Paper Castle

Hey everybody.  I’m excited about today’s post because as many of you know, I have been working on a massive project for the past week and many have been following the progress on SCS. You can view the progress pictures of this project at: I’m going to make this out of paper

The overwhelming support and encouragement for this project has been a real inspiration and motivator to see if I could reconstruct a real, wooden, life size hutch from paper and a little bit of foam board.

This was the inspiration for the my project:

In the end, mine doesn’t look very much like this but I like the end result anyway.

So . . . want to see it? It stands 24” tall, 10” wide and 6” deep.  I guess you could say it’s big.

So big, that it was difficult to photograph, so I broke it down into parts so you can have a closer look and see how I did it.

Let’s start at the top. . .

This basket was the last piece to be made.  I ended up with it because I couldn’t find anything suitable in my staging stash to put on top of the hutch, yet it looked naked without it.  At the time I was working on it, I was also chatting with mirami and while I had thought about a wicker basket, I discarded the idea because I knew it was going to take a long time to make and I didn’t want to LOL  Then she piped up and said “It needs a wicker basket!”  *ugh*  Add to that the fact that I’ve never made a wicker basket, real or otherwise, and the thought of basket weaving made me nauseous.  Looks like I did it anyway.

I made it up as I went along and I think it worked out pretty good.

I initially didn’t have the feet on it but when I placed it on top of the hutch, it just didn’t look right.  So . . . another hour to make stupid feet LOL  But I like it, and I’m pretty sure, something like this must have a name besides “wicker basket”.

I used 1/2” strips folded in half to finish off the rough edges on the tops and add a bit of polish to the corners.  I also added 1/4” strips to the inside bottom edges to cover up the rough bits there.

Next is the top of the hutch and my attempt at making it look like wood.  In the sample photo above, it looked like paneled wood, so I tried to replicate that.  All of the wood paneling added 2 more layers to the whole box because it was added after it was built.  This turns out to be a good thing after all because it made the whole thing sturdier and it bears up really well under weight.

To make the faux wood, I cut strips of CS of varying widths plus a single piece that would fit the area I wanted to cover.  Then I scored on either side of the strips to help add depth and interest.  That took a day in itself. You get a larger view of the pictures by clicking on them if you want a closer look.

This is the top of the box and the beginning of the hutch.

To make the dishes I used Spellbinders Classic Circle dies to cut and then emboss a center circle to help with forming the plates and bowls.  Then I stamped with Versafine and heat embossed in white.  After that I cut tabs and glued them all together with a slight overlap and glazed them with Ranger – Crackle Accents.

All of the drawers and doors open.  I like working parts.  If they didn’t work, I’d feel like I cheated. 

For the scrollwork, I used Spellbinders – Elegant Posts. More than just posts huh? I wonder if they’d have me on their DT? LOL

For the handles, I used strips that were 1/4” wider than the drawers/doors.  Added some simple dry embossing in the middle, a little brad, and voila!  Handles that work!

Finally, is the base of the hutch.  This project wouldn’t have been complete without mounting it onto something.  So, I cut out a piece of foam board with a semi-circle in front and added some coordinating trim.

For the feet I fashioned 2” x 2” boxes with some matching scoring to complement the doors and drawers.

So, I hope you have enjoyed taking this journey with me.  I have sure enjoyed having you along!  Thanks to everyone who posted on the thread over on SCS and kept checking back to see what came next.  You were an awesome audience!

What should I make next . . . . .

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