DIY Doll bed

We like DIY around here. A lot. I make things for the house, but my favorite thing to do is to make things for Phee. I've made her so many little things over the years... her own key chain, a book of colors, her own lovey necklace. It's a lot of fun and especially awesome when I hit upon something that she uses at the time, but keeps coming back to months, or even years, later.

For a couple years now, I've tried to make at least one of her Christmas presents. It's fun for me and I like the creativity it sparks in Phee. We've been making things together for years now, and her first instinct when she wants something is to ask if we can make it. So, I keep making things to keep us both on our toes when it comes to being creative, reusing things at the house, and thinking outside the box.

When I was little, my Grandma Helen made me a baby doll carrier out of a fruit basket. She covered it with fabric, lined the basket, and made a little pillow and blanket to fit inside. I loved that basket and it's still at my mom's house for Phee to play with. Two years ago, I made Phee her own little bed for her babies. It's been a hit and it gets used as so many things... baby bed, cave, wall in a fort... the possibilities with Phee's imagination are endless.

This is a great little gift you can make on your own. And you can customize it so many ways. You can either put together a lot of ready-made pieces, or create a lot of pieces yourself. I did half and half. I picked a nice little basket from the Container Store. I used a travel pillow and pillowcase as the mattress. I used white felt and craft stuffing for the pillow. And then I crocheted a tiny blanket to complete the bed.

It's the perfect little bed for almost all of Phee's stuffed animals and babies. Two or three have been known to sleep in there. Phee keeps it on the floor next to her bed. It's really cute and I've always loved that she enjoys this gift so much.

Do you like to DIY gifts for your kids? What sorts of things have you made for them, or for anyone? I love to see the fantastic things that people make.

Playing with Chores

Phee is a great helper around the house. She likes to be included and help with everything we're working on. It isn't always easy, of course, but it's fun for her.

There are all sorts of little chores she does now around the house: unloading silverware from the dishwasher, folding towels and napkins, putting groceries away, emptying trash cans. One of the very first things she ever helped with was dishes. I washed and she rinsed right next to me, standing on her little footstool.

It was a bit messier than I had anticipated. But, she was so thrilled to be helping that I finally quit worrying about all the water and just let her get on with it. She played and played, making up stories, swirling and dumping water.

It was interesting to watch her problem solve when she tried stacking up the rinsed dishes to dry. Everything doesn't always fit where you want it to go!

In the end, she was so proud of herself. She was helping, she was learning, she was a part of the household. Her sense of accomplishment and that fierce independence was so much fun to see. I just needed to let go a little bit and drop my expectations about how the task should be done. How it was done didn't matter. The process was the important part.

That's always the important part: the learning and growing. Sometimes it's me watching her grow, sometimes it's me figuring things out thanks to her actions or words. Kids are very good at keeping you busy with self-examination, deep thoughts about life, and wonder at their wisdom.

Kids are also adept at reminding you that everything is a game and can be played through. Even chores.

What sorts of chores do your kids do around the house? Do you let them finish chores their own way?

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Wordless Wednesday {super}

{super phee on her way to school for super hero day}

Cardboard Garden

Sweet Phee is really into her primary colors right now. I'll have another post about that soon. On Sunday, after watching a recent favorite episode of Curious George, she asked if she could plant primary color carrots. She asked right at 5:00 as I was getting ready to make dinner, while simultaneously trying to watch my first full game of the hockey season. Ah, kids...

Phee was not happy when I said we didn't have any seeds to plant. I quickly came up with a very cool idea, though, which she has been enjoying all week. We still have some random leftover boxes from Christmas kicking around the garage. I grabbed a small, square box that didn't have a bunch of printing on it. I used construction paper in primary colors and some cereal boxes from the recycling bin to make carrots. (Please excuse the yellow pictures from a darkish room.)

Voila! Phee has her own 3 carrot garden to play with. She can plant the carrots, pick the carrots and make up endless stories and songs about her tiny garden. It's been a hit all week!

This is a great project for planting season. You could make a separate "plot" for different kinds of veggies. Or, use a couple big boxes (paper boxes would be sturdy enough for toddler play) and add different veggies as you plant them, or as they start to grow, or when you start to harvest them. It's a great way for kids to continue to learn about the food that you're growing while they're playing with their friends and stuffed animals.

Materials

• construction paper
• thin cardboard, like cereal boxes
• adhesive
• cardboard box
• scissors

Directions

1. Set up your cardboard box. I taped one end of ours closed, but left the other open so that we could easily retrieve any veggie that got stuffed all the way into the box.
2. Decide how many veggies will fit on one side of your box and then cut slits in the box for the veggies to fit into.
3. Cut out your veggies of choice. You can print out clip art and cut it, or just draw them freehand.
4. Feel free to embellish the veggies with crayons or markers to add some detail.
5. Back the cut out veggies on thin cardboard. I used cereal and cracker boxes that were in the recycling bin.
6. Plant those veggies in the box and have fun pretend gardening! 

{our garden plot box ready with slits}

{our primary color carrots}

{we left one side open so we could retrieve lost veggies}

Do your kids like to help out in the real garden when it's time to plant or harvest? Do they have a favorite garden book?

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Playground

Felt Halloween puppets {kid craft}

Phee and I talked about making a pumpkin puppet for Halloween.  That little project morphed into three big puppets and a thrown together puppet theater.  But it was a lot of fun!

{cuteness with a puppet}

This is an easy project and you can make any kind of puppet... pick a favorite story; make monsters, animals or family members; pick a favorite movie; pick a holiday.  

We chose a pumpkin, spider and ghost for our Halloween puppets.  We cut the felt out and used tacky fabric glue to adhere the two pieces together.  The glue didn't hold though.  My mom was there and quickly sewed all three puppets together while Phee had a bath.  The glue did hold the googly eyes which Phee stuck on each puppet.  She was not crazy about the eight eyes I put on the Spider, but I thought it was really cute.

{my favorite puppet}

Our puppet theater was made out of an old fitted sheet.  I cut a large window out of it after hanging it on the table.  The window was rather large, though, and proceeded to gape open.  So, I gathered the fabric together tightly at the bottom corners of the window and fastened them all together with safety pins.  Not expert construction by any means, but it got the job done.  Phee has a fun puppet theater that we can throw up on the table quickly, or fold up for storage easily. 

{poor lighting... we were having so much fun we forgot to turn lights on}

Materials

• felt
• tacky glue, hot glue, or needle & thread
• googly eyes

{trace those little hands}

Directions

1. Lay out your felt and lightly trace the puppet shape you want with a pen.  It's a good idea to lay your child's hand on the felt while you're doing this to make sure that you leave enough room for their hand to fit in the opening.
2. Cut out your felt pieces.
3. Glue or sew them together.
4. Glue on any embellishments, like googly eyes, that you want to add.
5. Get creative and make up stories for your puppets to act out!

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High Heels and Grills

Window washer activity

Phee goes to a music class every week and thoroughly enjoys it. In the waiting area, there are books, toys and some musical instruments. There are also very large picture windows that all the kids are drawn to. A little window washing station is set up with spray bottles full of water, squeegees, and rags. It's super cute and it's just about the only thing Phee with play with while she's waiting for class.

The great thing about this activity- it's simple and inexpensive. And if your child is really into it like mine is, then your window will be fairly well cleaned.

Get a small spray bottle and fill it with water. Grab some old rags or washcloths. We use some of the old cloth baby wipes for this activity. They're very soft and don't leave fibers behind. If you have a squeegee or want to get one, add that to the mix, too. Find a little handled basket or canvas tote bag and load it up with the window cleaning activity.

I pull up the blinds in the living room and Phee goes to town on the front window and the big sliding glass doors. The windows might not be expertly cleaned, but she rinses off her own hand prints. And she's occupied for 15-20 minutes when I need to get something done. A winning activity in my book!

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Such Imagination!

We had a lovely, laid back weekend.  It wasn't exactly designed that way, but that's just how it ended up and it was a nice break.  Plans fell through on Saturday so after a late nap, Phee and I were able to head out to the library.  And Sunday, Doug was off so we all had a lazy day around the house.

This weekend was full of Phee's imagination and games.  Her imagination is taking off these days and she's spending so much time being creative in her play- making up stories, reenacting her favorite episodes of her shows, telling us exactly what our role is in whatever game we're playing.  It is so much fun just to watch her, or sit and listen in on her quiet play.

For a long time, Phee liked to wrap up all her babies and friends in blankets (burp cloths repurposed as baby blankets) and line them up.  Sometimes, she would feed them, but more often than not it was a game of wrapping them up, unwrapping them and then doing it all over again.  She hadn't done that in ages, but all of a sudden this weekend, that game returned.  We had so much fun swaddling them up and lining them up.  Then, it was her turn to get wrapped up in her blanket and lay down alongside her friends, with much giggling and wiggling.

Our trip to the library was full of computer time and finding new books.  She's starting to have favorites and lists of books and characters she wants to look for at the library... Madeline, Arthur, Babar, the Berenstain Bears.  We took a detour though the DVDs and found some of her favorites there, too.  When you hand her a book she says she wants to "buy this one."  She helps me scan the books at the self check and equates that to buying them.

Sunday, she and her dad reenacted Knuffle Bunny, running through the house with much laughter and yelling.  It was absolutely hilarious to listen to her narrate the story and direct us through our roles, running down the hall and through the kitchen.  After dinner we went for ice cream and when we tried to leave the outdoor area, we were directed to sit down and practice our instruments.  Again, reenacting one of her favorite things, an episode of Madeline.

Since her imagination has blossomed so much in the last few months, I'm sometimes caught off guard by her pretending.  We tried for 20 minutes to leave the ice cream place, but she wanted to direct us and we didn't want to make her stop her game.  It's just such a joy to play her games and have fun on her level.  It's a great exercise for my memory, too, to try to keep up with what she's pretending and what show or book or character she's referencing.

Mostly, she's just amazing.  Phee has always been full of personality.  Now, we're seeing it really develop and she's becoming so much more independent.  I love to watch her discover how her different toys can work together to create a whole new game.  She's such a little person.  And she's really a lot of fun to be with.

Create a Plate

Sweet Phee has been sick all week. Last night, after dinner, the exhausted kid was asking to paint which neither one of us was actually up to tackling. So, I sorted through my tired mommy brain and came up with a quick project that would satisfy her and fit with her sick-kid attention span.

I'm pretty sure I've seen something like this somewhere in the last few years and it's something I just filed away for later. It's a very flexible, fun project that could fit different criteria for a range of ages. For toddlers, it's just a fun way to explore food and get to play with stickers. Phee loves sticking stickers on paper.

For older kids this could be an exploration of healthy food choices and creating balanced meals. Or, perhaps you have a garden or frequent the farmer's market. In that case, this would be a fun project to talk about what foods are in season at any given time of the year. If your kids have a play kitchen, try laminating the plates for them to play with later. Another fun way to use this project is paired with a book, like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Cut out, or even print out, pictures of the foods in the story and let kids create their own book-themed feast!

One of the best parts? You probably have all the supplies you need lying around the house right now.

Supplies

• old magazines (best are those that contain recipes)
• scissors
• glue or some sort of adhesive
• paper plates
• packing tape

Directions

• Cut out pictures of food items from the magazines
• Glue them onto the plate
• Use the packing tape to laminate the plate

Laminating the plate may be tricky depending on how rounded and raised the edges of your paper plates are. For toddlers, you probably will want to do the gluing yourself and let them do the sticking. Older kids, of course, can do it all.

That's it! A super simple, fun project for many ages. Kids love to cut, paste and flip through magazines and this lets them do it all!

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