Little Folks' Handy Book

Excerpt

PAPER BUILDING CARDS

Make your building cards of ordinary writing-paper. You may have as many cards as you like, though twelve are all that are used to make the things shown in our photographs.

Fig.1—Cut an oblong out like this.Fig.2—This is the building card.

For each card cut an oblong of paper five inches long and two and a half inches wide. This is a very good size, but you can make them a little larger or smaller. Always remember, however, to have them just twice as long as they are wide, and all of one size. When you have cut out the oblong (

) fold it through the middle, bringing the two short edges evenly together. The dotted line in shows where it is to be folded. Now open the oblong half-way and you will have the building card (). They are very simple and easy to make, aren't they? But wonderful and delightful thingscan be built with these pieces of paper. You can have a whole camp of little tents by standing the cards with the folded edge up; and to makeall you need do is to push two of your tents close together, then on top of their folded edges lay another card with one flat side down to form the seat and the other side up for the back.Fig.3—You can make a little camp chair.

The second illustration (

) shows just how to do this. Use the tents again for

The Pyramid

in . Stand three tents in a row close together. On top of these make a floor by laying two cards across with one side of each card extending down at the back of the tents. Then build a second story—two tents this time, with a floor on top.Fig.4—Use the tents to make this pyramid.

The third and top story will be one tent, which forms the peak of the pyramid. Of course you can make your pyramid very much larger by adding more tents to the first row and then building it up higher.

is very cunning with its four little stalls. To build it you must stand the cards on their side edges as in . One side forms the back wall of the stall, the other the side wall. When you have reached the end of the row you will find the last stall lacks a side wall, but all you have to do is to slide another back wall behind the last and there you have the needed side wall. Put a roof over the stalls just as you made the floors for your pyramid, and then stand a tent on top for the cupola. Place a card at each end of the stalls, as shown in the illustration, and your stable is ready for its tiny horses.Fig.5—A little stable with four little stalls.

Build

The Garden Wall

() by standing the cards on their side edges. You can make the garden any size or shape you like, but always havethe gateway just wide enough to hold the tent roof on top. See how the cards stand with edges in on either side of the opening. This will support the tent-shaped roof. Perhaps the children will want a house in the garden. You can build one if you try. Then see how many more things can be made of the paper cards, for I have not told you half of them....