Enchanted Castle

The Enchanted Castle is a three dimensional paper project made entirely out of chipboard.  It sits on a 12” x 12” base and the height of the tallest tower is 15”.  It includes a hidden compartment that holds a coordinating mixed media mini album.

The Castle features Graphic 45's Enchanted Forest Paper Collection.  From the first time I saw this collection with the princesses and princes and fairies I knew I wanted to design a castle around the paper, and I wanted the castle to have lots of towers.  If you count the turrets, the project has thirteen towers so I think I met that goal!


Although there are lots of those towers, there are two basic shapes – rectangular and round – so the components come together fairly easily. 

Let's start in the front and take a tour around the project.

On the front of the castle there is a wall with a gated opening.  This wall (as well as all the other walls) has a top edge created with the Tim Holtz die, "Torn Notebook".




On either side of the gated opening are decorative elements from the 12x12 paper and above the gate the peacock is one of the chipboard pieces from the collection.

 

The Front Wall is 4 1/2" high and 3/4" thick.  This photo gives a good look at the wall construction.

On the ends of the wall there are Round Towers that are 2" in diameter and 8" tall at their roof peaks.

The Front Round Towers and their cone roofs are all made out of light weight chipboard which made it easy to form into the necessary shapes.

Here you can see a door in one of the round towers which allows access to the tower from the top of the wall.

The gate has a little base so it can be removed to look inside the courtyard.

This is a close-up of the courtyard interior.  I used one of Tim Holtz' "Sized Arches" dies to make the three openings and then images from the paper collection behind the openings.

You can also see to the left a pedestal base for one of the courtyard towers  - it's covered in gold paper and you just make out one of the doors in it.  Each of the Courtyard Towers stands on one of these bases.

And here is a look at one of those Courtyard Towers viewed form the right side of the castle.  It is 1 1/2" square and stands 9" tall at the roof peak.


You can also see the windows very well in this photo.  I made them using Microsoft Word.  They were printed and attached to light weight chipboard and then glued to the towers once the decorative paper was on the walls.  Different towers have different sizes of windows.

There is a second level inside of the castle above the courtyard.

The second level has a Narrow Round Tower (red) and a Large Round Tower (barely visible to the left of the red tower) and the Castle Keep. 

The Keep has has a secret compartment that we will see a little later.

Here is a close-up of the Annex to the Keep.


Inside of annex opening is one of the images from the paper collection – a prince and a sleeping princess.


Above the opening are three decorative chipboard elements from the paper collection.





 

Let's move clockwise around the castle and look at the left side of the castle.

Now you can get a better view of the Large and Narrow Round Towers on the second level.

The Narrow Round Tower is 1 1/4" in diameter and the Large Round Tower is 3" in diameter.


Here you can see the Left Wall with one of the Small Wall Towers in the center.  The left wall is only 3 1/2" tall, otherwise it is the same construction as the front wall.

On the left end of the wall is one of the Back Corner Towers.  These towers are 1 3/4" square and stand 8 1/2" tall at the roof peak. 

Now let's turn again and look at the back view.


The Back Wall is similar to the left wall, and now you can see both of the back corner towers.

We also see the back of the Keep and the Large Round Tower on the second level.  The Large Round Tower joins the Keep smoothly here in the back.

The Tall tower (red at left) is also see from this angle, but we'll have a better view of that tower in a minute.

Here we have a good view of the Turrets on the back of the keep.

The Turrets are 1 1/2" square and their roof peaks are 5" above the top of the keep.

And finally the Right Wall.  The outstanding component here is the Tall Tower.

The Tall Tower is rectangular and is 2 5/8" on the long side and 1 3/4" on the narrow side.  It is the tallest part of the project and stands 15" tall.

Under the top windows is another of the decorative chipboard elements from the paper line.

And now let's take a look at how to get into that secret compartment in the Castle Keep.

The roof of the Large Round Tower is connected to the top platform on the Keep.  That whole component is held on by magnets under the tower roof and fits in with friction on the other three sides.

The hidden compartment goes all the way down to the base of the project and is 2” x 6 1/4” x 8 1/2” tall.

Inside you can see the handle of the Mixed Media Album.

I'm working on the finishing touches on the album and there will be another post about it in a few days.


I hope you have enjoyed seeing the Enchanted Castle project.  If you would like to take a video tour, please see the YouTube link at the bottom of the post.

If you would like to build your own version of the castle, a Materials & Cutting Guide as well as templates and construction videos will be posted in a week or so.

Thanks for visiting!
April

YouTube Video of completed project: