Here’s Lauren’s step-by-step instructions, you’ll need an old hardback book cover or cereal box, white acrylic paint to prime, coloured paint to decorate, glue, a ruler, string, lollipop sticks, paper and other crafty scraps, scissors and an adult to help you with cutting out your rectangle stage with a craft knife / box cutter.
1. I used a box cutter to carefully cut all of the pages out of a hardcover book. The older the book is, the easier this will be! If you don’t have any old books, you can use a long, narrow box, like a cereal box as well. Just cut down one of the sides to open the box, and tape it back when you are finished painting. I cut a rectangle out of the book’s cover using a ruler and a box cutter.
2. After this, the book is ready to be painted with primer to create a nice surface for children to paint or draw on. If you use a cereal box, also prime the inside to help the thinner cardboard from warping.
3. I painted stripes on the spine and used geometric elements. There are so many different styles of miniature theatres. The Victorian theaters are very fancy, but my inspiration was the Triadisches Ballet. I was inspired by the bright colors and geometric shapes of the costumes.
4. You can cut shapes out of paper to tape to the inside of the front cover to give the theatre depth. Paint backdrops on cardstock and tape them to the back cover, so you can change them out for different acts.
5. Glue wooden sticks to the sides of your characters to act out different scenes, or hang them from strings like I did.
6. After you design and create the outside of the theatre, you can make different backdrops and characters to create different scenes.
7. If you want to use your theatre at night, you can tape parchment paper to the inside of the front cover and put a flashlight inside to create a shadow theatre! Of course you won’t be able to see how you painted your characters, so make sure you give them interesting silhouettes that really exaggerate their expressions.
We can’t wait to see what you make!
You can see more of Lauren’s illustrations in her portfolio here
