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Tag Archives: homemade toys

Exploring Hook-and-Loop Fasteners

2 / 20 / 175 / 11 / 17

Exploring Velcro | Mama Papa Bubba

When Miss G was born full-term the day after my due date, making sure she met milestones reasonably ‘on time’ wasn’t something that was even on my radar… We simply trusted that she’d develop new skills as she was supposed to and celebrated them when they came along.  With Sam, our little preemie babe born 27 weeks into my pregnancy, it’s a different story… Thankfully he’s done remarkably well in his first year home from the NICU, but his development has been closely monitored every step of the way and I’m much more aware of what he’s supposed to be doing at each stage.  So when our baby boy developed a fascination with the hook-and-loop fasteners on Sister’s well-loved school sneakers, the first thing that popped into my mind?  ‘Ooooh – what awesome fine motor practice!’  Seriously, this is how my mama brain thinks now. {Also,  did you know that when we use the term “velcro”, we’re actually using a brand name to describe hook-and-loop-fasteners??  Me neither, but the team over at  VELCROⓇ Brand kindly let me know that it’s much like using the term “kleenex” to describe all tissues…  You learn something every day I guess!}

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DIY Sensory Blocks for Baby

11 / 13 / 161 / 6 / 17

Homemade Sensory Blocks for Baby | Mama Papa Bubba

Goodness…  I’m pretty sure I put making these simple little sensory blocks on my to do list about 3 months ago.  It’s ridiculous that it’s taken me this long to get to them given the fact that the entire project took about 10 minutes start to finish, but feel like that’s just my current state of life.  Non-priority tasks aren’t happening as quickly as I’d like them to, but it is what it is.  Either way, they’re made now, and I’m so happy with how they turned out!  Sam loves them too, which is exactly what I’d hoped for.  They’re sort of like a combination of a miniature sensory bottle {making them perfect for little hands} and these really fun little sensory blocks that I was highly considering buying online late one night {making them  perfect for stacking and crashing}.  They’re also part musical instrument, so multi-purpose indeed {hah – have I sold you on making a set for your bub yet??}

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Wooden Cherries for Pretend Play

10 / 15 / 1410 / 29 / 14

Wooden Cherries for Pretend Play | Mama Papa Bubba

You know those projects that seem to sit on your to do list for ages and ages without actually getting done?  That’s these cute little wooden cherries!  In fact, if I’m being completely truthful, they’re almost a year in the making… Oy.  

{click to read more…}

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Button-Up Foam Craft Sticks

5 / 12 / 1410 / 8 / 14
Button Up Foam Craft Sticks | Mama Papa Bubba{this post contains affiliate links}

I’ve had a package of large foam craft sticks for a long while now, but have never really figured out a fun way to put them to use.  Well, today as I was working on a project for CBC Parents, I realized that the cute flower-shaped buttons I was using coordinated perfectly with the colours of the foam sticks.  Having had a reusable countdown chain on my mind for quite a while now, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them.  

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DIY Ribbon Wands

11 / 27 / 1211 / 30 / 12

DIY Ribbon WandsMaking one of these sweet little ribbon wands for Miss G has long been on my project list, and since her last dance class took place today, it was the perfect motivation to not only make one for Grae, but to make one to gift to each of her little friends too. 

IMG 2879If you poke around the internet, you’ll find tons of different styles of ribbon wands and methods to make them, but when we stumbled upon these adhesive picture hanging strips (available at hardware stores), we came up with a way of our own.  

IMG 2878First off, we took  wide satin ribbon and cut it into strips approximately 125 centimetres long, cutting one end straight across and one end at an angle. Then, using a lighter, we sealed off the cut edges.

IMG 2880IMG 2881Next, we took the adhesive backing off of the picture hangers and firmly attached them to the straight end of the ribbon.  At this point I was going to sew the picture hanger onto the ribbon for added security, but the adhesive was so strong that it wasn’t necessary. 

IMG 2885With our ribbons ready, we moved onto the wand part of the project.  Using painter’s tape, we taped off our 6 inch dowels about a third of the way up.

IMG 2890Then using crafter’s acrylic in colours that coordinated with our ribbons, we painted the bottom third of each dowel with two coats of paint.

IMG 2892When the paint was good a dry, we carefully removed the painter’s tape to reveal the handle part of our wands.

IMG 2907IMG 2908Next, we used a tack to poke holes in the top ends of the dowels. 

IMG 2909Then it was time for these guys – small eye hooks available at all hardware stores.

IMG 2910We screwed the eye hooks into the recently made holes by starting the process by hand and using pliers part way through.  (One thing to be mindful of at this point is that if your eye hooks are on the larger side (like ours), you don’t want to force them down into the dowel too far.  You’ll get a pretty good sense on when you should stop twisting, and please do so.  Spoken from experience, if you force them down too much, the dowels will split open.)

IMG 2900Your wand should now look like this.  

IMG 2901IMG 2902Now the final step…  We hooked the metal picture hanging hook onto the eye hooks and use pliers to squeeze the hook shut tightly.

IMG 2904And there you have it – a pretty little ribbon wand.

IMG 2911IMG 2980In order to transport them to dance class without a big tangly mess happening, we simply wrapped the ribbons around the wands, and secured them with a bit of polka dotted washi tape.

 

♥

 
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Egg Carton Button Sorting

9 / 28 / 129 / 29 / 13

Egg Carton Button Sorting

Matching is HUGE in our house right now.  Coordinating is simply not good enough for Miss G anymore.  Everything. must. match.  To the point where she will pick a treat (organic fruit leather) with a blue package while grocery shopping because she is wearing blue pants, cutting her carrots requires an orange knife, and wearing white socks isn’t happening if there is no other white in the outfit.  So when I came across an empty egg carton during my usual nap time house cleaning, I decided to use it to put together a little matching game rather than recycling it.

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I had everything else I needed on hand…  Acrylic paints in primary colours, plus white and black, a paintbrush, an old rag, and some water.

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I simply painted each egg spot by swirling the paint up from the base to the top edge.

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I made sure to include the basic rainbow colours, plus black, white, and grey, and of course aqua because, well… it’s the best colour ever.

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Afterwards, I gave the inside of the lid a quick coat of white paint.

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Now if I’m being honest, Gracen awoke from her nap before the paint was fully dry and she was so excited to play her new game that we took it to the bathroom and used the blowdryer on it.

When it was fully dry, I poured a bunch of buttons in the lid, removed the clear ones, and asked, “Do you want to play?”

IMG 0048

With a prompt “Yes!” and zero direction, she got busy matching the buttons to the colours painted in the cups.

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Grae loves playing and the nice thing about this little game is that when she’s finished, she just closes it up and everything is contained and ready for next time.

♥

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DIY Velcro Building Sticks

9 / 9 / 126 / 11 / 14

IMG 9497

The three of us were sitting down together today and I yanked out these two supplies for a little activity I’ve had in mind for a long while now.

IMG 9498

I originally saw these velcro building sticks at Tot Treasures and loved the simplicity of them.

IMG 9500

With our sticky velcro dots attached to each side and firmly pressed down, we were ready to try them out.

IMG 9502

We begun attaching them to one another and quickly realized that they would be 10 times more fun with velcro dots on both sides of the sticks (more dots on our list for next shopping trip!), but Grae didn’t seem to mind.

IMG 9504

Her favourite? Making ‘snakes’ and ‘zigzags’.

♥

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