Castle Smethansmee

As promised, I hereby present the project I've been working on for the past few weeks. It's a two and a half foot castle made using paper mache.

I have named it after myself, egotist that I am. Behold, Castle Smethansmee :

I started with a big cardboard box and some egg boxes. I cut up the egg boxes to make crenellations (AKA knobbly bits) and taped them around the top of my castle.

Next I made turrets from rolls of newspaper, and the roofs from cones of newspaper.

I paper mache'd the whole thing with kitchen paper - mainly because I wanted the castle to have a stoney texture to it; newspaper is a bit smooth.

Then I painted it grey. I mixed the black and white paints on the walls of the castle because I didn't want it to have a flat colour.

Next I made the door. I cut door shapes from card and drew an outline on them. Then I glued them in place on my castle.

I used this glue, which is supposed to dry with a shiney, protective finish that won't get gummy if it gets wet again. This would be useful as I intend to put the castle in the living room and it will most likely have cups of tea put on it every day.

I cut some squareish shapes out of various fabrics in my scrap box, and glued them down to look like bricks around my doorway. Next I drew the windows with a black felt tipped pen.

Time to lay the rest of the brickwork. I did the walls first, starting at the top and working my way down.

After that I did the top of the box, then the turrets.

When all the bricks were laid, I set to work fastening my box. I had left one side of the box openable because boxes are much more useful when you can get inside. I made three holes in one door by hammering a nail through, and I fixed a paper fastener into each hole.

I made three corresponding holes in the other door and threaded an elastic band through each. I secured the bands in place using a piece of folded card.

The elastic bands hook over the paper fasteners to secure the doors.

Finally, I had to finish the roofs for my turrets. Originally, I was going to cover them in bricks like the rest of the castle but frankly, I was sick of laying bricks.

Anyway, I looked on Google Images and concluded that they should look different from the rest of the castle. So I painted them purple to match the door, and I did them in varying shades by mixing blue and red paint directly on the surface I was painting.

After they had dried I noted two problems. One, I hadn't painted them very well (meaning not enough purple). Two, the colour was too dark. So I added white into the mix for a second coat.

Once dry, I glued the roofs to their turrets and painted them with a layer of the glue for a shiny finish.

And here is the finished product in its prided place.