Material Required to Make a Toy Merry-go-round: two round bandbox covers, or the two halves of some large round box, a sheet of penny cut-out pictures of horses or animals, and a cardboard mailing-tube or a hoop-stick.

Everyone may own a merry-go-round. It is made from two large round bandbox covers and a mailing-tube. You will also need some pictures of animals or horses to use on the merry-go-round. Four or five animals are enough to use. A small box will require less.

Cut-out pictures of Indians or cowboys may be used on the merry-go-round. If you cannot have these, horses cut from cardboard will answer. To do this, find a clear outline of a horse in some magazine picture and trace it upon your cardboard. Then, when it is cut out, you will have a pattern to help you make the other horses by drawing around its edge.

In the picture, the horses were each a penny cut-out. They came as race-horses. They exactly fitted the bandbox merry-go-round that I made.

If your cut-outs are upon thin paper, paste them upon thin cardboard before you start the work of making the toy itself. Let them dry while you are making the merry-go-round.

To construct this, first take the cardboard mailing-tube that you have (or the hoop-stick), and run it down through the center of one bandbox cover as the bandbox cover stands on its rims like a platform.

Cut a small hole in the center of your other bandbox cover, and press this down over the cardboard mailing-tube, a third of the way down its length, just as you see it in the picture.

Now, take your animals mounted on thin cardboard and cut each out.

Cut narrow half-inch strips of cardboard for the poles of the animals. Glue them at equal intervals around the rim of the upper bandbox cover, inside. To their bases, glue the animals.

When you turn the top of the mailing-tube, the merry-go-round will twirl.

Paper figures cut from colored magazine pictures may ride on the merry-go-round. When it is made in a smaller size, china dolls may ride on it, and wooden Noah’s Ark animals may be glued to the cardboard strips to make very lifelike chargers.