is turned.

Now that the lower part of the school building is finished, you may begin upon the roof. This is the box cover. Place it upon the points of the side walls so that it fits down upon them. You will readily see how this is. (For placing a roof on a shoe-box building, see [Diagram Three, AA], page 168.)

When the roof is placed, you will be able to judge where the chimney-hole should be cut in the box-cover roof. It should go near the top at the end of the box that is opposite the door. The cover of some narrow box which has a sliding inner drawer will make the chimney. It will be just the right shape, square and hollow.

Mark off upon the sides of this box the bricks of the chimney. Color them red, if you like. If you use a ruler, the work is easily and quickly done. You do not need to mark the bricks unless you like. Your box may be painted merely.

To place it on the roof, you will need to cut out of the school-house roof a piece of cardboard the size of the end of your box. Decide where the chimney should go. Mark the end of it with pencil upon the roof at this point. Cut the cardboard out. (For cutting hole for chimney in a box-cover roof, see [Diagram Three, AA], page 168.) Press the end of the chimney down through this hole. Press the chimney backward to make it stand straight, and glue it. Some tiny bit of cotton stuffed into the upper hole of the chimney box will form smoke.

Of course, you will be anxious to furnish your school-house inside. You may make it like a real district school such as you see in the country. It will have desks, benches, a stove, and a blackboard—to say nothing of a teacher’s desk and chair!

The lower halves of the three small boxes form desks. It is really a simple matter to make these. They are the kind that have a shelf beneath the top. They are open.

Take the lower half of one of these boxes. Place it upon one of its long rims. The upper rim will be the top of the desk. The ends of the box will need to be cut the shape of the sides of a desk. (For cutting a desk out of a small oblong cardboard box, see [Diagram Six, E], page 179.)

Fit a bit of box rim beneath the top of the desk where the shelf should go, and glue its ends to the box desk. The desk may be painted black, if you choose. Make the two other desks like this one.

The benches are next cut from the box covers. To make a bench, make a cut with scissors in each box rim at the center of each end of the box. Cut each as far as the upper part of the cover. Half the box will be the back of the bench. Half will be the seat and legs.

First, cut the legs. Then bend the other half of the box upward, cut off the side piece at either end of the box, bend the long rim upward. This will make a bench with high back. (For cutting the legs of bench and its high back, see [Diagram Six, B], page 176.) In following diagrams, always cut where you see the heavy black line. Bend where you see a dotted line. The bench may be painted to match the desks. Make other benches like the first one.

The teacher’s desk is made from the lower half of another box—one about two inches long. It is made like a table, except that no legs are cut in its end rims. (For cutting a bench form for the teacher’s desk, see [Diagram Six, A], page 175.) The desk may be painted, if you like.

The chair for this desk is cut from the cover of the same box that made the desk. Cut the cover’s rim half off the box, beginning at the center on one long side. The part of the cover left without rim will be the back of the chair. Cut legs at the corners of the other half of the cover and at each side on the rim. Remove the surplus cardboard from between them. (To cut chair, see [Diagram Six, C], page 177.) Color the chair to match desks and benches.

Your school is almost done. The stove will need to be put up—I’m quite sure that you never heard of a district school-house without a stove! It is as much a part of a district school as the dipper and the waterpail used to be. The stove of this toy school is just a spool painted black. Place it under the chimney, with the point of a long pencil run into its upper hole to represent a stovepipe. There! That is easy to do, I am sure!

The blackboard is a piece of black pinwheel paper cut oblong and pasted between the windows. If you have some old time-table in your home, perhaps you will find in it a small map that may be cut out and pasted to the walls of the school.

You can make text-books by folding pieces of paper together. These can be placed inside the desks.

Penny dolls make excellent scholars. A tumble toy figure may make a schoolmistress or a schoolmaster.

In the picture of Boxville School, you can see three penny dolls and my tumble toy schoolmistress. The dolls are at recess. Violet is trying to do a sum at the board. Pansy is pretending to be “teacher.” Lily has just finished her luncheon.

When does your school open? Now! The scholars will have to hurry or they’ll be late!

I made a little Boxville School, and now in it each day

I’m educating penny dolls, and it is splendid play!

I teach them all my lessons every day when I am through—

They have finished with my reader, and can divide by two.

THE LITTLE CHURCH OF BOXVILLE

Material Required for Making a Boxville Church: one shoe-box with its cover, one narrow box about six or seven inches long, one oblong box cover three or four inches long, three small box covers of about the same size (three inches), a twelve-inch square of cardboard, and some colored tissue-paper, with a spool.

Ding! Ding! Can you hear the bell in the steeple of the Boxville Church ringing? It does not ring very loud, because it is such a small bell, but it does ring beautifully! You can try it yourself. Suppose that you make a little church like this for your village!

Take a shoe-box. Remove its cover. Lay the shoe-box upon one long side rim. The bottom of the box will become the side of the church. It will need to have three long windows cut in it.

Draw these window spaces long and narrow, about one inch wide and three inches high. Cut the two end windows equally distant from the ends of the box, and draw the outline of the center window mid-way between these two. Cut the cardboard at the top of the window spaces to a point. (For cutting windows, see [Diagram One, A], page 166.)

If you have some colored tissue-paper, you may cut three pieces the same shape as the window spaces you have cut out. Let them be a little wider and longer, however. Paste each inside the box right over the open window spaces. This will make stained-glass windows. You can paint the window-casings with black ink, or paint on the outside of the box around the windows.

If you prefer, you can make the window-casings by pasting narrow strips of pinwheel paper around the windows, instead of using the paint.

The Boxville Church, as you can see, has a sloping roof. This roof is the cover of the shoe-box supported on two side walls, which are made of cardboard and glued to each end of the box. You will need to cut these side walls. (See [Diagram Three, A], page 168.)

Measure the exact width and height of your box on the twelve-inch square of cardboard. Measure one end only, and place the end of the box so that it comes at the edge of your cardboard. At the top, add four inches to the height, and cut out this oblong piece you have drawn. Make another like it. Next, cut off the two front upper corners diagonally down to the mark you first made, showing the height of your box building at the front of your box.

Cut a church door in one of these sides. Make it rather high—about the height of the church windows. Let the base of the door come at the lower edge of the side wall. Cut up through the cardboard vertically for about three inches. Then cut the arch of the door and bend as if it were on a hinge. (See [Diagram Two, A], page 167, for cutting door.)

Paste each side wall in place on the box building so that the points of each come at the rear of the box. When the side walls are firmly dry, cut out the cardboard that is under the door space of the side wall. The roof is not quite ready to go on yet, however. You will first need to arrange for the steeple or bell-tower.

Take the cover of your shoe-box and also the oblong box you intend to use for a steeple. This may be either a long candy box, such as chocolate peppermints are often sold in drug stores, or it may be a box such as jewelers use for hat-pins. The tower of the church should come over the door. Near the top corner of the shoe-box cover which is to be the roof of the church, mark off the shape of one end of the oblong box which is to be the tower. Cut out this square from the shoe-box roof, and cut out about a quarter of an inch more at the bottom, otherwise your steeple will not stand exactly straight.

Now, slip the roof over the points of the side walls. See! that is it! And, next, slip the tower in place down through the opening which comes in the roof over the door. (See [Diagram Three, AA], page 168.)

If your tower is to have a bell, you can buy a bell at almost any toy store. It will probably cost you a penny. You will need to cut openings in the upper part of the bell-tower box. Cut one on each side, as you see it in the picture of my Boxville Church. The belfry windows will be cut like ordinary square windows, except for a point at the top. (For cutting plain windows, see [Diagram One, A], page 166.)

The bell is next tied like a locket to a double cord or bit of string. One end of this string is used to fasten the bell to the top of the tower. It is sewed, with the help of a large darning-needle, to the cardboard top of the belfry. The other end of the cord will be the bell-rope, and this goes down through the cardboard at the base of your tower box and through the cardboard at the top of the shoe-box building. It can be threaded to the darning-needle and pressed through the holes made by the needle till its end hangs down into the church vestibule, as you see it in the picture. When you let the sexton pull this bell-rope, ding, ding goes the bell, and the noise that it makes is just the right size for a Boxville Church!

Now you are ready to furnish the inside of your church. Begin with the platform for the pulpit. This is the box cover you have—the one about three or four inches long. Place it where the platform should go, opposite the door. The spool will be the pulpit. Paste a little round cardboard disk over the opening at one end of the spool, and this will be the top of the pulpit. Paint the spool black.

Use a long, narrow box cover for the pulpit chair. (See [Diagram Six, C], page 177.) Cut the rim from box cover, beginning near the center on one long side. Cut till you have reached the point opposite. The part of the cover from which the rim has been removed will be the back of the chair. Bend it forward.

The other half of the cover will be the seat of the chair. Legs are cut in the front rim and in the side rims that remain. To make front legs, keep the corners of the box, and cut up to the part which is the seat, the upper part of the cover. Remove the cardboard from between these two cuttings. Then, make the back legs of the chair in the box rims at side. Place the little chair back of the pulpit, and color it, if you wish, to match.

At least three pews will be needed for the church. They are to be made from the three small box covers. (See [Diagram Six, B], page 176, for making high-backed benches.)

With a pencil or pin-point, mark the center of each short rim on these box covers. Then, taking one cover, cut through the rim at the two points till you have reached the top of the cover. Half of the division made will be for the back of the bench and half for the seat and the legs. Cut the legs in one half as you cut the legs for the pulpit chair. Remove from the other half of the cover the remaining end rim. Bend the rim that is left at the top upward, to make the high back of the bench, and color the bench to match the pulpit and chair.

Boxville Church is made from a shoe-box. Its bell-tower is an oblong
box. It has stained-glass windows of red tissue-paper.

Boxville Church has a pulpit, a reading desk, and pews that are made in
boxcraft style from boxes and a spool.

Boxville Church is made from a shoe-box. Its bell-tower is an oblong
box. It has stained-glass windows of red tissue-paper.

Boxville Church has a pulpit, a reading desk, and pews that are made in
boxcraft style from boxes and a spool.

Place the benches one behind the other inside the church. Let the sexton ring the bell for Sunday-school to begin. What was the lesson you had last Sunday? Do you remember about it? Perhaps you might not so easily forget next Sunday’s lesson, if you taught it yourself to a class of penny dolls in a Boxville Church like this. Anyway, you can try!

Boxville dolls on Sunday go

To this Boxville Church, just so!

Two by two, as couples should,

Boxville dolls are always good!

Little Boxville, as you see,

Is as good as it can be:

Little girls and little boys,

Learn this text from Boxville toys!

THE BOXVILLE RAILWAY STATION

Material Required for Making a Boxville Railway Station: one shoe-box and four shoe-box covers, one small box about four inches square and without a cover, the shallow covers of two small boxes three inches long, two long pencils, and a small square of waxed paper.

Boxville’s Railway Station is a real railway station. It is not a tin thing such as you buy ready-made in a toy shop. Boxville Station has a waiting-room with a real ticket booth and benches. You can make just the same kind of little station as you see in this picture. It is easy to make.

The building itself, you see, is the lower half of a shoe-box placed upon its side. The platform is made of two shoe-box covers placed end to end upon the floor, and the roof of the station is one shoe-box cover. The other shoe-box cover is the roof of the platform, and this is supported by two long lead-pencils.

Do you want to make a Boxville Station? To begin, you must make two doors and a window on the part of your box that is the front of the station.

About an inch and a half from either end of your box, mark a door space four inches high and two inches wide. Use a pencil and ruler for the work, so that it will be even. Half-way between the door spaces you have drawn, mark off an oblong window space two inches high and three inches wide. Now, you can take your scissors and cut the doors in the box. (To cut doors, see [Diagram Two, A], page 167.) Cut the top line of each door space. Cut the bottom line also. The doors must open toward each other, so cut each door space down the side next to the window space. Push each little door inward.

Next, cut out the window space. Cut it around on all four sides, and keep to the line you have drawn with pencil. (To cut window, see [Diagram One, A], page 166.) When you have finished this, take a piece of the waxed paper you have and paste it inside the station building over the window space to make window-glass. The waxed paper should be cut a bit longer and wider than the opening of the window. You can measure it by the cardboard piece you cut from the box.

If you wish, you may color the doors of your station building green or brown. Use whatever colors you have, but if you use your water-colors, keep the work as dry as you can. If you do not, the doors will not be straight. They will curl.

Place two shoe-box covers end to end upon the floor or table, for you can put the building upon them now. See, it is placed far back, so that there will be a platform in front. Place the building at the left of the platform made of the shoe-box covers.

The third shoe-box cover is the roof of the station building, and you must fit it down over the station. If you wish to have a roof over your station platform, you will need the fourth shoe-box cover to make this. To secure it in place, just cut two end corners on the box rim as far as the top of the cover. Then, turn this end rim upward and slip it under the right-hand rim of the cover which forms the roof of the station building itself. You will need two pillars at the right-hand end of your platform to keep the long roof up. These pillars are long lead-pencils. Press the point of a pencil down through each right-hand top corner of the long station platform’s top, and secure the points below by running them into standards made of spools. The pencil point will be firm when run into the upper hole of a standing spool, and when both pillars are so fixed, the roof will be quite firm. (See [Diagram Three, G], page 172.)

Next, make a signboard for your station, and glue it to the roof.

You will need to have a bench or two and a ticket office in your station building. A little doll can be placed in the ticket office. If you look at the picture of my Boxville Station, you will see a lady buying her ticket of the ticket agent.

The ticket booth is the lower half of a box that is about four inches wide and an inch or so deep. You will need to stand it on its rim and cut a window in the part of the box that is the front of the ticket office. You do this just as you cut the window for your station, only you must make the ticket-booth window smaller. Draw the outline of the window first with help of pencil and ruler. Then cut it out. To cut window, see [Diagram One, A], page 166.) When window is cut, paste some waxed paper over the window opening on the inside of the box. Cut a round opening in this, near the bottom. The ticket agent will need this, you see. Now, the ticket booth is finished! Place it between the doors where it should go.

You will need a bench at either end of the station waiting-room. Cut these from covers of two boxes three inches long. (For cutting benches, see [Diagram Three, AA], page 176.) With pencil or pin-point mark a dot at the center of each short end rim of the covers, and cut through each rim thus marked till you have reached the top of the cover. Half of each division so made will be the high back of the bench. Half will form the seat and legs. Cut legs in the rim of one end. Leave the corners at the front of the bench and remove the cardboard that is between them, making your cutting to the right and left of each front corner. Then cut the rear legs in both side rims. Bend the other half of each box upward. This is to be the high back. Cut off the little pieces of cardboard that are left on the narrow end rims. Bend what is left of the cover’s rim upward to make the rest of the high back for each bench. Color the benches black or brown.

Toot-too! Don’t you hear the whistle of the toy train? The baggage, that is made up of boxes, is waiting on the station platform, and the little dolls are ready to start on their travels.

Miss Doll is waiting on the station platform. She has just purchased her return ticket to Boxtown.

Boxtown is the next stop. Everybody goes there on Circus Day—Mr. Doll, Mr. Mulligan, Mr. Swartzenheimer, Polly Ann, Susan Smith, all the Noahs! The station platform is crowded!

When all the sky is dark with storm,

Then with my train I play.

I build a Boxville Station,

And I stay indoors all day.

It is always pleasant weather

When you’re happy as can be;

And when I’m playing Boxville,

There’s no storm that I can see!

B. R. R. FREIGHT STATION AND SHOE-BOX TUNNEL

Material Required to Make a Boxville Freight Station: one shoe-box cover, one shallow cover of a box about eight or nine inches long and seven or eight inches wide, and the lower half of a deep box about six inches long and four or five inches wide.

Material Required to Make a Dark Tunnel for B. V. R. R.: the lower half of an ordinary shoe-box.

After you have built your Boxville Railway Station, I am sure you will like to build a Freight Station for your railway system. You will have so much freight to go from Boxville! There is no end to the little boxes! It will take you about five minutes, or less, to build the freight station. It is so simple that you can almost see how from looking at the picture. The shoe-box cover is the platform. The lower half of the deep box you have is turned upside-down and placed upon the left end of the shoe-box cover. A double door is outlined with pencil at one end of this box. (See [Diagram Two], B, page 167, for double door.) Mark a square three inches wide on the end of the box where the door should come. Draw down the center of this from top line to lower line. This gives the two divisions of the door. Cut the top line of the door space. Cut down the center line of it and across the lower line. Bend the two doors of the doorway outward. Color them, if you like.

To make the square flat roof, take the box cover and place it down over the freight building at the top. That is an easy way to make a roof, isn’t it? And now that the freight office is made, I am sure you will agree that it is a very fine one indeed. Isn’t it fun to build your own?

Do you want to have me tell you how to make a tunnel too? It will be fine to have one for your railway system. To make one you will need a box—almost any that is deep, like a shoe-box, will answer.

How high is the smoke-stack of your train? Two inches? Well, how high is it from the ground? Five? Then, the holes made for the tunnel opening in either end of the box will need to be higher still by an inch or a half-inch. (For cutting a tunnel, see [Diagram Four, B], page 173.) Turn your box over. The lower half is the only part you will need to use, so put aside the cover. In either end of the box cut out a round opening large enough for your toy train to pass through at a sixty-miles-a-minute rate. There is your tunnel!

If you have any crape paper, you can cover the sides and top of your box so that it will look like a big square hill. The ends of the box should be painted with black paint to look like stone masonry.

Let’s see how well your train goes through the tunnel—toot-too! Here it goes! Isn’t that the nicest toy you ever saw?

Little bits of boxes make a pile of freight

For my Boxville Railway. It is simply great!

Just a cardboard shoe-box makes a tunnel too—

Very black an’ spooky when my train goes through!

The B.R.R. Freight Station. It is a small oblong box with a cover
of another box for its roof. The platform is a shoe-box cover and
the freight is little boxes.

Shoe-box Tunnel may be made of almost any long box. To make it, cut
rounded openings in the end rims of the box.

Bandbox Hotel is made of a square hat-box.

Bandbox Hotel has an opening at the back so that one may play inside
easily. Partitions of rooms are made with shoe-boxes from which
end rims have been removed.

HOTEL BANDBOX AND HOW TO FURNISH IT

Material Required to Make a Hotel Bandbox: one large bandbox with its cover, the cover of another square bandbox that is larger. These make the building and its roof. A shallow box cover will make the roof over the front door. Two long pencils are pillars. The hotel is furnished with furniture cut from small boxes. Spools, lace-paper, pinwheel paper, bits of wall-paper, and the glacine paper covers from books may all be used.

Did you ever before hear of a dolls’ hotel? If you look at the picture of Hotel Bandbox, you will see one that may be made from a square hat-box. Its porch is a large hat-box cover. The building is a hat-box, smaller than this cover. The roof of the hotel is the cover of the hat-box itself.

Windows and front door are cut in the rims of the bandbox.

In starting to make a hotel, begin by marking off windows. Each window must be two inches wide and three inches high. It will help you to place windows evenly if you mark a horizontal line around three sides of your bandbox about three inches from the top of the box. Use a ruler, and make all marks as light as possible. They are only intended to guide you, and must be rubbed out after you have cut out the window spaces.

Below the line you have drawn, make another, three inches farther down the sides of the box. This line forms the base of windows.

Next, make the windows that come nearest each corner of the box. Measure two inches from each corner. This gives the right spacing from the corner. Measure two inches more on your horizontal line at the top of the building, and this will give the width of a window. Make the end windows first. Then make the ones that come between. Space evenly, so that windows may come at regular intervals. Cut out each window on all four sides. (For cutting a window, see [Diagram One, A], page 166.) Arrange your lower story windows as you have the upper ones.

At the center upon the front of your building outline a large double door four inches square. It should come at the very base of bandbox. (To cut double door, see [Diagram Two, B], page 167.) Cut its top line. Cut its base line. Cut the cardboard between these two lines in half vertically to make the door.

When windows and door are made, then you may paste some three-inch squares of glacine paper back of each window inside the box. The window-glass is made this way. If you like, you may leave some windows open.

The building is ready, now, to stand upon the larger bandbox cover. As you see, this makes a porch.

Place the smaller bandbox cover over the upper part of your hat-box to make a flat roof.

Over the front door you may make a flat roof. (See [Diagram Three, G], page 172.) Use for it a narrow box cover. Glue one long rim of this cover to the cardboard over your doorway. Press a pencil point downward through each forward corner of the cover to make a pillar. The pencil points may be secured in the holes of two spools and thus keep the roof upright. If you wish, you may glue the spools where they should go.

Cut a narrow strip of cardboard and write the name of your hotel upon it. Glue this over the doorway.

Flower-stands for the hotel veranda are simple things to make. One spool will be needed for each flower-stand. Press the stems of some artificial flowers into the hole of the spool. If you have gilt paint, you can gild the stands. I painted mine with black water-color paint.

Penny dolls make guests for the hotel. They come already dressed, but you can take one or two of yours and dress them like men dolls. I inked mine. You can see them in the picture.