Pen Block

This is a fantastic and inexpensive home made gift for a two to five year old. We use pen blocks like this at home and at school. They help kids to keep track of their pens and caps, make markers last longer, and are easy to carry from table to floor to easel.

I've been meaning to post a detailed tutorial on this for a while, but I thought I'd just show it to you today, in case you want to figure it out on your own.

You will need:

A well-sanded block of wood (2x2 or 2x4 are great)

Fat washable markers

A drill with a 1/2" bit (if your pen caps are 1/2" across!)

A wood-burning tool or permanent marker (optional)

I just looked through my photos for a picture of our pen block, but then realized that one of our artists-in-residence was using it just five feet away. So this is a picture of our home version with all of the pens in a row right at this very moment:

Some quick tips:

My holes were all 3/4" deep and at least 1 1/4" apart.

I hammered the caps into holes. In order to do that without damaging them or the pens, I put an old dried out marker in the cap, and hammered the end of the old pen. No glue was needed.

Personalizing or putting shellac on the pen block can make it fancier, but even a plain one made in an old scrap of wood will be loved for years.

A Freezer-Paper-Snowflake-Stencil-T-Shirt

We love decorating our front window with paper snowflakes, so today we decided to try decorating some t-shirts with them. With just a little adult supervision, this is a great gift that a kid can make for his cousin. (You can stop reading this now, Anna.)

If this is your first time using freezer paper stencils, there is a good tutorial here.

And, here is a great place to learn how to cut some six-pointed snowflakes.

Toy Tree House

You can build a magnificent little toy tree house like this with just a few small logs, glue, and a saw:

A few years ago, I found some good, dry fruit wood, and after borrowing a mitre saw, I cut it into lots of little medallions that were 3/4" thick and about 3-6" in diameter. After an hour of cutting, I had buckets of these little wooden rounds. I did not wax or polish them, just set them out for play and they made lovely free toys.

We still have many of these loose pieces around our house that are played with in all sorts of ways (as cookies, coins, cutting boards), but I was inspired to make a toy tree house after seeing some beautiful examples online (especially here and here).

I carefully cut some branches to make the vertical supports, trying to keep the two cut ends parallel to each other, and then started building stairs from the ground up, using the small wooden rounds and a hot glue gun. (I highly recommend hot glue for this project; it dries quickly, and is very forgiving of uneven and not completely parallel surfaces.) I started with one spiral staircase around a column, and then kept adding more parts to go with the set.

On one tower, I added a railing made from a pine cone and some beach stones, as well as a rope ladder tied to two small holes that are drilled in the floor of the turret:

We have added new elements to this play set again and again, including a magnolia branch in plaster found at a yard sale (perfect for the basket lift), some cool old wooden finials from a broken headboard, ramps and ladders made from popsicle sticks, little wire chairs and a tipi.

Parts or all of this set move from table to floor all around and outside of our house, and I have needed to repair it a few times, but it has always been easy to mend with hot glue. It has seen many hours of play, and is frequently inhabited by kings, pirates, evil-doers and acorns.

(Click on the pictures to enlarge)

If you are inspired to make one of your own, please put a link in the comments or send me some pictures!

A Giant Bubble Wand

Want to see something that is truly amazing and incredibly beautiful that you can make with just sticks, string and soap?

Here's what you need:

Bubble solution (recipe to follow)
A ball of cotton kitchen string / butcher's twine
Two sticks around 3 or 4 feet long

Here's what you do:

First, make your bubble solution. Use Dawn Ultra Dishwashing Liquid. Very gently mix one cup of liquid soap with 9 cups of water. This mix gets better with age, so if you make it a few days in advance, you will get some great bubbles! As you can see, we use an empty laundry detergent container to store our bubble solution:

The brand of soap and the water that you use really matters, and this particular combination makes the very best bubble solution around here. If you can't find Dawn, or if you have hard water, go online and I'm sure you will find a great bubble recipe that works for you.

Next, make the wand:

Loosely braid or crochet two long strands of cotton kitchen string. Our finished strands were 44 and 82 inches long, but they don't have to be super exact. If you have someone in your house who is learning to crochet, this could be a perfect project to make with some of those long, loose practice strings.

Finally, tie the ends of the two strands to each other and then tightly to the sticks. Our sticks were 40 inch long dowels, but you can use any long sticks you like. We painted ours with acrylic paints but other decorations could be fun, just remember that they will get very wet.

Now you're ready to make your HUGE bubbles!

Just dip the strings into your bubble solution. Oh, wait... I forgot to mention this part: GO OUTSIDE! Okay, now dip your strings in the bubble solution. Make sure that the strings get completely wet.

Lift them out of the solution and slowly spread the sticks apart. A slight breeze will make your bubble film turn right into a giant bubble, but if the air is still, you may have to move around or wave the wands a bit. If it's too windy, you'll need to find a sheltered spot or wait until the wind dies down. Once you get the hang of it, try opening and closing the sticks to release your bubbles.

Some kids just NEED to pop bubbles, so be sure to make them some that are especially for popping!

Give those little guys a turn with the wand, and they just might make some beautiful bubbles of their own!

Feathers on the Felt Board

Did you know that little, downy feathers stick to felt?  Yesterday, I overheard Julio talking to himself at the felt board, "I wonder if this sticks here. Yep. It does."  He left a small blue feather stuck on the board.  Today, I put a jar of feathers by the felt board and the kids took the idea a bit further.

This was a fun fine-motor activity.  The feathers require some delicate placement or else they easily fall off or blow away.

Julio and a friend worked on this tree earlier today, and then Diego and I added some more to it this afternoon.  When we were done, Diego blew lightly on the feathers and we watched them all flutter without blowing away.  It gave the tree a cool animated effect that we normally don't see on the felt board.

This feather and felt combination has some great potential, and I can't wait to see where they go with it next!

Easy Felt Board & Felt Christmas Tree

Here is a simple felt board tree that we have all been enjoying for the past few weeks:

This tree has been decorated and redecorated many times, and the kids have also had fun cutting out some of their own ornaments and presents.  I made the tree in sections so that they could assemble it themselves.  Here's how:

Do you have a felt board?  I made a very easy one last year.  I covered a 20"x30" piece of foam board with grey felt, stretched it tight and taped it on the back with packing tape.  It was a gift for a two year old, so I also made some very bold, geometric shapes in black, white, red and yellow: squares, circles,  semi-circles and rectangles, all about 1 to 4 inches in size.

I intended to mount it on the wall or find a better way to attach the felt to the board, but it has held up very well as it is, and the lightness and portability of the foam board have made it easy for small kids to carry it around and lay it on the floor or lean it against the wall.  Here's the "temporary" taping on the back:

I highly recommend this toy for two to five year olds.  It gets played with a lot at our house, and over the past year it has had many different scenes on it, including: a bear family with tree house, an autumn tree with falling leaves, jack-o-lanterns, children with pets, farm animals, and more.  Usually I cut out the shapes that my kids request, but sometimes they make their own.  They love moving the pieces around and acting out scenarios with the characters, so if you are looking for a gift for a child who is often playing with little animals or figurines and making up voices and actions for them, this is perfect.

I made our felt board and pieces using inexpensive acrylic felt, but have since learned that felt that is at least 50% wool clings better and is less likely to fall off on the floor. If you don't have foam board, I'm sure a thick cardboard or a thin plywood would work as well.

Hardware Store Bath Toys

Are you getting ready to start making some holiday gifts?  We've got a few home made ideas that I would like to share with you.  Here is one that would make a fun gift for a little water and construction lover:

If you can, add some small pvc gutters or other shapes.  The piece on the bottom in that last picture is a plastic bowl in which I drilled a dozen small holes to make a rain shower.

Photocopied Toys

Yesterday, while I was printing out some pages for the boys to color, I thought that it would be fun to surprise them by making photocopies of their favorite soft toys.  Our printer has a built in scanner/copier on top, so I made some quick low quality black and white copies of their most beloved stuffed animals by laying the toys directly on the glass of the copier.  They were so surprised and happy about these prints!  They really did look fantastic.  Ruben wanted to color his in, so we got out some watercolors, and he set to work.

After he painted it, he drew some thorns and a cape on it, but eventually he cut it out without these additions.  It is now on the wall by his bed, and I'm looking around the house and thinking about what else I can photocopy for them.

It might be fun to copy some other toys, or to do these soft toys again enlarged at 200%.  We haven't even started copying hands and feet and faces, but I have a feeling that soon we will have a LOT of fun doing that!

More Fun with Superhero Paperdolls

Do you remember this post from a long time ago?  It turned out that it was just the beginning of our continuing adventures in paper hero-making...

We keep coming back to this project over and over.  The kids do love to play with these figures.  Since they are all laminated, they have withstood quite a lot of heroic crime-fighting action.  And, as we all enjoy making them, we now have quite a collection!

Here are a few (easy to make) special add-ons and accessories that have made our characters even MORE fun to play with:

As you can see, the boys have learned to draw some of their own, relying on me for just a little help with cardboard cutting and laminating, and that has made some of our characters even more weird and wonderful.  They have fantastic names, too, like: Dr. Eye-Distance, Star Chest, Thumper, Glow, and Captain Red-Flash Thunder-Side.

These two were added last weekend:

                                                                                   "Glow" by Diego, and "Robot" by Ruben

You can go back to the original post here, for the basic instructions and a printable template.  If you do make your own, please link to your pictures in the comments.  I'd love to see them!

Wooden Robot

Ruben and I made this lovely toy robot last week:

After building some robots out of blocks, and then taking them apart to move them a few times, Ruben asked if I could help him glue the blocks together.  He had some specific ideas about how he wanted them stuck together, pointing to each joint and telling me, "Hot glue here and here and hinge this so it swings like this and hinge this so it bends like that..."

I love it when we make toys together.  While he drew on the face and body, I figured out how to make the joints that he wanted.  I drilled some holes and threaded elastic through them. 

This would probably be a lot prettier if I had attached the elastic to some buttons or something like that, but we were on a roll and wanted to play with it as soon as possible.  I tied some sloppy knots, and it worked just fine.

I got the idea to wood burn Ruben's drawings onto the blocks from this post on Made by Joel, and I think that this is the best part of all.  It was so easy, too; he drew on the blocks with a pencil, and I carefully traced his lines with the wood-burner.  (If you have a chance to do this with a child's drawings or handwriting, please do it!  It looks so good, and I'm sure it will age beautifully.)

Ruben and I are both so proud of this spontaneous project!

Paper Heart Valentine with Pencil Arrow

Here is a quick and easy Valentine that is fun for kids to make and give out at school:

1. Cut red card stock or construction paper into strips.  (This one is 1" x 11".) 

2. Fold each strip in half and staple it right next to the fold.  Bend the ends back until they touch and staple them together to make the bottom point of the heart. 

3. Use a standard hole punch to make holes on each side of the heart for the pencil. 

4. Thread the pencil carefully through the heart and your note.  It should be a little tight, so take care not to tear it. 

5. Add an eraser tip, tape on a paper fringe for the arrow, and you're done.


We are going to make A LOT of them!

Fortunately, Julio is very interested in stapling and hole-punching these days.  Did you see his hand in the top picture?  He really was my photo assistant this time!

Here are some other Brooding Hen Valentine posts that you might like:
Kissing Thaumatrope
Tiny Bow and Arrow (This project wasn't originally for Valentine's Day, but I see that people are using it for little Cupid's arrows.)


Tips and Tricks:

1. You can make this a lot simpler by writing your note or name directly on the heart before stapling it, and by just sharpening the pencil so that you don't need to add an eraser tip or fringe. 

2. You can make them even splashier by using a shiny pencil, a ribbon for the note, a heart-shaped eraser tip, or adding feathers or other decorations as the fringe.

A Gift from Ruben

Holiday decorating is in full swing at our house.  We will get our tree tomorrow, but the halls around here are already decked with many quirky decorations.  Last week, Ruben made this posable paper Santa toy for our front door, and today he asked me to share it with you.  If you want to make your own, you can print this on heavy paper, punch holes in the arms, legs and body, and use wire brads to put it all together.

Ruben's fondness for Santa runs deep.  He pulled out his old hat and pipe cleaner beard again, and I can easily imagine him dressing up like Santa every year from now until his real beard is long and white.