Life Sprinkled With Glitter: Princess Cardboard Castle

This past week has been so much fun celebrating our little girl turning FIVE!!!

She really wanted a PRINCESS party!

The other thing is we just moved into our home four months ago so this would be our first PARTY at our new home!

So, while my husband used ALL of his free time on getting our deck ready, I started working on making this party special for Kiki and her friends!

I have so many different projects I worked on for this party that I have to break it up into a few posts to show you everything!

This post is all about the pink princess castle I created!

I love showing the step by step so you can see the transformation!

It all started out with a few big boxes!

I called all around and many places wont give away their boxes....

Finally, I called Marshalls & Home Goods store and they were MORE than helpful! I got 4 chair/dresser size boxes from them. They even helped me break them down and load them into my car!

If you are looking to find boxes I would say call a local, not large chain, furniture store.

I had the PERFECT spot for the castle! We have a playroom which is partially finished. I already knew I wanted to use a corner of the room as two of the walls so I could make the castle pretty large! Sorry for the messy picture below, I started moving things around before I took the picture!

Now that you have your boxes, you should start by making the entrance of your castle. Cut our your door with a utility knife. The picture below is one box. I would suggest that you leave one set of box flaps taped in on the floor for support. To make the castle tall enough, I taped the top flaps straight up with duct tape. I also added a fun cut out above the door using hot glue and duct tape. I wanted to have a working drawbridge so I just punched two holes on the door and two above the door. I used one long piece of velvet ribbon that I had on hand. The ribbon can be pulled from the inside bringing the door up... It's pretty fun!

Once I had my entryway somewhat together, I started putting things in place!

The great thing about setting this up in my playroom was the concrete floor! It was so easy to stablize the boxes by duct taping them to the floor. Then, for even more support, we laid rugs over the cardboard on the floor.

I knew I wanted to make the castle large enough to put a little kitchen area in it.

Here is a picture with the basic shape of the castle done, using three medium/large boxes.

Because our whole basement is beige, I knew I wanted to make a scene on the wall next to the castle to add color. I bought a few plastic tablecloths from the dollar store and tacked them to the wall.

I cut a white tablecloth in half and hot glued it to the bottom of the pink. Then I simply spray painted some swirly trees and added a cute little carriage. Also, you will see a cute little dragon that my kids colored hanging from the ceiling. We had this crayola set from a while back and it worked out perfectly to color and hang for the party!

I wanted to add some extra support to the front walls of the castle and also add some details to dress up the castle. I decided to add some support pillars on either side of the door. I had a few Home Depot boxes left over from our move so I cut one side, with a utility knife, to flatten it out. Then I scored a line down the middle of the box.

I then folded and taped the box together with duct tape!

I also had to add another box below the pillar so it will reach the ceiling. I also used hot glue and added different size rectangles to the top of the castle, which really changed the look and gave it more castle-like features!

Next, I started trying to paint the castle. I thought that spray paint would be the easiest. The cardboard ended up soaking up most of the color and it was really hard to do inside because of the fumes.

I got out the left over light pink paint I used to paint Kiki's room. This totally made the castle look so much better! I also stapled two pieces of plastic purple table cloths(from the dollar store) to the door as curtains so you wouldn't see in when the drawbridge is down.

Next, I used acrylic white paint to paint the look of brick on the front of the castle.

Above the door Kiki and I colored a sign, "Kiki's Castle", and used sparkle Mod Podge to seal it to the cardboard. It gave a nice sparkly look!

As I worked on the outside of the castle, the kids worked on the inside. They colored and cut out cupcakes and glued them to the inside close to the kitchen area.

Brenden got VERY creative and drew a TV and even made a wii remote! He is playing a Kerby Wii game, pictured below.

Next, I worked on the ceiling. I hung a hula hoop, from the dollar store, right around the can light.

Then I cut strips of plastic table cloth, folded them over the hula hoop and taped it in place. Then attached the other ends of the strips of table cloth all around the ceiling.

One of Kiki's favorite things to do is write letters to people so I decided to make a mailbox. I spray painted one side of a fruit snack box silver.

Cut a whole in it and used pink duct tape to attach it to the front of the castle. We also used sparkle Mod Podge to seal the word "Mail" to the box(not pictured).

At the party I provided blank cards and markers in the castle and the girls had fun making cards and putting them into the box!
As you can also see in the next two pictures that the castle is large enough that we fit two throw rugs in it! Also, we added a little "hideout" or box in the corner with a window and a door. My kids LOVE to crawl in there! We covered it with a blanket and added some of Kiki's dolls on top to soften the look of all of the cardboard!

Here is a shot of the inside of the castle, all set up with Kiki's new tea set!

The princess and her castle!

Don't forget to add white twinkly lights to the ceiling around the castle!

Here is a picture of 11 of the kids at Kiki's party! I have to say, I was very concerned, after all of my hard work, that the castle wouldn't hold up.

I was VERY pleased that the castle is STILL standing for many more playdates AND....... All of these kids could fit in the castle at once! SO COOL!