My grandmother’s favorite craft/hobby was to construct these little castles from leftover scraps and refuse from around the house. Sometimes her depression era ways would confound and annoy my brother and I but nowadays she’d be rather fashionable. We should be having a resurgence of depression era habits very soon.
She would gather empty cereal boxes, baking soda boxes, oatmeal canisters, toilet and cardboard tubes and the ubiquitous Bisquik boxes that seemed to be everywhere in her house (her breakfast specialty was waffles) and glue them together to form the shape of the castle. She’d then spray paint them whichever color suited her fancy but usually white. From the Sunday Los Angeles Times magazines she’d collect clippings of windows, doors and all sorts of other objects which she would glue on the exterior of the castles. The steeples were made from construction paper. We’d sometimes help her but she seemed to find solace and relaxation in creating these little castles on her own.
it’s a fun hobby. i’ve taken to making things using only cardboard and sharpies. i moved so many times immediately after college, i got in the habit of saving boxes for the next move. now that i’ve settled in to the same place for a few years, the boxes seem lonely just sitting in the garage. and, of course, plain brown is a bit boring, which is where the sharpies come in.
nothing i’ve made is nearly as pretty and intricate as what it looks like your mom made though.