Christmas Mailbox

Playscale

1. Print this on heavy card stock, 65 pound, of the color of your choice.
2. Rough cut all the components out.
3. Radius the main body, frame for rear and frame for door between the indicated arrows. The easiest way I have found to do this is by carefully drawing the area over a sharp edge (like my workbench). Be careful not to cause any creases.
4. Cut all the components out.
5. Score the fold creases. The easiest way that I have found to do this is by running an empty ballpoint pen along the creases using a straight edge as a guide.
6. Carefully fold along these creases. Unless you have added a design on the outside of the mailbox or there is a design on the paper you are using, you can fold the mailbox with the printed side showing out or inside.
7. If you are going to glue the mailbox printed side out, carefully cut the "L" closest to the mailbox bottom with a very sharp knife or razor. If you will be gluing printed side in carefully cut the "L" farthest from the bottom out. This is where you will be inserting the red mailbox flag.
8. Glue the large straight tab of the mailbox body first. My preference is a glue stick.
9. Glue the tabs of the mailbox end to the inside of the mailbox. Once I had glue on each of the tabs and the tabs inside the mailbox, I used a roll of quarter on the inside of the mailbox as a hard surface to brace the tabs and main body against for positioning and gluing. Any round object, like a dowel, about the diameter of a quarter would work just as well.
10. While the step above is drying, I did the same with the mailbox door and frame for door. Glue the door frame as even to the door wall as you can. You will find that the door frame is slightly larger than the outside edge of the door, so split the difference. I used a stack of quarter on the inside of the door to give me a hard surface to glue against.
11. Set everything aside for drying and have a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage.
12. Once everything above is dry, glue the "end cover" on to the out side of the mail box end. Also glue the door cover (with "US MAIL" showing) to the out side of the door. You will find that both "covers" are slightly larger, position them so that they are about centered and once the glue is completely dry carefully cut off the excess. This will cover most of the gluing imperfections.
13. Crease and glue the red flag as shown in the picture and insert it into the "L" you have chosen.
14. Let the glue dry totally.
15. To make the door operational, place the door on the open end of the mailbox. Carefully pierce two holes through the L-shaped end of door frame and mailbox body with a straight pin. Carefully cut two straight pins long enough so that they will go through the doorframe, door, mailbox wall and protrude well into the inside of the main body. Carefully glue the cut end of the pin on the inside of the mailbox. Make sure that the glue does not wick to the outside and door.

The mailbox and these instructions were donated by Myron Kopytko. Thanks Myron!

A note on scale

This page was made with images donated for your use. Feel free to print it and pass it along to anyone, but please don't sell them.