Back to Bloggerville, A Plan, and A Castle

I kind of disappeared for a while. Life got so busy, the blog got put on the back burner. We've had multiple family reunions (3 in one week alone), 4th of July picnics, family dinners, baptisms and baby blessings, and neighborhood wide activities (love the carnival, but it's a lot of work). So, I haven't taken time to post for a while. I'd like to say "this will change," and "I promise to do better," but it probably wouldn't last. So, I'll do my best. I have so many ideas I'd like to share, but I won't always have time to explain them all. If I ever do post an idea without instructions you'd like to see, ask.

So, on to my Plan: I'm going to try posting on a regular basis, and this is a tentative plan: Make-It Mondays, Tasty Tuesdays, Wordless Wednesdays, Thrifty Thursdays, and Family Fridays.

So, up first, today's Make-It Monday is a castle I made for a skit. We presented Falling for Rapunzel from the book by Leah Wilcox. I've seen many refrigerator box castles, but I wanted mine to look textured. I looked at the newish textured spray paints, but figured it would take ~6-7 cans to paint, at $8-$12 per can (depending on the texture). Then I saw this fabulous textured paintable wallpaper (sorry no picture). Just ask for it in the paint department. One $12 roll covered just over 3 sides of my box, so I was satisfied to hide the 4th side in the back (didn't have time to make a repeat trip to the store, this was a rush job). My next door neighbor helped me "hang" the wallpaper. I'd never hung any wallpaper before, so her help was reassuring. We laid the refrigerator box down flat on the ground, sponged the back of a strip (we had already measured and cut), and glued them on, lining them up on the bottom and having a few inches over hang the top. When finished and mostly dry, I folded the extra over the top, wet them to glue them down, and sealed the edges with a strip of white duct tape. Now, we could have done a better job, and my wallpaper abilities improved with each strip. But I was in a hurry, we couldn't re-do, and I was happy enough with the look. And overall, this was a LOT faster than painting the whole box.


Next, I measured the top, penciled in the crenelations, and painted them with black acrylic paint. I had already cut a doorway with a razor (the rounded top and one side, leave the other side attached), and masked off around it and spray painted it red. The paint oversprayed a lot more than I thought it would, so some surrounding walls got a bit pink tinged. Next time, I'll use acrylic for the door, as well. It would have been cheaper, brighter red, and no overspray and fumes to deal with. Oh, well, I learned.


I topped the castle off with a few ivy vines I had on top of my kitchen cupboards (sorry, not in the picture cause they're already back up in the kitchen). You could paint some on for permanence. We put a small table inside for Rapunzel to stand on, along with a basket of her props. The skit was a hit, but I'm still trying to find someone who took pictures (I was the narrator, so couldn't). Next week, I'll bring you the props, and hopefully pictures of the skit - it was a hoot!