Cardboard Iron Throne Cat Bed

I made this cardboard Iron Throne inspired by HBO's Game of Thrones for my very regal and deserving cat Arthur. I posted it on Reddit afterward and it went viral. I'm happy to report Arthur has been really enjoying his new bed. Formerly, he was always hanging out in this sad, old cardboard box.

When I first started making this project, I'll be honest and say I had no idea where it was going to end up. Many of my projects start that way. But thankfully I took several pictures so I can show what I did.

For this project, I used:

-- A few cardboard boxes. Size depends on how large you want the final project to be. You'll also need a couple of cardboard boxes/pieces strictly for cutting into strips (swords).

-- A hot glue gun and a whole bag of hot glue sticks. You're going to use a lot.

-- Scissors + a craft knife.

-- Pencil.

-- Acrylic paint in black and silver + paint brushes.

I was about to throw out this box that my mom had used to send me a package. I think it was for a pair of children's boots.

I reinforced the structure of the box with hot glue and hot glued a lot of pieces of really sturdy cardboard to help make the top lid of the box/back of the throne stay up.

I cut the front at an angle like this: \____/

I cut the top and sides of the lid of the box in several sharp points to resemble the back of the iron throne. I also took the inside sides out a bit and glued them down at an angle to look more like arms of a chair.

I free-hand drew a bunch of swords on flat pieces of cardboard and cut them out. I also cut a bunch of swords without hilts. I glued the swords WITH hilts pointing down and the swords WITHOUT hilts pointing up.

To truly make it a throne, it needs to be a little taller. So what I did was I got a medium-sized cardboard box that was about four inches wider (but the same depth) as the original cardboard box. I took it apart so it was all flat and I reshaped it and reglued it to look like a 3D trapezoid, so now the top of the trapezoid was the same width and depth as the top box but the sides fanned out. Then I just glued them together.

Of course, I forgot to take a picture of that part, but I've attached a drawn version of what I did.

Then you'll start gluing on the swords (without hilts) down the front and down the sides. These swords were quite a bit longer and slightly wider than the ones on the back of the throne.

First, paint the whole thing black. Then dry brush it with silver paint. Dry brushing is essentially taking a clean brush, putting just a tiny amount of silver paint, brushing most of it off, and then finally dry brushing the throne -- just here and there to add highlights and give the throne depth.

I quickly sewed a little pillow using an old pillowcase and some poly-fil to make Arthur a pillow. All I did was cut two squares of fabric that fit the throne, sewed three lines on three sides of the two squares sandwiched together like this: |_| and then turned it right side out, filled it with fluff, and then sewed the top shut.

And that's it! There's really not much to it. It only took me one afternoon/evening while watching TV, and then I painted it the next morning.

Arthur loves it. He enjoys sleeping in it.