A gift with Love: Pillow Heart.

Applique is one of favorite things to do with my little boy.This time I'm going to share couple ideas that can be used as a gift or just a great way to spend with your little one.

Pillow heart.

 
This is a no saw pillow. You will need:
- felt
- fabric glue
- scissors
- needles
- stuffing/ cotton
- a sheet of paper
- pencil

1. Fold the sheet of paper in half and draw a half of heart . Also draw desireble decorations, like flowers. Cut out the templates.

2. Using needles, attach templates to the fabric.

I attached 2 red sheets of fabric together. I fold the flowers too to save time.

3. Cut out.

Felt is very easy to cut, I did not stencil but you can. Any little mistakes can be fixed with scissors.

4. Ask your child to help with glue! Apply the glue around the heart but leave the space to fill in with stuffing later.

5. Glue decorations.

6. Waite untill everything gets dry.

7. This was the most interesting part for my son - put the stuffing in!!!!

8. Glue the bottom and let it dry.

9.  The pillow heart is ready!

                                    



Airplane.

An airplane is great toy for a pretend play. My son enjoyed the propeller the most!

Things I've used:

- large size juice box
- small knife
- scissors
- brass fastener
- stapler
- cereal box

1. Cut out the body leaving the base for wings:

2. Cut  the wings and the propeller out the carton from the cereal box:

3. Using stapler attach wings.

4. Attach propeller.

5. Find a pilot and you're ready to fly!

Simple crafts.

Caterpillar

The inspiration came from an egg box. I simply cut out the body for the caterpillar, then I gave my son paint and brush to keep him busy. While the paint was drying, we made eyes and antennas and we attached them using a play-dough. That's it!

Car

It is so easy to make a car like this! I only used 2 juice boxes, scissors and tape. The first box is the body then cut out the wheels from the second box.  My son used tape and glue to attach the wheels

Castle

This castle was made out of 3 milk or juice cartons!

Recycling ideas.

Ideas come when you have plenty material!
That's why we started collecting things that ...
For example, I organized a place where I can put things that we might use.
This is how a collection of favorite yogurt cups became a constructor or a ball's aim:

Cereal is over? I like using carton for our crafts:

The easiest way to use toilette paper rolls is to make a binoculars:

Simple crafts like this is a wonderful opportunity for a child express himself! All that is needed is to give a a varaity of things to explore and watch how the imagination starts working.

Thinking outside the Box.

"A child plays more with a box, no matter how many toys they have."

When I heard these words it completely changed the way I saw the world.  It also gave me the ability to see the world through my child's eyes. Suddenly the ordinary things had become interesting to me and here I am: sitting on a floor with my son, thinking how to turn an idea into reality. This is how a simple box has become a car garage, then it was turned into a house, a bed, a table and so on, so on, so onnnnnn.

Our first garage was made from a diaper box... As my son was growing, the garage has been evolving with his imagination. For example, in this case if you move the slides, up and tape them... ta-da! it's a house now!

Step 1- Open the bottom of the box and remove the tabs, save the tabs for later use.

Step 2- Cut a door way large enough for cars to enter and exit

Step 3- Flip the box right side up, open two tabs like wings, tape extra tab from the bottom to form a ramp. Close with tape.

Step 4- Add personal decorations as needed.

Creativity is fun! We love decorating using colors, stickers of favorite characters and more. This time that my son and I spend together will leave a lasting impression on him and allow him to be constructive later on in life when the situations calls for creative solutions.

 Things that you'll need:

- any size box

- kitchen scissors/ knife

- tape

- stapler

- decorations

So many things, we adults consider as trash is a toy for our children. A Shampoo bottle, once empty and cleaned becomes a fountain, boat or experiment??? The possibilities are only limited by your willingness to explore.

Childhood is a magical time. And thanks to our children we, parent, can live this time period again.