Hooray for the school holidays! Time for a project ...
This week we've been making secret boxes which will blend in seamlessly (ahem) to the kids' bookcases. First they marked themselves our some rectangles - two 15 x 25cm and one 25 x 5.7. These formed the covers and spine of the book. I then took these out to the garage to cut them out as I'll let my children do a lot of things, but I draw the line at circular saws (much to their disgust)
Once cut out they each had a set which looked something like this:
While I was gone, they marked out some lengths on another couple of pieces of wood - some 10 x 12mm baton and some 4 x 4.5mm stripwood.
They then used a junior hacksaw to cut them into the correct sizes. Then there was a whole sanding party going on.
They marked 1.5cm in from three of the edges of the 'book covers' and we then set about nailing the baton pieces around the outside, leaving the 1.5cm gap around the outside. One thing I have found over the years when children are using hammers is that if you hold the nail with a pair of pincer-nosed pliers, nobody's fingers get hit.
After that (and a good night's sleep), more nailing ensued to attach the spine and two of the pieces of stripwood on to make a book shape.
Leaving one of the smaller pieces of stripwood to slide in and out of the bottom to get the treasures in and out.
Once both were all finished, we were left with these - tomorrow's job will be painting them to look like books, and then they will be added to their bookcases where I have no doubt they will blend in seamlessly.
This week we've been making secret boxes which will blend in seamlessly (ahem) to the kids' bookcases. First they marked themselves our some rectangles - two 15 x 25cm and one 25 x 5.7. These formed the covers and spine of the book. I then took these out to the garage to cut them out as I'll let my children do a lot of things, but I draw the line at circular saws (much to their disgust)
Once cut out they each had a set which looked something like this:
While I was gone, they marked out some lengths on another couple of pieces of wood - some 10 x 12mm baton and some 4 x 4.5mm stripwood.
They then used a junior hacksaw to cut them into the correct sizes. Then there was a whole sanding party going on.
They marked 1.5cm in from three of the edges of the 'book covers' and we then set about nailing the baton pieces around the outside, leaving the 1.5cm gap around the outside. One thing I have found over the years when children are using hammers is that if you hold the nail with a pair of pincer-nosed pliers, nobody's fingers get hit.
Once they had all been attached on, each of the children had something a little like this:
After that (and a good night's sleep), more nailing ensued to attach the spine and two of the pieces of stripwood on to make a book shape.
Leaving one of the smaller pieces of stripwood to slide in and out of the bottom to get the treasures in and out.
Once both were all finished, we were left with these - tomorrow's job will be painting them to look like books, and then they will be added to their bookcases where I have no doubt they will blend in seamlessly.
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