Learn how to create a DIY cardboard castle for kids. With just a few basic supplies and these free printable resources, you and your children can build a cardboard castle that will provide hours of fun and imaginative play.
The colored hand-drawn cardboard castle template has been provided below, so you can make an exact replica of the castle on your right.
Step 1. Gather Your Supplies
Here is a list of supplies you’ll need in order to create your fantasy castle.
Cardboard
Tape
Glue
Printer
Paper
Scissors
Step 2. Print Your Templates
You will need to print the following templates to make your cardboard castle. Click each image below to open a high resolution jpeg in your browser. Then right-click and press “Save Image As…” to save it to you computer.
Step 2. Create the Castle Towers
Paste the castle tower template (Page 2) onto thin cardboard. I used the cardboard from a shoebox for my castle. Cut out the template, leaving the white space between the square stones on the top. Cut along the sides of the square stones, and fold over the white areas. See images below for clarification. Remove the cardboard backing from the rectangular tab on the right of the template. Fold the tower along the grey lines. Tape together the ends of the template, and use the grey tab to overlap the edges where the sides come together. Repeat this process four times to build four towers.
Step 3. Make the Castle Walls.
Paste the Castle Walls template (Page 1) onto cardboard. Cut out the template, leaving the white space between the square stones on the top. Cut along the sides of the square stones, and fold over the white areas. See the images below for clarification. Repeat this step for all four walls.
Step 4. Add the Platforms.
Glue the wood platforms (Page 3) onto cardboard. Cut them out. Place the square platforms on the towers, and the rectangular platforms against the castle walls.
Step 5. Attach the Pieces.
Tape each wall between 2 towers. Then connect the entire castle together.
Once you’ve done that, your cardboard castle is complete. Congratulations!
If you want to add some knights and other figures to your castle, here are a few ideas.
Safari Knights and Dragons Toob
Safari is a really cool company that makes high quality figurines for dioramas and do-it-yourself projects. Click on the image to go the Amazon product page or press here.
Safari Four-Headed Dragon
This detailed four-headed dragon is also by Safari, so the two figure sets would look good together.
Just made this with my boy. Fun and easy, it was for a school project, very useful as my kids are being schooled at home, under the current UK lockdown. The result was worth the effort. Wish I could share pics.
Looks great! Going to play D&D with my daughter with it. thank you!
This looks great! I’m a little confused though. Are the towers made from the actual shoe box or did you cut them to whatever size and piece them together? Are the dimensions for the downloadable templates for 8 1/2 x 11 paper or is this project larger in proportions?
I wanted to make a castle that’s portable, using a good size shoe box as the base (instead of just walls – past the walls to the box) and use bottles or paper towel rolls as the towers, so that they could all be taken apart and put in the box to carry. I’m just not sure if these templates will be big enough to cover them.
Thanks!
You may have to experiment a bit. Print out some of the templates and see if they work. If they need to be larger to smaller, you can scale them in your printer settings.
Best of luck with your project!
Tim