Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

[Trickyvee]

Forget toys, some of the best times could be had with some of the basics!

The cardboard box. Time was washers/fridges used to come in cardboard boxes big enough to get in. With felt tips, scissors and cling film for windows, the possibilities were endless. What would you turn it into? A car? A house? A big treasure chest? Or would you just sit inside it and hide away from everyone playing with your toys?

Your parent's bed. Trampolines for the masses hadn't been invented, so the double bed was a constant companion for a spot of bouncing, practising your somersalts or pretending to be a high jumper in the Olympics, if you could get away with it.

The three piece suite. Not only could you turn the arm into a horse, but if you whipped off the big cushions and stood them on end on the floor, you had yourself a set of 'It's a knockout' style hurdles.

The kitchen chairs and a table cloth. Voila, a Wendy house is born.

The washing post. Top equipment for practising rope climbing skills. Pull a wire coat hanger into a circle and stick that on the top and you've got a netball ring too.

What else did you use to make your own entertainment?

[Jacqueline]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

A dining chair made the perfect post office counter and also barred cell for visiting my younger brother when he was "in jail".

That sounds completely mental now I've typed it.

[Trickyvee]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

Pots + pans + tins + tupperware + knitting needles = drum kit

Supermarket carrier bags. Cut the bottom off and you have a ready-made athelete's vest with a sponsor's logo for your aformentioned high jumping antics.

Skipping rope. Great for skipping yes, but plug one handle in between the settee cushions and you're ready to be Madonna with your very own microphone and lead (don't get those mics with leads now!)

[Heather74]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

The sweeping brush made an excellent hobby horse or witches broom, also used for Limbo placed across two kitchen chairs
Weeds, grass and flowers made a good substitute for picnic food
Yoghurt pots and strings for telephones.
Buttons for money when playing shop.
Sleeping bags for sliding down the stairs in, we also used an old cot mattress

[Richard1978]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

Camp bed on side folded into a U shape & an old blanket = den / tent.

Bed with short corner posts, 2 kitchen stools, old blanket & string lean to tent that's just the right size to sleep in.

A double bed can also be used for belly slides & rolling off while making a pig in a blanket with the duvet.

Me & my brother used to take all the cousins of my Gran's 3 piece suite & matching arm chairs & make a brown velour igloo from them.

My sister's doll's push chair was occasionally used as a large toy racing car when folded a certain way.

[Trickyvee]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

I used to use my gran's half folding clothes horse to make an indoor tent. A living room curtain pulled out over one of the chairs was also suitably tenty. Also remembered that I once attached a rope and wood to the washing post to make a swing.

I really wished I had a tree in the garden. Swinging on a fairytail swing with roses growing up the sides is still on my 'things to do before I die' list.

[stevef]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

Me & my brother used to take all the cousins of my Gran's 3 piece suite & matching arm chairs & make a brown velour igloo from them.

lol did your cousins wear a lot of brown velour then?

one thing i remember is my brother made a dalek out of cardboard boxes that he could get inside and walk around in, but he tripped and fell down the stairs in it.

[Richard1978]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

That's quite a bad typo there!

Me & my brother used of often use to find other ways for playing with toys.

A cue from a Pot Black snooker table could be turned around to become a baseball bat.

My brother used to have some garden olympics, using 2 garden chairs & a bean stick as a hurdle.

Bean sticks also were used as javelins, along with a cricket ball or boule as a shot put.

Half a brick tied to some old washing line was a good improvised hammer, later changed to the swingball removed from the post after our Dad complained about the dents in the lawn!

[stockportyears]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

A dining chair made the perfect post office counter and also barred cell for visiting my younger brother when he was "in jail".

That sounds completely mental now I've typed it.

I had my dad cut a small, rectangular hole in an Anchor butter box from the supermarket, then I stuck little slithers of masking tape across to make bars for a cell to put poor old Action Man in. He usually got out within the day, though, despite his regular use of firearms and daggers, maybe he had a good solicitor.

[Grosh62]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

Like Trickyvee, I too made a tent out of a folding wooden clothes horse covered in a sheet or curtains but outside on the patio(it was actually council flags that we laid in the back garden).
We had two variations, a basic A shaped tent and a more spacious 'lean to' tent with one side of the clothes horse lifted on to the living room bay window sill.

Cardboard boxes were great although My tortoise died in one after an unsuccessful hibernation.

[Jacqueline]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

Cardboard boxes were great although My tortoise died in one after an unsuccessful hibernation.

Why do I feel there's more to this story that we're not being told lol?

[stockportyears]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

Cardboard boxes were great although My tortoise died in one after an unsuccessful hibernation.

Why do I feel there's more to this story that we're not being told lol?

It could be regarded as the ultimate in successful hibernations, as it still goes on.

[Grosh62]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

It could be regarded as the ultimate in successful hibernations, as it still goes on.

Alas I accidentally dug his shell up about two years later in the back garden under the hedges to the left of where the bindweed grew,forgetting, as I did, the exact site of his shallow grave. His spirit is still out there roaming the undergrowth, tortured and no doubt still choking on the newspaper that my mum put in his cardboard box to keep him warm, when some dried food would have been a much better inclusion.

[Austin Maxi]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

I used to make cars out of cardboard boxes we carried our shopping in from the supermarket. I would draw them out in pen, and cut the roof/boot/bonnet line and windows out, then sit in them and push myself along the floor as if I was driving. The thing is, they were always based on real cars, and quite mundane family fare rather than supercars. I had a white apple box Hillman Hunter estate for a long time.

[Marillion]

Re: Playing with cardboard boxes and stuff

We had a big cardboard box, about a foot wide and three feet long, which my brother and I used for playing robot and controller. We cut three holes in it, one at the end for the head and two at the sides for our arms to go through. We usually swapped roles during the game. The robot was usually based on the one in Lost in Space (American children's series from the late 60s).