Play Kitchen

I recently made a play kitchen for Little J! I made it back in August during the staycation, but I'm sharing it today:

This is what it looked like. I made the table top and recessed sink out of felt and turquoise oil cloth.

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The base is the sand and water table we bought for the summer. We really like this table and have used it inside with water (less than on the left side in the picture) and outside with sand back when we were on our staycation.

The beauty of using our sand and water table for the play kitchen is that I have no more to really store (already had to store the sand and water table) and I could make the sink recessed, which I think adds to the fun.

For stability I "upcycled" a pampers box for the top (the oilcloth is kind of like a pocket for the cardboard). I'm really happy with that decision too because if someone stands on the kitchen (not that kids ever do things like that!) or it gets a lot of wear, I can just put new cardboard inside.

Personally, I actually don't like turquoise, but the sand and water table and the dishes were already pretty bright so I wanted to stay with the color scheme. I was thrilled when I found the turquoise oil cloth. I even stayed with the color scheme for the tea towel. I used leftover ribbon from my elephant, but I could have made the tea towel without ribbon. The tea towel is a piece of white fleece.

The burners flip to turn on and the knobs move a bit with coat buttons. For the burners, I found red and black velcro. The main black stove top (hob) is black felt with some "crunchy velcro" (hook) and the burners have a red side and black side with "soft velcro" (loop). I sandwiches some black ribbon in the burners and sewed that under the stove top so the burners can't get lost.

My D'uh Moment came when I was sewing the burners together and didn't like how the black thread looked on the red side. Then it ocurred to me: who says you have to have the same color in the top and lower bobbin? So, I ripped out my stitches (I had only done one, thank goodness) and sewed on the with red and had black underneath.

Importantly, Little J really likes his play kitchen. He has had a lot of fun with it, mainly just piling "dirty dishes" into the sink...

...but sometimes he also washes them with real water.

If you are interested in making a play kitchen, especially one for a boy, you might like a board I have on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jessicahk/a-play-kitchen-with-play-food/

Having Fun with Suds!

It can be challenging to keep coming up with new ideas to keep your toddler entertained and engaged. After all, as we all know, toddlers have very short attention spans. Recently, when my son was 10 months old, we were:

This activity was especially nice because it was cheap AND easy to clean up! Isn't it nice when things work out like that? It was cheap because we had everything had: a plastic shoebox-sized bin, dish soap (AKA washing up liquid), water and toys that float.

Right before we started Little J on solids, my mom recommended getting an oil cloth to keep under his high chair (I always want to call it a "height-chair"). Well, we don't really use the oil cloth in the kitchen very much. Somehow it's just as tedious to clean. But it's perfect for activities like this. I set our polka-dot oil cloth on the floor of Little J's room. Then, I filled my plastic shoebox with soapy water, put in a few floaty bath toys and set it down for him to explore.

One thing I really like about this activity is that it counts as "sensory play." I keep seeing those buzz words, which I think it kind of funny because isn't everything experienced through the senses?

In this case, it was also a nice way to use some of his chunky and load bath toys that he doesn't play with much. We actually keep them in the kitchen as kitchen toys. And, did I mention that it was easy to clean up? (Much easier to clean up than Dad's idea to play with shaving cream, but that's another story!)

Even though Little J had played with these toys and suds--and even had had bubble baths--this activity still kept him occupied for quite a while. We did this in late May when the weather was starting to get warmer.

If he had been older, I think we could have made it even more exciting by playing peek-a-boo with this bath toys (hiding them under the suds).

I think the whole family enjoyed this "good, clean fun!" ;-)

I-Spy Bottle

Do you remember when you discovered the black hole of time joy that is Pinterest? I do. I was on maternity leave, rocking a baby who would only nap if I held him for HOURS, surfing net for examples of quiet books.

Sometimes, I see things on Pinterest and it's a blow to my self-esteem: I'll never be able to afford a house like that. I can't do that DIY project that because I can't buy [insert something-cheap-from-Walmart here] in England. There is no way I can make that craft, I'll never be that good.

But, sometimes -- probably most of the time -- I see something and my heart leaps for joy! Finger puppet bunnies made of felt? I can do that. Using binder clip (aka Bulldog clip) to keep my iPad wire from falling off the table? I can do that. A homemade toy for my son that only requires pouring things into an empty bottle and sealing it off? I. Can. So. Do. That!

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That is the toy I'm talking about. A homemade I-spy bottle. Pretty huh? I highly recommend reading about how Jill made hers on her blog here. Her directions were easy to follow, but I made mine a little differently -- that's why mine isn't as pretty....

First, I found an empty bottle (mine was from juice, but that was fine because my son's favorite color is orange). Then, I found random little stuff: mainly novelty buttons from my mother-in-law. I also used:

a spare non-TSA approved luggage lock
a grey pom-pom
a broken Christmas ornament (blue angel in the bottom right)
a foam hand and foot
bead-letters I sewed together to spell GREAT
a little Scotland flag charm from a key chain my mom de-cluttered
a little saw brad for scrap booking/card making

Talk about random! I did try to balance the colors though. For example, I had a yellow mitten button and a yellow trick-or-treat bag button, so I used an orange trick-or-treat bag button instead so there would be more variety.

I also used couscous as my filler. It's what we had. It works fine, actually it makes a nice sound!

And I didn't take a picture of the contents for Little J. After all, he was only about 6 months old when I made this. Far too young to actually hunt for objects.

I did follow Jill's advice about filling the bottle a little, dropping in a few pieces and filling some more. That really did seem to work well. I also only filled it about 80% full. If it is all the way full there is no room for the couscous to go and it doesn't make the cool shaker sound.

This is my finished bottle. I also sealed it so it won't open on my son. But, as I mentioned, it isn't quite as beautiful as Jill's. I don't think it's a pinstrosity, though. I think the differences are that rice is prettier than couscous, this bottle has ridges so it isn't as smooth and sleek and the cap isn't as nice. But, you know what? It's a lot better than the non-existent I-spy bottle my son had before! ;)

After I made this bottle for next to nothing, my mother-in-law has told me that they sell these in stores for something like $30. Seriously? Also, my father-in-law received one as a gift one year but a visiting child opened it, somehow and there was birdseed everywhere. So, thus far Little J has only played with his when we are there too.

Some Things I Learned:

1. The key, the saw, the little metal flower button and the flag were bad choices. There seems to be something about the density of the objects that makes those light and thin items hardly ever, ever appear. The light-weight bigger items, like the pom-pom, appear fairly easily.
2. This did entertain a 6-month-old as something that rolls, makes noise, and is interesting to look at.
3. There is a special way to shake it to make the items faster to find. You sort of shake it gently like your panning for gold.

In the future, I think it would be fun to make a themed one, maybe for a holiday or road trip.

Or maybe it would be fun to dye rice and make a camouflage one. Maybe... if only there were enough hours in the day!