Tiffany from Simply Modern Mom asked me to join her “Wrap it Up” party. I chose to do some more magazine wrap. I love digging through old magazines and finding fun pages to use. (Here are a couple more I posted awhile back.) You’ll find some great inspiration for more gift wrapping ideas at Simply...Continue Reading
Here’s another dollhouse! Duck Duck Green asked me to create a craft for their packaging. The box looked so much like a house already, I couldn’t resist. My daughter has been playing with it a lot, making up hilarious scenes and dialogs. If you’d like, Duck Duck Green has nicely laid out instructions and photos here. You...Continue Reading
I’ve been a fan of the Kireei blog from Spain for a long time, so when they invited me to make a craft for the first issue of their new online magazine I was very excited. The magazine is beautiful even if you don’t read Spanish. It’s free, and you can check it out here if...Continue Reading
Cheerios just posted the second video I made for them. Here it is. A rubber band box guitar! Very fast and easy to make, and also quite entertaining to play. Could be fun to decorate it with paint or stickers too!Continue Reading
Harper’s Bazaar Magazine asked me if I could make a craft for their bi-annual Bazaar Junior supplement in Singapore. Cool! I just got it in the mail. The magazine is beautiful and filled with amazing things for kids. I wish they sold it in the US. If you don’t live in Singapore you can still make...Continue Reading
Cool news! Cheerios has sponsored me to make some crafts! They asked me if I could create some “how to” videos for their FaceBook page. Check out my first ever craft tutorial video: How to Make a Snack Box. Hope you’re hungry! My kids really loved it. Always exciting to make something new from a...Continue Reading
Recently we were going through our hats for cold weather. I decided it was time to get rid of an old fleece hat that I’ve had for many years. I was about to trash it, when all of a sudden a black sheep flashed into my head. I had to try it. My daughter has...Continue Reading
The beautiful alex and alexa store from London recently asked me to design a Halloween craft to repurpose their great packaging boxes. I decided to create a Paper City style trick-or-treat scene for them. They were really fun to make! If you want to make one yourself, you can use any box you’d like. Then...Continue Reading
I recently scored a free box of wood scraps and in it was this fabulous old cedar block. I decided to paint it and turn it into a “city block”. I think it might be a good block for the Vintage Wood Figures to hang out with.Continue Reading
My first craft column appeared in the new issue of LMNOP magazine today. Pull toys have been making a come-back in our house, so I decided to make some box pull toys that slide across the floor. They turned out to be really fun and very easy to make. There are full instructions in the...Continue Reading
This puzzle is over a year old, but we just got it out again. My son has been a big puzzle fan since age two. This was a wooden one that I had, but the design on it was all green leaves, which made it very difficult to solve, even for me. So I painted...Continue Reading
La Petite Magazine released their new online issue today that features some paper dollhouses I made. I had a lot of fun designing different houses and little pieces of furniture. Then I put them all in a mint tin so they can be played with on the go. If you want to try it out,...Continue Reading
A few days ago I made these little puppets with paper clips and cardboard. The kids were really coming up with some entertaining stories for them. If you want to try it out, they’re very simple to make. First, bend the middle of a paper clip so it stands up. Then cut out the puppets,...Continue Reading
We’ve got a lot of birthdays coming up, so I thought I’d share my favorite way for wrapping presents, using pages out of my old art magazines. I’m sure a lot of you do this sort of thing too. I also like cutting little pieces of painted paper for decorations. p.s. The deadline for my...Continue Reading
The other day, while I had the paper clips out, I thought it would be fun to make a barrel of monkeys type game by bending them into hook shapes. Jack had a good time figuring out how to get them all linked together, and also how to get them apart.Continue Reading
This idea popped into my head the other day when trying to think of something fun to do with cereal boxes. I always loved marble runs when I was a kid, and this one was very easy to make. Jack and Tess really loved it too. We had to go finish off some more cereal...Continue Reading
One of my favorite vintage vinyl bags ripped, so I decided to take it apart and make an iPad case out of it. I have enough scraps left over to make a little handle bag too. Glad I didn’t throw it away! I’ve actually designed quite a few toys by sketching on the iPad. It’s so fun...Continue Reading
Yesterday we were drawing and decided to cut out some of the people and glue them onto cardboard. Cutouts are always fun to make. This time I taped on some little “kickstands” onto the backs so they stand up. One of my characters was inspired by a certain movie character that my son is loving....Continue Reading
I really like using boxes we get in the mail for other things before recycling them, so I made this small aquarium toy. Instead of taping the fish to the top of the box, I decided to make it more interactive by cutting slits in the top and tying buttons to the threads. This way...Continue Reading
