Get In My Belly, Craftsies, Musings, Fasionistas, Fluffy Butt

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Sorter Toy Out of a Shoebox

A little something you should know about me: I am a cheapo. Like, crazy cheapo. I’m the person who walks into a Goodwill and says, “Eight dollars for a pair of jeans?!? Forget it”. That being said, I rarely buy my girls toys.  They usually get one for the birthday and one or two for Christmas. If I can make the toy..., well now that’s a different story.

I will say that once a kid gets past toddler age the kids are a little harder to please with homemade toys.  Lucky me, I still have a little one year old!  Score. This one year old loves to sort, stack, and hide things, so I figured a sort toy would be perfect, and guess how easy a sort toy is to make? Mmhmm gurl, you guessed it. Real easy.

Here’s the things you will need:
A Shoe box
A few block shapes
A xacto knife (Or a poor man's xacto knife: a box cutter)


 If you want your box to be pretty, then you will also need:
A large gift bag
Glue gun
Clear tape (forgot that one until later)

The blocks are wooden blocks that I bought at Hobby Lobby a few years. Amazon sells them here.

I started by simply tracing the blocks on the top of the shoe box and then cutting out a slightly larger shape so that the block could easily be put in the hole by a sweet little baby.Got all your holes cut? Boom. Done.


If I had thought further ahead on this project, I wouldn't have used the arch block. My baby can push any block through that hole, which is fine because she’s still happy with the toy, but if you want to make the toy a little bit of a challenge, skip the arch block.

Now, if you want to take this a step further and make the sorter toy pretty, continue on.

The gift sack paper I used is thicker and smoother than most wrapping papers. I also decided to use a glue gun to secure the paper to my box.

Once the entire box is wrapped, cut the paper where the shape holes are. I used clear tape to secure the paper under the lid, but you could use the glue gun again.


Tada! You're done! Well done on a free, super easy to make toy for the baby in your life! 



-Amber

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