Toddler Toy: Upcycle a Wipes Tub

This Huggies wipes tub was just too cute to throw away! I decided to recycle it into a fun little activity for my 2-year-old. (Incidentally, I recommend the Huggies tubs over other brands because of the rubbery opening that is softer on little hands.) Ever left your toddler alone with a tissue box or wipes tub...to come back later and find it had been emptied one-by-one? Yeah. The fascination of one little white corner appearing after another...

To fill my tub, I pulled out a bunch of fabric scraps and cut rectangles about the size of a small paperback book. I tried to find different colors and textures--velvet, satin, flannel, and corduroy.



Then I cut some different shapes--oval, triangle, circle, heart, and square. I even pulled out a couple of my son's favorite old t-shirts that were in the rag bag because of holes or stains and cut out the front picture. This is a great option for anyone who doesn't have fabric around. The nice thing about t-shirt fabric is that it won't fray around the edges either.



If you knew your child would play with this over and over, you may want to go to the trouble of hemming the edges of your cloths. I didn't bother.

When I gave it to my son this morning, he had a lot of fun with it and got some good practice naming his colors and shapes. To keep it interesting, we made up games, such as "Find me the green cloth!" and "Sort the shapes."

It's a quick "toy" to make, and something that can be pulled out for Quiet play when Mom needs to make a phone call or fix a meal!

Tomato Cage Christmas Tree!

How do you display your Christmas cards? Hung on a doorframe? Taped to the wall in a tree shape? In a basket? I am typically frustrated with constantly propping them back up on my mantle, and couldn't wait to try this super-cute AND decorative display idea that Tara ran across...using Tomato Cages!

We realize it's probably a leee-tle bit late to make a Card Holder for this Christmas, but maybe you'll want to tuck this idea away for next year. Tara happened to have two colorful cages in her garden just begging to be trimmed for Christmas. Plain wire ones (new or charmingly used) would be just as cute! She tied the legs together with floral wire to make the tree top, and we each had an instant wire tree.

I wanted to decorate our Card Tree on the cheap (free, actually), so I pulled out some pages from an old book, retrieved my craft bin, and we spent a couple of fun hours creating little ornaments. My kids loved tracing Christmas cookie cutters and then outlining them in glitter glue. I folded some pages like fans and then glued them into circle shapes, adding colorful scrapbook paper accents. A snowflake wearing a little fabric yo-yo with a button center formed our tree topper.

We tore paper into snowmen and added scrapbook paper buttons and faces. Paper strips glued together made stars. We clipped everything in place with mini-clothespins and mini-binder clips.

We love our little Card Trees...and how they proudly display each lovely card received from family and friends!

Seek and Find Christmas Activities: Recycle your Mail!

If you are like us, December is the one time of year when we scurry down to the mailbox full of eager anticipation.  We love to see who has taken the time to actually send a Christmas card or a gift in the mail of all things.  In addition to our personal mail, my kids are still young enough to enjoy looking through the colorful catalogs and Christmas ads that we receive on an almost daily basis.  So, this year I decided to save ours in a pile and put them to use!
If you have any bright Christmas ads around, it's time to pull them out. Some of my favorites (for this project) are Kohls, Target, Toys "R" Us, and Pier 1, but even Lowe's, Pottery Barn or Sears, etc. will work!  It's a shame to just throw away all these bright and colorful magazine pictures.


Game #1
My kids love the "I Spy" books, and anything that has to do with searching and finding hidden objects.  I came up with this printable to give them a way to dig through the magazine pictures and use their observation skills along the way. I also love how these games force my kids to work together to find things.  If your kids are older and you want to make a competition out of it, I'm sure that would be fun, too!  
Go here to print this out, give them a catalog and a pen, and the rest is up to them.  The beauty of this activity is they can take a pen or Sharpie and circle the objects along the way inside the ad--they aren't hurting anything since it is already trash!  If your child is not reading yet, tell her to find the objects pictured on the page by herself and then help her find the rest.  Also feel free to make your own list or add to this one!  There are MANY things to choose from in these ads!

Game #2
This is a similar game but instead of circling the objects, let your child hone his cutting and pasting skills along with his observation skills!  Print this list, then give your child several catalogs, a blank piece of paper, scissors and a glue stick.  See if they can find the amount listed to the left (ex. 2 mugs of cocoa, 3 candy canes) or simply let them find one of each!  Depending on the age of your child, cutting and pasting 1 of each might take long enough.

Another fun Christmas catalog activity is to let your kids create some festive paper dolls or cut and paste a Christmas scene (fireplace, stockings, tree) into a room. My daughter LOVES doing this and is currently cutting and pasting her little Christmas room and family now.  If you want ideas on how to get started, check out this post.  Have fun making use of your colorful Christmas mail!

Coffee Can Stilts. Or Tuna for Beginners.

This scene totally speaks childhood memories to me. My dad made us kids tin can stilts and wooden stilts, and we had a pogo stick...all of which made for hours of fun on warm summer evenings.

These stilts were super quick to make. I actually found a couple of old coffee cans in our basement...not quite the same size, but close enough. A good coat of spray paint quickly covered the dingy, slightly rusty cans. For my preschoolers, tuna cans seemed like a more manageable size.

Any wider can will work...try pineapple juice or large tomato sauce cans that can be emptied without cutting the bottom off. Just punch a hole in each side near one end with a metal pointy can opener or a drill. Then empty the juice, rinse out the cans really well, and paint them if desired. Rope handles should loop through the holes and knot inside the can, and should be cut long enough so your child is holding them about waist level.


The only thing I bought was the poly cord from Lowe's--it's smooth and a good thickness for little hands to hold onto. It was $3.

We had fun trying the different size stilts and seeing how fast we could walk. My kids want to make another tuna can set so they can race.


Ahhh...walking tall on tin cans...it was stilt fun after all these years!