moving panorama in a shoe box - ideas?

[jrabbit]

My daughter is trying to make a rotating scenery for a project (she's recreating "Hotel for Dogs").

So, she's got this scenery that is about 3' long, and she wants it to rotate. It would need something to turn around on either end - like a pencil ... hmmmmm

I have this memory of a shoe box that has a rotating background - I can't for the life of me remember how it was made or how to find it on Mr. Google. I've been searching, to no avail.

help us!
--janis

[Thalia the Muse]

So, basically you want a scroll of paper you can wind to show different scenes in the background? That's quite easy to do, fortunately!

You need a roll of paper -- shelf paper, butcher paper, something long. Cut out a strip slightly shorter than the height of the interior of the shoebox, and long enough to accomodate all the scenes she wants to show, plus a few inches of blank "leader" on either end. She draws them, then you tape each end of the paper to your rollers -- you could use pencils, but chopsticks might be even better. Poke holes in the shoebox and lid at either end for the rollers to go through, then place the scroll in the box and put the lid on so that the rollers are held in the place. Turn both rollers at the same time to advance or reverse your scenery, and Bob's your uncle!

If I'm misunderstaind you and what you want is really free-standing pieces of scenery that rotate, that's going to be a little harder than a rolling background. I guess you could rig up a sort of carousel anchored to the box floor with a brad, so you can turn it.

[jrabbit]

yes, that's it. my brain is completely defunct these days. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to describe it for Google, and it wasn't til I was typing the question that "pencils" occurred to me. My dd is excited, but the project has to wait til tomorrow now.

thanks!
--janis