DIY Rainbow Fish Costume

If your child is in primary school {elementary school} then chances are they've read, or been read, The Rainbow Fish in class at least once. It's a staple picture book, popular around the world, so it didn't surprise me when my daughter wanted to dress up as The Rainbow Fish for book week.

As usual I created our own DIY Rainbow Fish costume and I've written all the instructions down so you can make it for your child too as a dress up costume, for book week, or even Halloween.

22 Epic DIY Outdoor Sensory Play Equipment Ideas

Create a magical outdoor play space that fosters creativity and imaginary play with these fun DIY outdoor play equipment ideas you can make on a budget. These outdoor play ideas will allow your children to connect with nature and explore sensory play while enhancing their physical, emotional and cognitive development. 

DIY Father's Day Gifts Kids Can Make

Looking for creative and heartfelt Father’s Day gifts that kids can make at home or in school? Whether you're a class teacher or parent, check out these 14 handmade Father's Day gift ideas that kids can make. They include personalised picture frames, custom mugs, golf balls, keyrings and more, each gift is a unique way for kids to show Dad some love.

Pair one of these handmade Father's Day gifts with a DIY Father's Day card and/or our free printable Father's Day questionnaire to make Father's Day really special for Dad.

Sensory Play Ideas for Babies & Infants 6 Months+

By 6 months old, babies are learning and developing new skills at a more rapid rate than before and can interact with the world around them a lot more. They become more mobile as they learn to sit, crawl and eventually walk and they can properly grasp, hold and move objects around. Babies also typically start solids around 6 months which opens up a world of opportunities with taste safe sensory play that didn't exist previously.

All of these factors mean babies over 6 months can explore using their senses through play in even more ways. Below is a list of sensory play ideas for babies from 6-12 months old including ideas to delight their senses incorporating sight, sound, touch and taste.

33 Christmas Toilet Paper Roll Crafts for Kids

We love using toilet paper rolls for lots of different crafts at our place, there's literally hundreds of different crafts, games and DIY toys that can be made from toilet paper rolls. We've used them for Halloween toilet paper roll crafts so it makes sense to put together a list of Christmas toilet paper roll crafts as well.

These Christmas cardboard tube crafts can easily be done by preschoolers or school children as a classroom art project. Make these cute gingerbread men, elves, Christmas trees, reindeer, Christmas decorations and of course Santa himself. Use them to decorate the classroom or your home for Christmas or in small world play.

DIY Zack Zombie Minecraft Costume

If your kids are into the Diary of a Minecraft Zombie books as much as mine, chances are they'll want to dress up as Zack Zombie for Halloween, or book week. We made our own DIY Zack Zombie costume for less than $10 and I've written up all the steps to make it super easy for you to make your own too.

DIY Sky Dragon Costume

If your kids are big fans of the Sky Dragon series of books by Anh Do , they can bring their favourite character to life for book week, world book day or Halloween with this one of a kind Sky Dragon costume. This DIY costume is budget friendly and easy to make yourself. Follow our steps below to make your own DIY Sky Dragon costume.

38 DIY Advent Calendar Ideas for Kids

As a child the magic of Christmas isn't just about Christmas Day itself, there's also so much joy and excitement throughout December knowing Christmas Day is getting closer and closer. One of the easiest ways to build that excitement is with an advent calendar. You don't have to automatically go out and buy a chocolate filled one from the store though, there are plenty of ways to get creative and make your own unique DIY Advent Calendar that's special to your family.

I've searched the web and put together a list of 38 different DIY Advent Calendars the kids will love. There's so many different types of DIY advent calendars including tree shaped countdowns, Christmas villages, book advent calendars and printable Christmas countdowns. You don't have to be super crafty to make them either, as long as you can follow directions and know your way around scissors and glue you're set.

DIY Egg Carton Carrot Patch Letter Matching Game

When my daughter first started school she knew a lot of the alphabet already, but was having difficulty distinguishing between some uppercase and lowercase letters. To help her learn the last few letters I decided to make a DIY letter game that we could play at home.

I wanted to design a game that was hands on and also a fun way to learn letters, so she wouldn't lose interest. It was close to Easter and we had lots of foam carrots from the dollar store, so I made a carrot patch letter matching game. You can recreate it for your own kids or students by following the steps below.

DIY Elf on the Shelf Swing

Do you have a little Elf friend who comes and visits your house each year around Christmas time? My girls love it when our elf, Elfie, comes to visit each year. She doesn't get up to too much mischief, but she does like to be a little bit funny, and she's known to use objects from around the house in her antics. One her most memorable tricks was when she made her own Elf on the shelf swing from an empty toilet paper roll.

The girls loved waking up in the morning to find her swinging from the roof and then another morning she was swinging from our fan watching TV! They thought it was hilarious that she'd used a toilet paper roll to make her own swing. If you think your elf might have fun swinging from the roof as well, Elfie has let me in on her design plans so your elf can make one too.

25 Halloween Toilet Paper Roll Crafts for Kids

When the kids want to do craft at the drop of a hat and I need a simple and quick solution, I grab some empty toilet paper rolls from our stash. They're free, readily available {without leaving the house} and there's so many different crafts you can make with them. Literally hundreds, and for any theme. Today I'm going to show you how to make 25 Halloween kids crafts using toilet paper rolls {or cardboard tubes if you don't want to use toilet paper rolls}.

These Halloween toilet paper roll crafts are all really simple and can easily be done by preschoolers or school children as a classroom art project. Make these cute ghosts, monsters, black cats, bats and even a haunted house. Use them to decorate the classroom for Halloween or take them home to use in Halloween small world play.

13 Easy Ways to Hack the Ikea Duktig Play Kitchen

The Ikea Duktig kitchen is the perfect play kitchen for so many families because of it's compact and minimalist design. It's a great space saving option, especially for families living in apartments and small homes. It's neutral Scandinavian design also makes it the perfect blank canvas for an awesome Ikea hack. You can literally transform it to match any style or decor, so it'll blend into your home or playroom seamlessly. 

The play kitchen was one of the first Ikea items we bought for the kids and it's hands down been our best Ikea purchase ever {and trust me, we've got a lot of Ikea products in our playroom}. Our kitchen has been going strong for 6 years now and both of our girls still play with it daily. It's one of our best open ended toys, sometimes it's a kitchen then other times it's a supermarket, bakery or coffee shop... the possibilities are really endless with a little imagination.

If the plain colours aren't to your taste though, don't worry, I'm going to show you 13 different ways you can transform the Ikea Duktig kitchen into the play kitchen of your, I mean your kids dreams. It doesn't matter if you're going for a retro, modern, farmhouse or vintage vibe, by doing some, or all, of these hacks you can turn the Ikea kitchen into the ultimate play kitchen for your space. You can even transform it into a mini replica of your actual kitchen.

DIY Playdough Stamps

Making DIY resources is a great way to get creative and the perfect use for that recycling stash we all have put away for a rainy day.  In this post I'll give you step by step instructions to create cheap and easy to make DIY playdough stampers your kids will love. An added bonus is they only take a few minutes to make.

I must confess I probably spend far too much time browsing toy shops on Instagram and online, so I spend quite a few hours window shopping and admiring lots of gorgeous toys and resources. I love all the fancy wooden playdough stampers that are available like these ones from The Creative Toy Shop, Let Them Play and the amazing designs available at Etsy. While I'm a huge fan of wooden toys, sometimes we just don't have the extra cash to splash around on new purchases, so when I work out a way to make essentially the same thing for much cheaper, I'm totally going to give it a go. The great thing is the kids didn't even know the difference and were just as happy with the DIY version.

How to make a DIY Recycled Bird Feeder

Want to attract more birds to your garden? Don't worry you don't need to go and buy a fancy bird house or bird bath, you can attract them with something as simple as a toilet paper roll or a milk bottle. You can make an easy DIY bird feeder from recyclables with an empty milk bottle and a few items from around the house by following the steps below.

We've been spending so much time at home lately and the girls have become really interested in the wildlife that visits our yard. They love watching the birds, bees, dragonflies, ladybirds and butterflies that visit our garden. A few weeks ago we made our own DIY butterfly feeder to attract more butterflies and they've been so excited checking it all the time, so we decided to make our own DIY bird feeder from things we had around the house too.

How to make a DIY Glitter Calm Down Sensory Bottle

Sensory play sometimes gets a bad wrap or people immediately close themselves off to the idea because they associate it with mess. Sensory play doesn't necessarily mean mess. Sensory bottles are a great way for kids to engage in sensory play without making any mess. I've made lots of sensory bottles with dry ingredients like rice, beans, pasta and couscous, however even I avoided making water based ones for years {because I was paranoid they would leak}. However, now that we've made one, I wish I had tried it years ago.

Water based sensory bottles are a great way for kids of all ages {and adults} to help deal with anxiety, feel less stressed and less overwhelmed. They're also great to use to calm down before bed and as a screen free quiet time activity. They also provide a great incentive for tummy time for babies and are great for eye tracking as they watch the movement inside the bottle.

How to make a DIY Butterfly Feeder

My girls are obsessed with butterflies, they get so excited when one comes into our yard. They much prefer butterfly watching to bird watching. Unfortunately we have quite a small backyard and no plants so most of the butterflies that come in our yard are simply passing through looking for flowers.

To try and encourage more butterflies into our yard and to get them to stay for longer I decided to make our own butterfly feeder. Butterflies are attracted to bright flowers and nectar so I did a bit of research and then came up with a simple butterfly feeder using items from around the house. Making the butterfly feeder with the girls was a fun activity within itself and since then it's provided hours of entertainment and excitement as they check it for butterflies.

45+ Easy Toilet Paper Roll DIY Games, Toys and Crafts for Kids

In my opinion the humble toilet paper roll is one of the most overlooked and underutilised craft resources available. Firstly they're free, and anything free is a good thing! They're readily available {well they're usually readily available to any household that has toilet paper}. You're helping the environment and reducing waste by reusing them. 

Also once your children lose interest in whatever craft or masterpiece you've made with them, they're recyclable. So they're a win for the hip pocket, the environment and one of the best boredom busters to entertain children at home, plus an added bonus is you don't need to be a crafty mum to use them. I've put together a list of over 45 games, crafts and toys you can make using toilet paper rolls.

I know some people may be a bit freaked out about using toilet paper rolls given they may contain germs because they've been near a toilet, however there are a few ways you can disinfect them. If you're concerned, they can be sprayed with disinfectant spray like Glen 20, or left out in the sun for a few hours, or you can use this technique by The Artisan Life. Alternatively you can also make everything below using paper towel rolls, empty wrapping paper rolls or empty cling wrap and baking paper rolls cut to size {or purchase craft cardboard tubes from Amazon here or here}.

5 minute Toilet Paper Roll Houses

Most people automatically put their empty toilet paper rolls in the bin {recycling bin hopefully}, however if you have small children you should stop this straight away. Toilet paper rolls are one of, if not the greatest, recyclable craft item ever... and the best thing is every home has an abundant supply of them. Another big bonus of toilet paper rolls is they're free and they can be used for so many different craft projects. Our latest creation has been toilet paper houses for our peg dolls.

* This post contains some affiliate links *

HOW TO MAKE TOILET PAPER HOUSES IN LESS THAN 5 MINUTES

** Please note this craft activity is intended to be done by children over 5yrs old who have developed scissor and writing skills {under adult supervision} or by adults themselves **

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

- Toilet Rolls 

- Egg carton

- Scissors

- Peg dolls

- Pen

The beauty of this craft activity is that all items needed can be found around the house for free. It also probably takes longer to gather all the supplies than it does to actually make the toilet paper roll houses. Fast, free and easy... yes please!

HOW TO CREATE TOILET PAPER ROLL HOUSES

1. Cut the egg carton base into individual pieces

2. Trim the edges to create little cap roofs

3. Measure the door on the toilet roll

4. Draw the door frame

5. Carefully cut out the door frame

6. Draw on window frames

7. Put egg carton lid roofs on top of toilet paper rolls

8. Decorate your houses {optional}

The first step you need to do is to cut out each of the egg holders in the egg carton into individual pieces by cutting in between each row and down the centre of the carton base. Once they're separated they'll have a square edge, trim the edges off so they have rounded edges and look like little round caps. 

Next take your peg doll, fairy, elf, gnome {whatever figurine you will be using with your houses} and hold it up against the toilet paper roll to measure the height and width needed for the door frame to allow them to fit inside. Draw a frame on with pen and then carefully cut it out with scissors. This can be a bit fiddly so is easier to do using small scissors. Once it's cut out your figurine should fit easily inside the door frame.

You can add character to your houses by drawing on different window designs {maybe take a bit more care than we did}. You could also cut these out, but that will require a stanley knife as it's too tricky with scissors. To finish off your toilet paper houses add the egg carton roof on top. The roof should fit on nice and snug, but still be easy to remove. 

As you can see from our photos I kept our designs really simple and haven't properly decorated them yet. I'm planning on painting each roof a colour of our peg dolls so that we can use the houses for colour sorting as well as imaginary play. I might also make some more and decorate them as toad stools or tree stump houses with paints and pen details. For now the girls are having lots of fun using the houses with our different felt play mats and if they get a little rough and accidentally destroy them, it'll be super easy to make some more.

Do you have fun using toilet paper rolls for craft?

You can find more toilet paper craft ideas on my pinterest board.

Toni x

Disclosure - This post contains some affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you, should you make a purchase. Our peg dolls and play mat are from My Big World Playscapes on Etsy.

How to Transform Shadow Boxes into Sonny Angel Houses {Kmart Hacks}

So you've started collecting Sonny Angels and now you need somewhere super cute to display them, but don't know where to start. Don't worry those of us who are thoroughly obsessed with Sonny's have worked it out for you. Kmart currently stock a heap of different shadow boxes which all provide the perfect storage solution for Sonny Angels. They're a bit plain to start with, but below are a number of ways to jazz them up to provide a cute and stylish storage option to fit any decor.

HOW TO TRANSFORM KMART SHADOW BOXES INTO SONNY ANGEL HOUSES

The house display shelf is the original shadow box that was available at Kmart and the one that really started the whole shadow box craze. It comes in a light wood with a fabric covered backing. It's not ideal for hacking as the fabric makes it harder to paint, but being the first one released it was the only choice at one stage. I've spray painted two of them gloss white. They do take a whole can of spray paint because the fabric soaks up a lot of the paint. The newer house shelf is easier to hack, but I prefer the shape of the original one as it has higher top shelves which are better for the taller sonny angels {rabbit, fawn, reindeer etc}.

Ruby Two Shoes {@RUBYTWOSHOES_} painted her shadow box white and added some extra flair with different coloured paper in each box. Its perfect for storing Sonny Angels and LaLaLoopsy dolls.

HOUSE SHADOW BOX

This is the newer version of the house shadow box and comes with different printed backing paper. You can keep this house as is, however the sonny angels show up better with plain backgrounds. Most of the hacks of these ones are simply spray painting the create a plain background, although some people have also removed the top t-bar to allow for more room at the top. 

TIP: If you're spray painting the backing board knock it off and spray the white back instead of spraying over the paper.

Jules {@tas_and_ellie} has transformed her shadow box with a coat of gold on the backing board. It looks super cute styled with the felt garland.

Mandy {My Lovely Little Nest} painted her entire shadow box yellow.

Junessa painted the back of her shadow box pale pink and also cut out the top t-bar section to make more room.

HEXAGON SHADOW BOX

One of the newer shadow boxes is the hexagon shadow box which is white with a neon pink background. The space between the shelves is a lot higher than in the house shadow boxes so it allows for taller sonny angels or can be used for other bigger toys. I have a hexagon shadow box but at the moment I've kept it as is and am storing other toys in it {mind you if my collection keeps growing I may have to convert it to a Sonny house too}.

Krystle has changed the backing to a lighter pink and styled her Sonny's with cute little ice creams and cakes.

Mandy {My Lovely Little Nest} has painted the inside edges of her hexagon shelf yellow and retouched the backing board to make it a lighter pale pink then finished it off with polka dot pink washi tape. As a washi tape addict myself I'm loving the edging.

Laura has gone all out with her shadow box hack transforming it into a vertical garden for her Sonny Angels. She's spray painted the whole box gold and added fake grass and gorgeous little heart pins. She took inspiration from all the vertical gardens being featured on The Block lately and it looks AMAZING.

KIDS HOUSE STORAGE BOXES

The newest addition to the Kmart shadow box range is the kids house storage boxes which come in a set of two with one large house box in aqua and a smaller house box with a shelf in bright yellow. I've just bought this set which I'm going to spray paint gold to store Sonny Angels in one and Schleich animals in the other. Of course I haven't finished mine in time for this post so here's some inspiration from others.

Amy {The Wild Collective} spray painted her smaller house shadow box copper and removed the backing board.

ORIGINAL HOUSE STORAGE BOXES

The original 2 pack of house storage boxes aren't as ideal as Sonny Angel houses because they're so tall, but they can still be used for them. They also make good storage for bigger toys and can be altered to match any decor.

Fee_loves_  painted her shadow boxes white on the inside and teal and lavender to match her daughters room. There's a few pictures of them on her Instagram feed styled in different ways.

Megan {@indieandsloan} has kept the shadow boxes as is and styled one in her sons room and one in her daughters room with their respective Sonny Angels.

That's a wrap for all the Kmart shadow boxes, however if you still want some more Sonny Angel house inspiration these are two examples of a shadow box from New Zealand store The Warehouse for you to lust over. I would love to get my hands on one of these!

Anna {@shoeless_kiwi} is the lucky owner of this gorgeous shadow box and Sonny Angel collection.

Nicky {@mamma_loves_2babes} also owns one of these gorgeous shadow boxes and I love how she's used the wooden block to display her Sonny Angels.


Shadow boxes can be transformed into all sorts of houses, not just for Sonny Angels. Find out the step by step processed I used to transform a shadow box into a fairy house here.

Toni x

Disclosure - All images used within this post were used with express permission from the original owner. This post contains some affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you, should you make a purchase.