Toy Tuesday- Felt Board

      Recently, my father and I painted Sugar Bear's room and it got me thinking about putting up a chalk board for her.  As I thought about what that would involve I remembered I had an old felt board made from the time I was student teaching.  I thought that would be great for her room!!!  Once I decided on the felt board I began thinking about making new pieces for the board.  I wanted to make pieces she would like to play with and won't cost me an arm and a leg.  I looked around my house and found some iron-on transfer paper that I was going to use to make some t-shirts and I thought why not try to make my own pieces. 

     What I found by doing this process is that finding the images to use was the hardest part.  The pictures may look good when you save them but they don't always look good when you make them bigger.  After some searching I found my first set of pictures...Disney princesses.  Sugar Bear loves her princesses.  So, I printed the pictures onto the transfer paper and began the process of ironing them on (followed the instructions that came with the iron-ons).  The first batch of felt pieces was made on single sheet felt that you get from Michaels.  I really had no issues with the felt itself because the paper was the same size as the felt.  What I did notice if I didn't leave the iron on a picture long enough the picture had some cracks in it.  If you look at Cinderella you will see what I mean.  Belle came out great!!

     My next to sets I used a yard size piece of felt that you find at Michaels.  I found when your iron moved off the paper and touched the felt, the felt melted and stuck to the iron.  Once I figured that out I was really careful to stay on the paper.  Also, when positioning your pictures on the paper make sure you leave a gap between the edge of the paper and the picture.  The pictures that where to close to the edge did not transfer well.  The edges near the side of the paper did not stick no matter how long I left the iron on them.

    

My Little Pony

Phineas and Ferb (minus Ferb see placing picture to close to the edge)

     For now the felt board lives in Sugar Bear's work space and the pieces have a nice drawer to live in until I make a bigger board or hang the old one.

Tot School/ Toy Tuesday- Nesting Sort and Stack Cubes

     Look what we got today in the mail!!!  How lucky because today is Toy Tuesday!!!  I plan to put this nice Nesting Sort and Stack Cubes on Little Man's shelf this week.  The nice UPS man delivered this little package about 30 minutes before we headed out to dance class.  So I don't have any action shots yet but both of them had a great time exploring them.  Here are some cool things you can do with them.

Stack inside by color.

Stack on top of each other by color.

Combine the different colors.

Here you can see that the cubes are different in height.

     I'm super excited to see Little Man work with it by himself.  Sugar Bear kept taking his pieces from him.  This toy will really help with his hand eye coordination.  The cubes won't go in if you don't line them up right.  I also saw this same toy but using cylinders.  That is next months buy:)  If you are wondering I got them from Amazon.com.  So far I love this toy.



Toy Tuesday- Crochet Dolls

This week we have been staying at my parents house while my carpets dry from their cleaning so the Toy Tuesday will feature a toy from my parents house.  My mother crocheted a doll and a little blue monster for the kids.  Since she just finished them I'm not sure how the kids feel about it.   

Toy Tuesday

I know this is a day late but Tuesdays are a very busy day in our house hold.  Sugar Bear (DD) has Dance and usually Gymnastics but not this week.  This week I focused on what every household has that has kids...PlayDoh.  I have tubs and tubs of PlayDoh and Sugar Bear loves to play with it but here is my problem Little Man is only 15 months old and he puts it in his mouth.  Like every mom you worry is it safe for him to do that?  Even if the package says non-toxic you still worry so I went online looking for homemade playdoh.  I have tried some recipes before but was not really impressed with them until I found this recipe.  It was easy to make and took about 15 minutes to make.

Here is the recipe:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp cream of tarter
1 tbsp oil (cooking oil like olive oil)
1 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients together then add and mix in the wet ingredients.
Using a medium size pot place the mixture on the stove over medium-low heat.
Stir the mixture every once in a while to help form it into a ball.
You know it is done when the mixture no longer looks wet.  It will look like playdough.
Remove from pot and knead the playdough on the counter until it is all smooth.
Add the food coloring once the playdough is COOL.

This recipe makes me feel better if Little Man puts it in his mouth because I know all the ingredients are edible and safe.

Here is the finished product!!!

I divided the playdough into three different balls to go along with our 4th of July monthly theme.  I just added red and blue food coloring to make the red and blue colored playdough.

Sugar Bear loved mixing the three colors together.

Eagle

Star

Toy Tuesday

Since my children have a ton of toys, I thought I would share which toys they love to play with and which they don't like.  Hopefully, I can keep up with posting every Tuesday with different toys we have.  For my first post I will start with my DS's (dear son) favorite toy.

The Walk N Roll push toy from Plan Toys

My son loves this toy.  He has been pushing/ pulling it around the house for a few months now.  The toy says for 19+months but its perfect for children who can walk (my DS is now 15 months old).  *Warning:  there are small balls located inside the cylinder.  The balls could be a choking hazard. 

What I like about this toy:

I like this toy better than the Popcorn popper toy because its made out of wood.  I have been trying to limit the amount of plastic toys in my house so when I saw this toy I got really excited about it since it was wooden and a lot like the popular Popcorn popper toy.

Another thing I like about this toy is unlike the popcorn popper toy there is no spring that makes the toy 'Pop."  If you have ever seen the popcorn popper you know there is a spring and if that spring breaks or gets stuck then the toy will not pop.  The Walk N Roll doesn't have a spring in it, instead the balls are free to roll around inside and bang up against the wooden parts to make its noise. 

What I dislike about this toy:

The only thing I don't like about it is that it is really loud.    

Cost:

According to Amazon the Walk N Roll by Plan Toys retails for $35.99 compared to the Fisher-Price Corn Popper which retails for $15.99 (I've seen them cheaper). 

Is it worth it:

All in all I love this toy.  My children love playing with this toy.  To me its worth the money.  We have a Fisher-Price Corn popper and it collects dust at my house.  The Walk N Roll is played with almost everyday.  Its as loud now as it was when they got it for Christmas. 



                                        Here is a video of my DS playing with the Walk N Roll.