This is a Paper Palace to Cut Out and Color
Designed by Evaline Ness
ISBN 0-684-14708-4
My mother gave this book to me way back in the mid 1970s.
She had come across it in a cut-price bookshop that used to be on the Kilburn High Road (in London).
Shops like these are the last chance for a book that has been remaindered.
If a book doesn’t sell there it is pulped, and I have always been glad and grateful that this one, at least, was rescued.
I have never taken the book apart in order to turn it into a 3d palace, but I have decorated (and re-decorated) again and again in my imagination.
One of the things that I find particularly pleasing about it is the way the shape of two of the rooms is changed by the triangular supports.
Then there is the way that it is possible to allow furniture to spill out of the rooms, not to mention the way that the owner of the palace is encouraged to use their imagination – and plenty of gold !
Whenever I need to make something fine and golden for a dolls’ house, this is one of the first places that I visit for inspiration.
The book is still in copyright, so I can’t share it it great detail here –
– but if you are inspired to make a Paper Palace of your own, and would like some furniture to go in it, I would suggest having a look at the digital copy of The Girl’s Own Toy-Maker that is available from Google books.
It has some rather nice furniture patterns (as well as suggestions for a couple of small houses and other paper toys) that can be made from paper / card and I think that all of the designs could be worked up into something more substantial – with a little bit of work.
Here are a few of the simpler items –
I was delighted to discover that there is a companion volume for boys too –
