Outside--that is, on the underside of the cardboard--there is a great deal to do. Both walls and roof can be painted, and tiles, bricks, and creepers imitated. The front door should have a knocker and a letterbox, and around both the door and the windows should be imitation framework. As the upright joints of the four walls will be made of linen painted to imitate brick-work or stone-work, you need not carry the painting of the walls quite to the edges, because these will be covered by the joints. It is best to paint the joints before you stick them on.

Before turning the card over again, run your knife along the four sides of the floor to a.s.sist the bending up of the walls. Do not on any account cut through; merely make a half cut.

[Ill.u.s.traton: CARDBOARD DOLL'S HOUSE]

When you have drawn and painted all you can think of to make the house complete and pretty, take your strips of linen, for the fastening of the walls, crease them in half, lengthwise, and glue one half to the outside of the edge of the walls marked CB and DE in the plan. When this is quite dry, bend the back wall and the two side walls up, and glue the free sides of the strips to the wall marked AB and EF, holding the walls firmly together until well stuck. Strengthen the fold LM, which has to serve as a hinge for the front of the house, with a strip of linen glued underneath. The sides of the front wall must remain unattached, as that forms the opening. It can be kept closed by a strong pin slipped through the roof.

[Ill.u.s.tration: APPEARANCE OF HOUSE WHEN COMPLETE]

The Part.i.tion

Now for the part.i.tion. Put the three tags G G G through the slits H H H and glue them firmly down on the outside. (These will have to be touched up with paint.) The roof must then be put on. Cut out a slit N an inch long to fit the tag on the part.i.tion, also marked N. Run your knife along the dotted line underneath, and fold it to the necessary angle to fit the sloping walls. Where the roof touches the end walls it must be fastened on with strips of linen or paper, which have been folded in the same way as before and one half fastened securely to the walls. It is important to let it get quite dry before gluing the other half to the roof.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOG KENNEL (Fig. 1) AND ROOF (Fig. 2)]

The Chimney

The chimney, of which the ill.u.s.tration is the actual size, is the last thing to be made. First paint, and then fold the two side pieces downward, cut out the three little holes and put into them three chimneys, made by folding small pieces of paper, painted red, round a penholder, and gluing their edges together. The chimney is fixed to the sloping roof with very small pieces of glued paper. Remember that all the pieces of paper used as fastening ought to be touched up with paint. The chimney in the drawing of the complete house on page 240 is put at the side of the roof, but it may even better go in the middle.

The Garden

The cottage can then be fixed to a piece of wood or paste-board, to form its garden and add to convenience in moving it about. A cardboard fence and gate can be cut out and painted green. A path to the front door is made by covering a narrow s.p.a.ce of the cardboard with very thin glue over which, while it is wet, sand is sprinkled to imitate gravel. Moss will do for evergreens, and gra.s.s plots can be made of green cloth. A summer-house, garden chairs and tables are easily cut out of cardboard. So also are a rabbit-hutch, pump, dove-cot, and dog-kennel. A plan of a dog-kennel, actual size, is given.

Another Way

It is, of course, possible to make a house of several pieces instead of one. The walls and floors can be made separately and joined with linen strips; but this adds to the difficulty of the work and causes the houses to be less steady. Cardboard houses can also be made with two floors.

"The House That Glue Built"

A novel kind of paper house has been gotten out in book form. It is called _The House That Glue Built_, and consists of pictures of rooms, without furniture, which is shown on separate sheets. The object is to cut out the furniture, arrange it and paste it in its proper place.

The ill.u.s.tration shows the library, and the furniture for it. There is also a sheet of dolls to be cut out, who represent the owners of the house. Two other books on the same order are _The Fun That Glue Made_ and _Stories That Glue Told_. They are all easily put together, and are lots of fun.

Paper Furniture

Everything required for the furnishing and peopling of a cardboard dolls' house can be made of paper; and if colored at all cleverly the furniture will appear to be as solid as that of wood. After cutting out and joining together one or two of the models given in the pages that follow, and thus learning the principle on which paper furniture is made, you will be able to add all kinds of things to those mentioned here or to devise new patterns for old articles, such as chairs and desks.

Glue and Adhesive Tape

Two recent inventions of the greatest possible use to the maker of paper furniture are fish-glue which gets dry very quickly and is more than ordinarily strong, and adhesive tape. Glue can be bought for very little, and adhesive tape, which is sold princ.i.p.ally for mending music and the torn pages of books, is put up in inexpensive spools.

Home-Made Compa.s.ses

A pair of compa.s.ses is a good thing to have; but you can make a perfectly serviceable tool by cutting out a narrow strip of cardboard about four inches long and boring holes at intervals, of a quarter of an inch, through which the point of a pencil can be placed. If one end of the strip is fastened to the paper with a pin you can draw a circle of what size you want, up to eight inches across.

Materials

These are the materials needed when making paper furniture:--

A few sheets of stiff note-paper or drawing-paper. Scissors.

A penknife. A ruler (a flat one). A mapping-pen. A box of paints. A board to cut out on. Adhesive tape or stamp-paper.

Glue.

Tracing

If the drawings are to be traced, tracing-paper, or transparent note-paper, and a sheet of carbon-paper, will also be needed. To trace a drawing, cover it with paper and draw it exactly. Then cover the paper or cardboard from which you wish to cut out the furniture with a piece of carbon-paper, black side down, and over that place your tracing. Draw over this again with a very sharply pointed pencil or pointed stick, and the lines will be repeated by the carbon-paper on the under sheet of paper.

The furniture, for which designs are given in this chapter, can be made of stiff note-paper, Whatman's drawing-paper, or thin Bristol board. The drawings can be copied or traced. In either case the greatest care must be taken that the measurements are minutely correct and the lines perfectly straight. A slip of paper is a very good thing to measure with.

Enough designs have been given to show how most different kinds of furniture can be made. These can, of course, be varied and increased by copying from good furniture lists; while many little things such as saucepans, dishes, clocks, and so forth, can be copied from stores lists and added to the few that are given on p. 248.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LIBRARY AND FURNITURE FROM "THE HOUSE THAT GLUE BUILT"

(_Facing page 244_)]

These small articles are cut out flat, but an extra piece of paper is left under each, which, when bent back, makes a stand.

General Instructions

The front legs of chairs, the legs of tables, and the backs of furniture must be neatly joined together by narrow strips of stamp-paper or adhesive tape. To do this, cut a strip of the right size, crease it down the middle, and stick one side. Allow this to dry, before you fix the other.

Wherever in the pictures there is a dotted line, it means that the paper is to be folded there. It will be easily seen whether it is to be folded up or down.

Before the furniture is folded it should be painted. Wood, iron, bra.s.s, and silk can all be imitated in color.

In cutting out small s.p.a.ces of cardboard--as between the bars of a chair--lay the card on a board, and keeping your knife, which should be sharp at the point, against a flat ruler, run it again and again along the lines you want to cut, until you have cut through. If your furniture is made of paper, the s.p.a.ces can be cut out with finely pointed scissors, taking care to start in the middle of the s.p.a.ce, for the first incision is seldom a clean one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KITCHEN TABLE (Cut out the oblong parts marked AA.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: KITCHEN RANGE AND KITCHEN CHAIR (A is turned up to form a shelf for saucepans; B is glued down over the back.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCREEN (To be made of one piece of paper folded into three equal parts and cut out in accordance with the ill.u.s.tration.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VARIOUS POTS AND PANS (Under part to be folded back for a stand.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DINING-ROOM TABLE AND CLOTH]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIDEBOARD]