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Box Chruch

In honor of the start of Spring, I have my annual "Oh, yeah ... pollen" week where I go through two boxes of facial tissue. Which leads to my annual make some terrain out of tissue boxes event.

In this case, I will supplement with a puzzle box and a really nice decorative deck of cards. Since the cat ate a couple cards from each of the two really nice stained glass card decks, they are terrain fodder now. And since stained glass screams "Church!" (since it is not the right style for a Marc Chagall display), let's see what we can do ...

Well, the first bit is cut out some stained glass windows. Since cutting them leaves a white edge, the black marker on the left is needed to edge the "windows".

Now, I will cut the lip on the puzzle box top. I left a little larger lip on the front and made it small enough to fit the windows for the back and sides.

This is a standard joint cut. Up from the bottom of the tissue box and down from the top of the puzzle box, to let them join and overlap.

Like so.

I could measure the tissue box cutout for the lid, but instead I just line it up and mark it.

Leaving us this. A nice fit and the lid still comes off.

Repeat the process for some cardboard as a support for the peaked roof. Note that I am lining it up inside the box lid by the width of one miniature base. This will make a ledge that minis can walk on and also leave room for some minis as gargoyles.

We get a nice fitting roof now.

But need to close the end. I hold a piece of scrap paper up to the end and mark the edge, then cut the shape out to use as a template for cutting a piece of cardboard to go inside.

Again, I leave space to get a few figures in there during a game.

Since the roof is dry now, I will "tile" it with some corrugated cardboard.

Then add a cupola and some railing along the edge of the roof (it was track from a marble racing toy).

Here are my gargoyles. Or saints. Or whatever.

Statues.

I will put two Hawkman and two Fury (black gargoyle female) figures on the steeple and the rest (using some extra Hawkman wings) on the sides of the roof.

For the tissue box, we need an entrance on the inside.

By cutting the doorway leftover piece into strips, I can make a lintel piece to keep it from looking like just a hole in the wall.

I could have made a lintel for the puzzle box double doors, but since they will be partially hidden, recessed inside the steeple, I didn't bother.

And here we have the finished project.

Like the interior lintel, I could have done stonework paint on the outside of the church or the inside floor. And a bunch of other details.

But this was a three-hour afternoon project, and I think it came out quite nice for play.