Crafty – Ahoy Pirates ! (cardboxing a pirate ship)

The last months were all about HarrHarr! – Pirates!
For Tornados Birthday, I prepared a treasure hunt, we then went to SeaWorld on the following weekend (pirate show) and by Halloween, first at kindy and then at a neighbour’s party, we knew our dressup/moustache routine. We played A LOT of pirate games with the Lego and the Fisherprice men too, but we only had small or makeshift boats (shoe boxes) ..
Then I started a project and it did not look too bad – but I could not find anything for a stable big mast! This weekend I finally dug out a tube from a (broken) play tent. I think the red sails are a good effect.
Obviously, it’s not a very true reconstruction (oh, Fisherprice has a really awesome set)  but I am very glad to say that Tornado was, again, very happy  with our homemade and recycled cardboard version, especially, because I tried to satisfy his wishes for certain features, like the outlook on top of the mast, an anchor on a string and, a trapdoor for the “cabin part”.

"Who you gonna call..? – Ghostbusters! (Cheap as Craft)

When Tornado was 3, my husband’s teenage kids were babysitting him one afternoon, and to pass the time, they decided to watch a DVD – and chose “Ghostbusters”. Now, in the rather wide range of movies of Awesome’s collection, this was probably a wise choice in their eyes (it’s rated PG, I just checked) and I remember loving that movie when it first came out (and I was their age) but I would have known that it was WAY to scary for my boy!  At the time, he would run out of the room at the ‘scary scene’ in “Cars” when Mater takes Lightening McQueen out at night to scare the Tractor-cows – before the big Monster-mower even appears! Even today, at almost 5 and very keen on watching all kind of ‘scary’ animation (Ben10, Dragon Booster and the like), Tornado is still pretty sensitive when it comes to ‘real scary’ (+music+darkness) on the screen. And while special effects have come a long way since 1984, for him, it would have been ‘real horror’ actually.

In any case, although he never saw the movie to the end (my stepkids would have realized their mistake after the first scenes..), I heard about it for weeks. There wasn’t a real increase of nightmares, but he certainly was impressed and we talked about it A LOT. We still talk about it, and he still doesn’t want to see it (yet) but we have seen the animated series ‘The Real Ghostbusters’ at some point. Far less scary. (But why is Egon now blond??)
There are complete episodes on youtube, for aficionados.

So for some reason, this week he wanted to ‘play Ghostbusters’, so I printed out a few stickers for his shirt (and mine) and made him a very simple but very efficient “Proton Gun” that I connected to his little backpack with a rest of cable-tidy tube from Ikea.

A teddy became a ghost with an old sheet and we had lots of fun!.. and playfully tackled, any eventual residual fears that he might still have about ghosts (we know they’re just ‘pretend’ but still..) especially with all that talk about funerals and mummies lately.

And of course, more stickers had to be printed to transform some Lego guys for further play:   

On a sidenote : We also had a look at the music video, it’s delightfully 80s and Chevy Chase (who played the repairman in the recent “Hot Tub Time Machine” which was so much better than I had suspected) doing this trick with a cigarette – unthinkable today, almost criminal some would say, as it would have inspired many young boys to learn the same thing (and smoke).
My husband can still do it.

More ‘Cheap as Craft’ : “Cardboard City“

Cheap As Craft – Bow & Arrow

Today, my husband emptied out a sports bag and we recovered two perfectly new shoe laces. Perfect on the day where I had promised Tornado to built him bow and arrow without really knowing what I would use. While he was cutting out the feathers for his headband I worked on his latest weapon :

The idea was of course to spend zero money but still fabricate a reasonably functional, stable toy for him – without danger of injury for either himself or the other inhabitants of the house….

I used a peg from the irrigation system that Dogthing is systematically unearthing and forever chewing on. The plastic has just the right flexibility.
The arrow is fully out of cardboard with stabilising, rolled cardboard inside and relatively heavy. The tension of the shoelace looks strong but allows only for minimal propulsion really. After a little bit of training, the arrow flew far enough to make one little indian VERY happy! 

Cheap as craft – Cardboard City

When I was little, I had a dollhouse. It was an old, rather simple model, more like a transformed bookshelf with a hint of a roof, but my dad repainted it and my mum put new carpets and curtains in, and I had it for years.  I am hoping some girl still plays with it today, my family’s wanderlust had my mother give it away before she could pass it back to me for my own children, but I am sure the house got a new home.

Now I have a boy, and this boy – as explained in a former post – has a big passion for all kinds of little men in uniform, Police, Firemen etc. Now the series Imaginext from FisherPrice offers only limited housing for the different sets we have. We do have the big fire station, but I have never once seen the Police Station found on the internet. And I am a bit on a tight budget, so one day, when my son said “I really need a jail !!” I just made him this:

I know! It’s rather simple. It’s not rally all that awesome. I used a cardboard box I had just brought home from the shops and only material I had at hand. The bars at the window are toothpicks…But for my boy not only it was a lot of fun to assist me building it, he is playing with it ever since .

I was so pleased with his joy about the jailhouse that I gave into his request to make him more buildings and have since then worked on a whole city (my favourite is the church, actually it even has a bell with a string in it now!)

It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s cheap – anybody can do it.

What’s the last thing you have done from scratch for your kids ?

Cheap as craft : The fridge magnet

Oh, I know. “Craft” you share online is generally those gorgeous handmade dolls in patchwork clothing or the weird but charming knitted monsters.. Pretty, but yeah, not me really.

I still do ‘stuff’ with and for my boy, sometimes spontaneously and i actually LIKE it best when it doesn’t cost us a penny. Budget craft.

Today I drew a smiley on a very evenly shaped stone my boy had found in the garden.
I stood in the kitchen and saw an old magnet on the fridge that had lost whatever decoration was once stuck on it. A few drops of superglue later :

I don’t know if you can buy “empty” magnets. For more rocks.. or other things that would look cool on a fridge. I am thinking of shells or pieces of wood… Hm..