Cardboard box projects

Would you believe we are still working on getting rid of leftover cardboard boxes from Christmas? We did a ton of online shopping, plus we had gifts shipped in from family and friends, and on top of that, our recycling pickup only happens every other week. Which all leads to a little bit of a backlog when it comes to getting rid of things. When people come over to the house, I try my very best to dissuade them from going upstairs to the office lest they get lost in a sea of boxes.

In the meantime, before they go, we have been trying to put our cardboard boxes to good use. I have to admit, I love cardboard box activities. The boxes are a cheap, easy-to-work-with, forgivable material, and when the enthusiasm for the new toy wanes, you can get rid of it, guilt-free (after all...it is trash, right?)

I thought I would link to a few cardboard box crafts, in case you, too, find yourself same predicament as us. All in all, we've probably tried a dozen or more box activities, but the ones below are our tried and tested favorites.

• A. can spend hours practicing writing skills in her salt writing tray, tracing the letters and shapes I draw for her and making up a few of her own. I like this rainbow-paper option just because it's cheerful. 

• One: cut a hole in the box. Two: put your kid in that box. Three: dump some paint in the box. And throw the box away when you're done for mess-free toddler painting. 

• Hanging different-textured fabrics from the roof of a box makes an engaging sensory play tunnel.  Bonus: it gives you something to do with those lonely socks that lose their mates on the journey from the hamper to the dryer. 

• A string of Christmas lights + a large box + something sharp to make small holes with = a homemade planetarium. We made one after our visit to the Children's Museum last week. It's already gone out to the trash (thanks to an enthusiastic jumping incident), but while it lasted, it was the bomb. 

• If you've got a large, flat box (like the one James's grill grate came in), why not make a small world play scene? So far we've turned ours into a village backdrop for A.'s trains and a ball pit. In between times, it goes under the couch until we figure out what to do with it next. 

And a couple for the big kids...

• Creating an imaginary land: like our play scene idea, only with the child's own imagination let loose. I can't wait until A. is old enough for this one. 

• These cardboard box looms look really fun. (I might make one for myself.) 

• A homemade reflector can give seedlings a boost until they're ready to go out into the garden. 

We still have a few more boxes upstairs, so...what do you do with your leftover cardboard boxes? (Besides recycle them, of course?) Do you have any fun crafts or activities to share?

Pumpkin Pie Playdough

We have a few pre-Thanksgiving playdates scheduled for this week, and so this weekend, Anne and I set to work making a little treat to take along to give to our friends when we see them. Pumpkin pie playdough! It made our house smell super-amazing.

I've been thinking of scented play dough for a while. I like the idea of making playdough into a full sensory experience (which is why in our house, you'll find jars of crazy-colored dough studded with all sorts of things: marbles, pine needles, pennies) Pumpkin pie-spiced playdough worked in another of those senses and seemed appropriately festive for the season.

There are several good pumpkin pie playdough recipes out there, but none of them seemed quite scented enough for our liking, so we made up our own, adapted from the basic playdough recipe at How Does She? (our favorite).

Pumpkin Pie Playdough (makes enough for two)

-2 cups flour
-2 cups water
-1/2 cup salt

-2 tablespoons olive oil (any oil can be used)
-4 teaspoons cream of tartar
-food coloring (any color you desire; we were going for verisimilitude, so we used red and yellow to make a doughy brown color)

The spice mix:

-2-3 tablespoons cinnamon
-1 tablespoon allspice
-2 teaspoons nutmeg
-1/2 teaspoon ginger

Or you can just go to town with a jar of pre-mixed pumpkin pie spice.

Mix all of the ingredients in a saucepan. Place over medium heat and stir until the dough forms into one big clump. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead until the dough is cool and stretchy. You can adjust the scent or color at this point by adding more spice or food coloring (just make sure you knead it some more to get everything incorporated).

I think my favorite thing about this recipe is breaking out the cookie cutters and having the cookie-making experience...without the extra calories (because you definitely don't want to eat this stuff, blecch). Frees up more space for all that (real, hopefully edible) pumpkin pie.



Do you have a favorite playdough recipe? Please share! We can't get enough of the stuff.

Ice Boats

Today it's wet outside, and also pretty hot, and we've already had one very public, very awful diaper blowout at the library about one minute after playgroup started that involved not only a diaper change but a change of clothes for me and Anouk both. So basically: today is turning out to be the kind of day where you just cut your losses and retreat home and haul a bucket of water out onto the deck and break out the tray of ice boats you've been saving for a day just like this one.

Ice boats are such a simple yet genius idea that I am almost tempted to try and take credit for them, but alas, I cannot tell a lie, I learned about them from Under the Pecan Tree. Here is how it goes: fill an ice tray with water. Then fill the water-filled tray with small plastic toys. Freeze so that the toys are encased in ice like Han Solo in carbonite. I can't even believe I bothered to type that out, that's how easy it is.

But it was also a big hit, and though we are wetter overall, we're less sweaty, Baby A. got in some fun sensory play, and Mama got to sit and put her feet up for a bit. Maybe today is turning itself around, after all?