So, the fairies, Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play, told me how to make all these magic toys from nothing at all but cardboard boxes, and they asked me to tell the children about it, so that they might know how to change dull days into bright and happy ones when they had learned of the magic.
Cardboard boxes are to be found everywhere. They are in your home and in everybody’s home. Butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, milliners, druggists, jewelers, stationers, grocers, drygoods firms, shoe stores, book stores, toy stores, all keep them. Everywhere, everywhere there are cardboard boxes—big boxes, little boxes, middling-sized boxes; wide boxes, narrow boxes, deep boxes, shallow boxes; round boxes, oblong boxes, square boxes! Boxes, boxes, BOXES everywhere! All you need to do is to ask for them.
People at home are throwing them away. The butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers, the milliners, the druggists, the jewelers, the stationers, the grocers, and the dry goods firms, as well as all the others, are constantly sending boxes to your home. The shoe stores, and the book stores, and the toy stores, and ever so many others, are throwing boxes away just because nobody seems to realize what magic there lies in them for the children.
When Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play first told me about boxcraft, I did not find any trouble in securing the kind of box that I needed for the toy-making. I found that the merchants were very glad to give me boxes when I asked for them. They smiled when I asked. They did not know that a toy circus tent could be made from a round hat-box. They did not know that a whole village might be erected out of six shoe-boxes!
Boxville Cottage is made from a shoe-box.
Boxville Cottage is furnished with Boxcraft Materials.
Boxcraft Materials.