How to Make a Miniature Village From Cardboard Boxes

A cardboard box village is an imaginative project that will keep your kids occupied for hours. They can plan the village and decorate the buildings and streets any way they like.

Determine the size of the cardboard box village and collect boxes accordingly. You can use a variety of boxes, including small milk cartons, jewelry boxes, aspirin boxes, cereal boxes, gift boxes, shoe boxes or round oatmeal boxes. Tiny jewelry boxes can be doghouses.

Cover the boxes with colored paper or butcher paper and decorate the houses with paint, crayons, or colored markers. Use scissors or a craft knife to create doors and windows and make chimneys from empty tissue rolls.

Open businesses and stores. Make them the same way you would make the houses, and write the name of each business across the front. Use some tall boxes for skyscrapers. Round oatmeal boxes make great railway silos.

Design trees out of tissue paper rolls. If the rolls are too large, cut them lengthwise with scissors, trim the ends to the height you want and tape them together. Make the greenery out of green construction paper or magazine photos and tape or glue it to the top of the trunk. Draw details with crayons or markers.

Arrange your town and add details. You can use toy miniatures, such as park benches, street signs, cars and people.