New Toy Box!

We live in a one bedroom apartment, so in the front 'area' is the family room, dining room, by daughter's bedroom (aka her crib), the office, and the playroom. It's really not as crowded as it sounds, we love it here. I have noticed though that in the corner where my daughter's toys are kept is one continual mess. She and I both like to collect things. Instead of buying totally new toys every time she gets bored with what she has I like to improvise and give her things that interest her, like old tins and yogurt containers that she can practice relidding. She in turn loves to snag a box as soon as she sees us set it down, and therefore had quite a few old torn up cardboard boxes full of her toys. Consequently that whole corner of the room was full of old boxes and little old containers... haha, that sounds bad, she has a lot of nice toys too!

Anyway, I decided that I wanted a toy chest. So while out on the grand sale day they had at Michaels a while back I searched for a little unpainted one I could purchase. Unfortunately the only toy chest they had was a little over our budget, even with my 50% off coupon, so I settled for this little wooden crate. $5.00 with the coupon! Booya!

I brought it home and used some of my fun fabric I got for Christmas to make a liner for it. I had just enough elastic left over from the plastic bag holder.

Then I painted up the front and labeled it just in case the contents of the crate wasn't enough.

Our play corner is a lot happier now.



This makes me wonder, how do you handle the "I'm bored with all my toys" dilemma? I've tried several techniques. I think what works best right now is that I only set out about 1/3 of my daughter's toys at a time, the rest reside in the closet. I can round them out every other month and she gets to rediscover what she already has. It also helps to prevent overwhelming her with too many choices.

I'd love to hear what you've come up with!

~~~~

On another happy note I finished up a custom order just recently that included a two inch pirate. At first I was daunted because I had no idea how to fit the figure of a pirate in a two inch form. After a little doodling and searching through my fabrics I made this little guy up.

I don't know what it is about him, but he makes me happy too.

Arrr Matey!

He sails on the high seas, through the storm, and onto the couch. The perfect adventuring pal for a little friend. At least that's what he told me. I feel like I've made so many dolls for little girls, I'd like to try a little more for the boy theme as well. And lets face it, pirates and treasure are just so captivating.

This post is linked up here:

http://thehillsarelivin.blogspot.com/

Treasure Map

Ahoy there! And here lies a treasure map, fresh from the grasp of a pirate. I've been wanting to make one for a long time. I had some fun pirate material and thought that it would look great on the back of a map. After going to an expert on what one could find on a treasure map I settled on mountains, trees, swords, a ship, and of course a treasure!
The pictures were sewn in felt. Simple yet fun. I hope this works it's way into the hands of a little explorer.





This post is linked up to http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/
Happy Show and Tell Day!