Material Required for Making the Shepherd’s Hut: a yard or two of green crape paper, some corrugated cardboard, half a small square box about four inches high, and, if you have it, silver paper to make a lake.

Here in the picture you see the shepherd’s cottage. I had a little flock of white woolly lambs given me. They came in a box, with a shepherd boy and his dog to tend them.

One day, I decided to build a cottage for the shepherd and make a sheepfold for his flock. You can make one for your toy lambs, too, and, if you like, I will tell you how to do it.

First, lay some green crape paper upon the floor to make grass. There must be grass, you know. Of course, if you have no green crape paper, you will need to pretend that the carpet of the floor is grass. Perhaps it will answer just as well. But, if you have the paper, you can make a hill or two behind the place where you intend to build. It is made by putting some blocks or books under the paper.

Next, I made a long fence by cutting some corrugated cardboard into long strips. Three rows made the width of this long fence. After you have cut your fence, stand it upon its rim. By bending the strip at one end, you can make a gate. The fence is made of very heavy corrugated cardboard, such as comes wrapped around very heavy things. There is a lighter kind that you may also use. From this kind, I made my sheep-pen. It came wrapped around a small glass jar.

To make the sheep-pen, cut a long strip of the corrugated cardboard. Cut it crosswise instead of lengthwise, and slip through each undulation in the cardboard the end of a toothpick. This gives the effect of a picket fence.

The shepherd’s but is made from the lower half of a deep box. Its roof is a piece of corrugated cardboard cut long and bent through the middle downward.

To make the house, turn your box over so that the bottom becomes the top and the box rests upon its rims.

Measure the size of its ends, and cut two triangular pieces of cardboard to fit over them and form gables. Glue each to an end of the house. (For cutting triangular roof supports, see Diagram Three, BB, page 169.)

Cut a door and a window in the front of your house. Both must first be outlined on the box in pencil. Mark the door an inch wide and two inches high, an oblong with base at the edge of the box rim. (For door, see Diagram Two, A, page 167.) Cut the top line and down one long side. Bend the door outward as if it were on a hinge. One-inch squares may be cut in the box rim to make windows. (For cutting a window, see Diagram One, A, page 166.) Cut the square on all four sides.

Place a window under the roof in the point of the gable, if you like.

The roof of the cottage is made by measuring, first, the size of the building you wish to cover. Measure this on your corrugated cardboard, and add three inches to its length and breadth. Fold the corrugated cardboard together to make a pointed roof. (See Diagram Three, C, page 170.) Glue this to the building, and the little shepherd’s hut is finished.

You may make a landscape of mountains behind it, where the sheep may go to graze. These are blocks or boxes covered with crape paper. Do not use glue or paste in doing this. The paper is merely folded over them.

A pretty stream may be made from an irregularly cut strip of silver paper. The woolly sheep love to drink at a stream, I am sure. You can see the lake I made for my landscape. It was a mirror. A rocky ledge on the mountain-side or by the lake is made with pretty pebbles such as you may find in the country.