How to make a pinball machine from a cardboard box

If you haven't watched the story about Caine's Arcade, do it now!

After watching (and crying of course) I read a post about a boy named Ezra, who, inspired by Caine, created a cardboard pinball machine. 

So I was inspired to create my own.

Here's how I did it.

What you need:

- a box

- wooden tongue depressors or popsicle sticks

- tape

- various items for obstacles eg. toilet paper rolls, cottage cheese containers, cd's

- decorating items eg. stickers

Instructions:

1.  Take a cardboard box, cut off the front and tape up all the sides.

2.  Use a scissors or craft knife to cut holes in the sides for your levers.

(I mistakenly cut high at first, the ball just falls under the levers *duh) so cut them as low as possible)

3. Tape two sticks together to form the desired length for each lever. 

4.  Use toilet paper rolls to achieve the desired angle for the machine by taping/glueing them to the back of the box.

5.  Tape or glue a long paper towel tube for the ball dispensor

6.  Tape or glue obstacles



7.  Decorate and Enjoy playing !!!

Happy crafting everyone.

and if you have young children, be sure to check out my new website about Baby Signing. 

How to make a car from a toilet paper roll

This classy car for my wooden doll, was inspired by Mama Jenn's sports car which is featured (with instructions) on  Preschool Crafts for Kids. 

To make it even easier for you to make your own car, I've made a video showing you exactly what to do.  You can see it on here.

What you need:

- toilet paper roll

- paint

- scissors

- pen / pencil OR push pin

- 4 bottle caps (equal size)

- hammer and small nail  OR push pin

- a little bit of playdough

- optional:  a drinking straw OR piece of cardboard & glue

Instructions:
Step One:  paint roll and leave to dry
Step Two:  cut square for driver, and poke 4 holes where the wheels need to go
Step Three:  (optional: put two straws in through the two sets of holes respectively), insert toothpicks
Step Four: make holes in the caps and attach them onto the toothpicks, using playdough to secure them.

 

Now that you have such a cool car, need somewhere to park it...

why not make a dollhouse from a cardboard box.?

How to be productive with old birthday cards?

Are you a hoarder?

I'm definitely not a hoarder.

I just don't like throwing certain things away

In particular, sentimental things.

I especially don't like throwing away birthday cards. 

As a child, my mom kept all my birthday cards and glued them into a book for me.  I really enjoyed reading through those birthday cards for many years, until one day I decided to emigrate.  Moving countries, is a true hoarding/sentimental/prioritising test.  Before moving, I got rid of a lot of sentimental stuff that I really didn't need, I also kept a lot of sentimental stuff that I really didn't need.  Somewhere in the move I threw out my birthday card books.

The bonus in growing up and not having as many big birthday parties, is that I don't receive as many birthday cards, and I don't need to decide what to do with them.  My parents send me e-cards (which are GREAT ) there are personal messages, no carbon footprint, and I can just archive the link in my gmail.  That way, I never get rid of it, yet it doesn't take up any space. 

However, since having kids, the birthday card problem has returned.  Here are two of my solutions.

One:  Birthday-card decoupaged furniture.

Below is a pic of a wooden drawer set in my daughters' bedroom.

Here is a close up - you can see that I am in the ongoing process of using modge podge to decoupage their birthday cards (from their birth and first two years) onto the wood.  On the top, I also used pretty paper napkins over the birthday cards.  When I complete the decoupaging, I intend to paint over with varnish.

Two:  Framed Wedding Card Art



When given a wedding card, the meaning is not only in the words scribbled inside, but also the choice of the card design itself.  I cut out the designs from several of our wedding cards and placed them in divided frames to create a meaningful piece of art for our living room.

Something Different

The final project that I'm sharing, was actually designed by my mother-in-law and doesn't incorporate birthday cards.  However, it is in line with the theme of meaningful home decor.  My eldest daughter was named after my mother-in-law's parents and she collected several items from their home and had the items incorporated into a wall-hanging.

The general concepts in the design such as the blue birds, the cricket bat etc all have particular meaning.  Additionally, the flowers and trees were made with fabric from their curtains, pieces of clothing were used for the little girls' dress, and badges were incorporated into the balloons.  My daughter now has a piece of art that tells her a story about her great grand-parents for whom she was named.

Happy crafting everyone, and please share more ideas for meaningful home decor.

How to upcycle a juice carton

Milk and Juice cartons are unfortunately (at least where I live), unrecyclable.  I try to buy these items in alternative, recyclable packaging, however I still do end up with quite a few cartons.

Disney Family Fun has a really cute video tutorial on how to make a wallet out of these cartons. 

So voila !

... here's my first upcycled juice carton wallet

For instructions, and a link to the wallet template click here.

but here are some of my own tips

1. watch the entire video before you begin - my first attempt I skipped a detail and cut off the entire top

2. rinse out your carton first - unless you particularly want a mango-fragranced wallet.

3. if you have more than one child, make more wallets, my kids loved the wallet and didn't want to share.

3. if your cartons are smaller then the Family Fun template, you can just fold and tape it to fit, that's what I did in the picture below.



Happy wallet-making everyone

All about chip wrapper purses

If you are looking for a challenging upcycling craft - you need to try making a chip wrapper purse!

The idea is to empty chip bags and upcycle them into a purse.  I didn't actually know this was possible until a couple of weeks ago.  Since then I have found that there are many people successfully creating these purses and not wanting to be left behind, I got right to it.

After 3-4 'working' days, this is where I'm up to:

What you need to start your own purse:

1. Superb instructions from Mylinda's Wrapper Purse Blog

2a. Empty potato chip bags (+/- magazine pages)

OR

2b. I used old out-of-date booklets from my company, there were stacks of them waiting to be thrown into the paper recycling.

3. Dental Floss and Nan's Floss-tying instructions OR another type of strong thread.

4. An old credit card.

5. A lot of patience and time.

Instructions:

Seriously, just go to Mylinda's Wrapper Purse Blog, her instructions and accompanying photos are great. However, for the initial folding instructions, I recommend fluffyland, as I found their photos easier to follow.

 As you may or may not know, I am a family doctor and I work full time.  When I get home, there are kids to take care of and housework to complete, which is why even a few minutes at the end of a day in my office need to be taken advantage of for folding and joining...

I took these photos to show off my good start, my first 10 links in 5 minutes.. I considered that a good start.

My next photos, convey, why it took me a few hours, just to link up the first circle.

Totally Wrong

Totally Right

I will admit, that after realising how long this was going to take me, I almost gave up on the purse dream and settled for a bracelet instead, but I don't like giving up. So by sharing this craft with you on my blog, I am inviting you to start your own wrapper purse, and share your progress with me, and I'm also commiting myself to finish the purse, one way or another. 

If, despite my encouragement, you still aren't ready to commit to making a purse, you can use Terracycle's youtube instruction video to make a wrapper bracelet.

Happy wrapper-crafting everyone.

How to make a kitchen from a cardboard box

Yesterday I spent the afternoon, building a kitchen... for my kids... from a cardboard box.

I found my inspiration on the Disney Family Fun site. and made a few adjustments.

Their plan is for a double unit, one part stove, one part cupbard & sink, but I wanted it to fit into my kids' plastic outdoor house.  The house could only fit one box, so I combined the sink and stove units and sacrificed some cupboard space.

Materials:

large cardboard box  (I used an old moving box left behind after our kids' stuff swap.)

colored tape  (I couldn't find any colored packing tape, so I got the kind they use for electric cables)

craft knife (I put too much strain on my splice precision knife, -my fault, I still recommend the knife,- and found that a sharp scissors, and kitchen knife can also work if neccessary)

rimmed bowl (I try to avoid going out to buy MORE stuff, so I used an extra one from my kitchen)

soap dispensor pump (apologies to my sister Shiri who has no dispensor for her soap now)

plastic caps (I used ones without holes)

nail & hammer

screws & plugs (honestly, I didnt even use the plugs in the end, as the screws were stuck into the thick cardboard, but depending the thickness of your box, perhaps have them in case)

stay-tab from top of soda can (do you have a better name for it?)

CD's

permanent marker

Instructions:

1. turn cardboard box upside down

2. outline rimmed bowl on the top of the box, where you'd like your sink to be, and then use a craft knife to cut a circle about 1cm smaller than the bowl's diameter, then place your bowl inside. Consider using glue or tape to keep it in place.

3. make a small hole for a faucet and place the soap dispensor pump inside

4. draw a rectangle for the oven and use craft knife to cut out the top and sides of the oven.

5. use permanent marker to appropriately decorate the stove burners and stick them onto stovetop with superglue or glue gun.  I also put a piece of red tape under each of the burners, which gives the impression of a 'hot working stove'.

6. make holes in the caps, insert the screws and then push them into the box to make the knobs

7. use colored tape over hard jagged edges and for decor.

8. attach a stay-tab or alternative to just above the oven door with a screw to keep the oven door closed.

(Warning: after looking for a picture of a stay-tab, I saw several warnings regarding how they are choking hazards, if there will be small children playing with this kitchen, I would suggest using something else to close the oven, eg. a rectangular lid, that can swivel from horizontal to vertical thereby keeping the oven closed)

Enjoy making your own!

How to make a dollhouse from a cardboard box.

I grew up in a house with four girls, a big dollhouse and lots of plastic dolls.  I have great memories of playing with the dollhouse with my sisters and wanted the same for my kids - without buying an expensive dollhouse and plastic dolls which would probably end up destroyed in the dumps polluting the environment that I'm trying to save.

So I did a bit of research online, and decided to make a dollhouse from a cardboard box.

(I must admit that I found so many different examples of cardboard dollhouses online, that I'm not sure who to credit for my final design.)

Items needed:

a big box

scraps of wrapping paper

glue

tape

furniture magazines

Instructions:

Step 1: Find a box (I used the box from my sewing machine).

Step 2: Cut off the top 2/3 of the front side of the box.

Step 3: The bottom 1/3 that's left can be laid flat to represent the garden, and the bottom of the box taped shut.

Step 4:  Use the top 2/3 of the front that you have cut away to make the upper floor (second storey) (you may need to further cut it to size).

Step 5: Use strips of remaining cardboard and tape to reinforce the upper floor, ( I later added a piece of cardboard as a divider between the bottom 2 rooms which further reinforces the upper floor.

Step 6: Tape down old wrapping paper as the wallpaper/carpeting for each room.

Step 7: Cut out pictures of furniture and decor (eg. clock, closet etc) from magazines and glue onto the walls

Step 8: Spraypaint roof and outside of house (I still haven't done this...), paint garden green...

Step 9: Fill your house with furniture, we used furniture that we had been given as gifts, sand toy as the 'bath', I made a fridge from a small medicine box.  Check out this link for a great way to make recycled doll furniture.  (I already had furniture given as a gift, so I just modified those instructions for my toilet seat.

The dolls in my house are a great alternative to plastic dolls (which break easier and I'm assuming are harder on the environment than these wooden dolls).

A friend of mine bought them for me from Etsy and we used craft koki's (markers) to color them.  You can also go to the general Etsy page and search wooden dolls to buy already-colored dolls, however I recommend doing them yourself - its fun and cathartic. 

I've since found that you can buy a variety of wooden people cheaper on Amazon  (using specifically the above link to amazon helps support my blog).

Hope you have lots of fun with your dolls and dollhouses, let me know how they turn out via  twitter or facebook.

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