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It was my first week at home in US. After setting up the house, we had an overwhelming supply of cardboard at our disposal. I decided to make a small temple out of the cardboard to make use of the boards and my free time. So, here it is. You could make your own church, mosque, gurudwara, a princess castle, a doll house or just about anything using cardboard boxes.
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Signing UpStep 1The Plan
The first thing to do is to decide how big your temple is going to be. How big will be the walls, roof and doors? Key is to find boxes of the same height for the walls and doors. It will be really great if we use the boxes in their full size as much as possible instead of having cut them down. Its not very easy to cut hard cardboard boxes. Also, we will need soft card board for the doors and hard ones for the walls. (Preferably)
Walls - For one of the walls, I was set on the box the 32 inch slim TV came in. This box was really strong and had a wide base which meant the roof would get good support even if there were no pillars in the center to hold it. But for the other wall, I was not able to get a box of same height or length. I got a good piece that was only half the length of the TV box and it was about 1 inch shorter. So I had to pump up it up by adding thermocol padding at the bottom. You could use any other technique to eventually get walls of same height. To compensate for the length, I built a small wall with cardboard pillars and a soft card board sheet. After hours of measuring and comparison, I had marked down the boards for my walls.
In India, temples usually have tapering roofs. To imitate this,I needed boxes of decreasing size in order, but of almost same height. I found a few boxes that came to my rescue. I had to cut one, and tape 2 together. After much deliberation I was finally set on the ones that will go on the roof. The boxes for the roof must be light card board. This is because we are not building any pillars in the middle of the temple to hold a heavy roof. But in case you dont have an option, you can go for a pillar. (Try using the card board rolls that comes in gift wrappers for the pillars) . The roof had to be semi open because we had to light lamps and incense sticks inside the temple. So it was like a sun roof actually where you could take away a part of it before lighting lamps etc.
Inside the temple, I needed one box to be the platform on which the idols were to be placed. I picked one that could fit nicely in the center. I also wanted to make a small flight of stairs that went up to the platform. For this, I used the thermocol packing material. I cut them into small blocks of increasing sizes to make the stairs.
For the doors, I picked soft cardboard and cut it at the same height as the walls and broad enough to cover the temple when closed.
Walls - For one of the walls, I was set on the box the 32 inch slim TV came in. This box was really strong and had a wide base which meant the roof would get good support even if there were no pillars in the center to hold it. But for the other wall, I was not able to get a box of same height or length. I got a good piece that was only half the length of the TV box and it was about 1 inch shorter. So I had to pump up it up by adding thermocol padding at the bottom. You could use any other technique to eventually get walls of same height. To compensate for the length, I built a small wall with cardboard pillars and a soft card board sheet. After hours of measuring and comparison, I had marked down the boards for my walls.
In India, temples usually have tapering roofs. To imitate this,I needed boxes of decreasing size in order, but of almost same height. I found a few boxes that came to my rescue. I had to cut one, and tape 2 together. After much deliberation I was finally set on the ones that will go on the roof. The boxes for the roof must be light card board. This is because we are not building any pillars in the middle of the temple to hold a heavy roof. But in case you dont have an option, you can go for a pillar. (Try using the card board rolls that comes in gift wrappers for the pillars) . The roof had to be semi open because we had to light lamps and incense sticks inside the temple. So it was like a sun roof actually where you could take away a part of it before lighting lamps etc.
Inside the temple, I needed one box to be the platform on which the idols were to be placed. I picked one that could fit nicely in the center. I also wanted to make a small flight of stairs that went up to the platform. For this, I used the thermocol packing material. I cut them into small blocks of increasing sizes to make the stairs.
For the doors, I picked soft cardboard and cut it at the same height as the walls and broad enough to cover the temple when closed.
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its so cute and an awesome idea
love this kinda stuff
good work