cardboard city

Well, it all started with one big flat piece of cardboard and a few food boxes.  That was or "town."

Then I went crazy and built a whole city.

Then we started doing a building everyday (usually during Gus' morning nap).  Jimmy loves watching me cut and then he helps tape everything and then color or paint. I am not exactly a tutorial person, but if you are interested in trying something like this yourself, this is what you will need: cardboard boxes (all shapes and sizes), matte knife, packaging tape, glue, markers and crayons, and a lack of perfectionism (that last part is hard for me).  Most of the buildings are just the boxes turned inside out... hence all the different sizes and lack of consistant scale.  I love that a Corona box became a church.

This was our first attempt.  The long roads were helped by the fact that we recently made some large purchases at Ikea.  My nephew Jack was quite helpful and had a lot of fun helping me set this up.   His sweet innocence and ambition about all the things we could make in a few hours made me smile ("Let's make two cities! One could be Phoenix and one could be New York and they could each have an airport so you could fly back and forth!").  He still wants to come back so we can set it up again and do more work.  (Sorry we didn't take any pictures while you were over Jack! You were such a fun helper)  While it may look like a lovely day in these pictures I think we started this project a little late in the summer.  We could really only do it early in the morning and eventually we had to take it down so it wouldn't get ruined by irrigation and sprinklers.

Here is a little tour.
Let's start with the airport since I already have given a full tour of that.

Our Restaurant:
(Jimmy wanted it to be like Postino, aka: Daddy's old restaurant)

Our Hotel
(Complete with revolving door. Thanks Nano for you help on this one):

Our Firehouse 

(designed specifcally for Red and Rescue Squad Mater):

 
Our Gas Station
(built by Baabee, decorated by Jimmy and me):

Our Houses
(both designed by Aunt Erin with help from Jimmy):

Our Cork People
(Thanks Pinterest for letting me find these)

 Our Church.
(It opens too! Jack helped build it. Jimmy helped paint it.  Gus helps knock it over).

Our School:

My cute boys enjoying their city:

For now most of the smaller buildings are being played with inside.  The rest are on my porch along with all the roads and all sorts of extra boxes and scraps.  Maybe when the weather cools down (in December?) we can bring it all back out and do "Phase Three."