We have a ‘Houses of India’ themed exhibition at the kids’ school and my daughter has been asked to bring a fairly big sized model of a tribal house from Madhya Pradesh. I made one using large cardboard boxes. If you find yourself in the same predicament, I hope my tips on how to make a house model with cardboard boxes helps you!
The finished tribal Indian house made using cardboard boxes.
A Tribal House from Madhya Pradesh
All the students who participated were assigned different types of houses. My daughter was asked to contribute a tribal house from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. We received this picture to base our house upon. It is taken, I believe, from a museum in Madhya Pradesh where this house has been created with real materials.
This is what our prompt looked like – I had to make a model house resembling this Madhya Pradesh Tribal House
Building a Model House with Cardboard Boxes
The innumerable number of episodes of ‘Art Attack‘ that I had seen on Disney channel along with the kids, served their purpose. I knew that pretty much any shape can be made by gluing together cardboard. I turned the house inside out looking for boxes that we (women, in general, I mean) tend to save. God knows why we save all that trash, but it came handy, I can tell you!
Here is a picture of how I created the base of this house.
Ah! The trash we save in our houses! But on this occasion, the trash came to my rescue 🙂
I used both glue, and tape, to hold all the cardboard boxes together.
Covering the Cardboard with Tissue
I was so lost in making this model house that I forgot to take pictures of all the steps. But this step is crucial unless you plan to dip your house in opaque paint. The only way to hide the cardboard AND give you a strong base to work on, is to cover the structure with tissue paper.
Use a mixture of half-glue and half-water to stick large pieces of tissue paper all over the house. Let dry completely and you will find that the glue has hardened the structure and the tissue paper ha given you a somewhat plain base to work upon. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of this step to share.
Painting the Cardboard House
Painting the huge structure requires a lot of paint. I bought small cans of acrylic emulsion from a hardware store for the purpose. First of all, paint the entire structure in white. Apply several coats (allowing drying time in between coats).
Then, begin painting the details.
A side view of the cardboard model house while painting
Embellish
Ok…so I skipped this part entirely! I guess I was too tired by the time and was short on time too. I has massive plans for this project. I wanted to glue real twigs to the roof and add large cardboard tubes to make the logs at the front of the house and for the pipes at the side.
I did none of those things so this is definitely a ‘model’ house…lol. But it will show you how to use cardboard boxes to create any kind of model.
Despite the lack of any embellishing, it did not turn out too bad, did it?
And there stands my daughter beside her entry at the ”Houses of India’ themed school exhibition
very neatly done. Assignments for Kids KEEP THE parents are on the JOB
I love this creativity because its really an headache for parents to make huge projects.. Being a teacher, I never give students those projects which they don’t do by their selves .. But with this post, it’ll be very very easy for kids as well as parents to built cardboard house project soooo easily..
Thank u for sharing such a wonderful post …
I agree about kids being given only those projects that they can do by themselves. Especially younger children. But I think we can make an exception for school exhibitions where the parents pitch in with teachers to create the best experience possible 🙂
Glad you liked the project!
Nice post , My kids also watch Art Attack and do lots of activity after watching it , i remember last year my daughter also got a similar project to do , she made a Farm House on a card board with lots of trees and bushes around , it took good time to make but turned out very well 🙂
Wow! I would love to see a picture sometime. The school projects give us new challenges every time!
This is super simple and cute too
I remember I had made something similar with my grand-dad . We had made a bullock cart with cardboard & covered the same with matchsticks. It gave a wonderful effect of a straw covered cart.
Now looking back I feel it was a waste of wood / macth sticks
This reminds me of my school days ^_^ When I was in primary, my mother had helped me to make dressing table, sofa and bullock-cart with the help of matchboxes and matchsticks. We had used cardboard and icecream sticks to make a house, painted it with paint colours, made trees and bushes with cardboard and craft paper and I had so much fun making them with her! The compliments that followed were the cherry on the cake. You are very creative and I love creativity… Now my cousins are in primary so I’m saving this for future as it will help them if ever they are asked to make a tribal house bcoz u never know, wht you’ll need in future 😉 Thankyou for such a helpful post & for bringing back my childhood memories 🙂
Wow! The matchbox furniture idea sounds lovely! Maybe I will borrow them for a future school project 😉
Waao.. It’s very easy and helpful as my daughter is in first standard now and she may get these types on projects in coming summer vacations. It will help me surely.
Wow..this project is so beautifully done.we have so many carton box lying at home.This post will really helpful for me in future to do diff types of homes 🙂