I Made It Second, Homemade Toy Update

I've had several homemade toys/gifts on my pinterest boards for a while, and while hibernating from the wind and chills outside I finally got some finished.  Here are some photos and links for directions for my latest projects:

When we drew our nephew's name for a Christmas exchange, I knew I wanted to include some roads for him to play with.  I've saved jean fabric for years, and these were simple to make by cutting into intersections and curves, sealing with fray check, and then painting yellow lines on.  I first found this idea at Lil Mop Top, here.

I finally got to give away another spinny speller, as Maci turned four.  I still love this one I made Theo last year.  I think at four most kids already know their letters, and are pretty fascinated by their own names, so it can serve as a nice decoration with their name displayed.  And as they get older they can start playing with it more as they are sounding out words.  In case anyone has a Maci in their life, the letter combinations I decided on are:
First cube:  M, P, R, T
Second cube:  A, I, O, U
Third cube:  C, L, N, S
Fourth cube:  E, I, K, T
I found at least 65 common words from these letters (and several uncommon words as well).

For another niece's first birthday, I finally got to use the bottles I've been saving for years to make her some fun discovery bottles (milk bottles from Wendy's work great for this).  I loved these I found at the Imagination Tree here, and was able to make them easily using materials already in my craft room.

Finally, Theo saw this on my pinterest board around Christmas and has been asking me for it ever since.  Last year he helped his dad construct a tool box, and a couple months ago I noticed him sticking all his tools inside the waist band of his pants and knew it was time to make this.  Another great link I found from one of my favorite blogs, Make It and Love It, here.  He's getting it for a birthday gift, and at five he still very much plans to be a builder when he grows up.  He got an early sneak peek of it so I could see if it worked on him.  He thought it would be bigger, but that it was awesome.

Cool Homemade Toys: Spinny Speller

I decided that Theo was finally ready for a Spinny Speller this year for his birthday.  I pinned this ages ago, but was waiting to make it until he was starting to put sounds together when playing with words and letters.  My version of this Spinny Speller is based on a tutorial here.  

I changed mine up a bit, using craft paint rather than crayons, and different letter combinations.  I planned this around the fact that I wanted Theodore to be able to spell out his nickname, but also make as many words as possible.  This limited a lot of the choices I had in what letters to use, but the combination that I picked makes at least 40 words.  A few words that were new to us, but lots of common ones as well.  My husband did offer to write a script to help me in finding these, but I just used a lot of logic, a lot of scrabble dictionaries, and I did indeed list out all 256 options possible with the final letter choices to check all the combinations.  And there's only one that is a mildly offensive word.

You can guess that the math teacher in me will come out again in a few years and use this as we're discussing combinations and permutations.

In case your child has the same name and you'd like to know my letter choices, they are:
First Letter:  B, C, S, T
Second Letter:  E, H, K, R
Third Letter:  A, E, I, O
Fourth Letter:  M, O, P, W

*I wanted a keepsake speller with his name.  If I was doing this just to work on phonics, I would probably just use labels and duplos like these awesome ones here.*

Recycled/Reused Toys for a One Year Old

I really don't know why we buy toys for our boys at all.  Our kids would be fine with sticks, cardboard boxes, blankets, silverware, measuring cups and all of our recyclables.  They are both explorers, and seem to have long attention spans with each toy they explore.  But we do buy them.  And I LOVE toys, especially those for very young children.

Lately, Eli has been having too much fun getting into the two cabinets that are not locked in the kitchen, and pulling books off the bookshelves in the living room.  So, I finally put together some more busy bag type activities for him to keep him out of my stuff.  Almost all of these activities/toys were made from stuff already around the house.

Pipe Cleaner Poke:  Simply putting some pipe cleaners into a clean Parmesan cheese container creates a fun toy.  Big brother took his turn enjoying it too.

Fabric Pull:  Some squares into a wipes container saved us from having to hide the real wipes container all the time.

Cupcake Sorter.  I've been keeping the cardboard tubes from toilet paper and paper towel for weeks now, but don't really have anything to do with them.  This was my first use.  This one and the last idea came from here.

Lid Drops:  A while back I went ahead and put a hole in a milk jug so he could use it to drop lids into.  Recently I made this one from a cocoa container.  This quick and easy one was a quick favorite with him.  While designed as another place to deposit lids and caps, he quickly decided it was better as a bowl when he put his spoon inside to stir.  Additionally, he has fun taking the lid on and off, as well as shaking it too.  Another great idea from here.

 Puff Push:  I had done this back in the day for Theo, and Eli has taken to it.  He's really good with it.

 Shaker Bottles:  I've also found a lot of these ideas on pintrest.  Just filling a bottle with something interesting to see/hear has provided Eli with a lot of entertainment.  This is one I now throw in the car for carseat entertainment.  The one filled with beads (left overs from an algebra film canister activity ages ago) was originally his favorite, but after a while he has really started liking watching the glitter swirl inside the second one.

 Can you tell he's enjoying them?

The Boys' New Room

It only took about a year before Eli got to have his name up on his bedroom wall.  The perils of being a second-born.  While I like the playroom, I really love the boys bedroom.  What started out as an ocean-themed nursery is now a bright and happy space for both my pre-schooler and my baby to read, listen to music, dress, and sleep in.  I have kept the blue and green color theme, and added red accents as well. 

Like our toy room, most of the furniture is from Ikea and have been re-purposed.  The billy bookcases were originally white in my first studio apartment, and were painted a few years ago for our first nursery.  The crib, shelf, and most of the frames are from Ikea as well.  I had to add the curtains and found those at the Land of Nod.  After the first few months of changing Eli, I pretty much stopped using the changing table so it is no longer in here and is being used as extra storage in our bathroom.  I found all the blue and green baskets years ago at Babies 'R Us.  The fish light was a great shower gift that we still use every night as a night light.

My favorite details include:
-This gallery wall that I threw together using extra frames and a mirror we've collected.  I love the Indiana print, with the heart over our hometown (where all their grandparents and many other family still live).

-This print from "Where the Wild Things Are"

-All the board books at ground level so Eli can get to them (and he leaves the more fragile books alone)

-Our "calendar" of prints.  When I realized we had twelve of these frames (they used to contain scenic photos of our favorite places), I thought I would find a photo that had both boys from each month of they year.  It is cute to see them grow through the pictures, and we can talk about the different months, holidays, seasons, and birthdays with a visual in mind for the boys.

-Theo's duvet cover and bed skirt that were on clearance and matched almost perfectly

I tried hard to limit the toys in here.  All of Eli's fill and spill toys are here, as well as the firetrucks, block-trains, and a basket of baby toys.  The night stand is actually filled with all of our puppets and puzzles.

And the large closet has room for all of the boys current/past/future clothes and all their blankets.  Which is great.

Welcome to our new playroom.

Though it's nothing too fancy, we are pretty excited about our new playroom.  We didn't have any room in our last apartment for a designated play space, so having this area in the basement is really awesome.  We used most of what we already had, added some baskets and a table from Ikea, and an art rail that Brian made for us.  We put up the nerdy alphabet cards we had, labeled the toy bins for organization, and decided to make seating areas using small chairs, cushions and pillows. 

 

This is definitely a boy space, and gets a lot of use.  And is not normally this put together.  But while Theo was off at preschool I could get a few photos of it out of use for once.

Pretty much everything in here used to have another life.  I have issues with getting rid of anything so I am very good at the third "R" reusing.

Below is a storage unit for Ikea that everyone seems to have, and for good reason. It is awesome.  We originally used this in our bedroom to hold Eli's baby things when he was first born.  It was used vertically then in a small corner spot.

I created quick labels to help us with the daily picking-up that goes on in here. They are:  dress-up, busy bags, food, cars, farm and animals, Thomas trains, bits and bobs (manipulatives) and messy toys (bubbles, chalk, etc).  I just took pictures of objects for each bin, added text to the photos and made prints.  Then I ran them through my laminater, and placed Velcro on the bins and photos to keep them on.  Eli likes to pull them off, but they have held up well so far.

 Working around the room next are the big bins we used to use for recycling, which hold all of the duplos and also the big electric train that Theo has.  I threw a big red pillow from my first apartment, and some old chair cushions we used to use down here fore some seating.

Even though Theo has pretty much mastered letter identification (other than W-which can be U or M on any given day) we went ahead and put these up on the wall to add some color.  Being a math teacher married to a scientist, I just couldn't resist how cute these nerd flash cards are.   We also have the number cards too.

 We used to have this chair in our bedroom, but moved it down here to be my seat for reading in the play area.  It was another cheap Ikea find.  And the green wooden board on the wall was hand-painted by Brian to be used as a road with playing with the cars or trains or a background for the farm set. 

We have had this chalkboard long before the recent pinterest-inspired popularity.  It used to be the top of a temporary table Brian built, which he painted with chalkboard paint.  And the small white table with an extra chair was our main addition to this room when we moved in.

My husband also created the art rail for us.  He simply got a piece of trim, painted clothespins (these are actually in the boys room colors, in case we ever relocate it) and attached them before attaching the whole things to the wall.  Theo is very proud to hang things here now (including the moon from his first day of pre-school).

It's not the most fantastic room, but I love how it was done cheaply, keeps everything organized and how how much the boys truly enjoy playing here.

Easy Activities to Keep a Two Year Old Busy

Pentominoes:  He likes to just play with the pieces right now.  I have pattern cards he can use with them when he gets older.

Painting:  They painted  A LOT at day care.  I finally let T. break out some paint at home.  I asked if he wanted to use his fingers (it was finger paint) or a brush, and thankfully he chose a brush.  I hate when his hands are dirty.  When dada came home, the painting was dry, so we showed it to him and T. promptly put it on the fridge.  He understands that's where all his artwork goes.

Blocks:  T.'s grandparents have gotten him a couple sets of duplos over the holidays.  One is a zoo set-he absolutely loves the giraffe, tiger, and elephant in the set and is constantly playing with them.  Today he made some different designs, that did not include any animals (though that is the zoo keeper on top).  His second set is one with the numbers 1-10.  He works on these on a daily basis.

Play-doh:  We finally picked some up recently, and Theo has been having a lot of fun with it.  I pulled down some small cookie cutters to use with them, and he is getting pretty good at them.



Connectors:  These were the best kids meal toy ever.  I think we got them from Wendy's a while back.  They simply connect to one another, and T. makes all sorts of shapes out of them. 

Counting Bears:  T. uses these in a lot of different ways.  Obviously, he can sort them by color, and practicing counting to ten with each color.  When he pulled them out today he lined the cups up, and then started lining up all the bears.

Puzzles:  These wooden puzzles are great.  There are five boards in the set, with double sides.  T. likes to go through and do the firetruck, train, and car ones first.