Homemade Toy - Cereal Box Marble Run

This project was inspired by a blog post by Made by Joel.  I saw this blog post three years ago and thought it was great fun!  My daughter was still too young then to be playing with small marbles and I wasn't sure if she'd sneak a marble into her mouth while playing (choking hazard!), so this  idea was shelved for later.

Fast forward to five days ago...we were at the supermarket and little daughter asked me to buy her another baby doll or Barbie.  But since both her baby doll and Barbie collections are bursting at the seams, I tried to negotiate.  We made a round of the toy section and school supplies section and stumbled upon these marbles!  A mere P 20.00 (that's about half a US dollar) for about 50 pieces!!!  And when she saw it, she burst out in excitement, "Marbles!"  Yay for me!

To my surprise, the marbles were a great hit!  Not only with her but with her cousins.  They played with the marbles the night we bought them...and the next day...and the next.  There were marbles all over the house - on rugs, corners, behind the couch, by the dining table.  It was fun to watch them enjoying and experimenting with the marbles!  They rolled them down the hallway, flicked them and rolled them down a makeshift slide that they made out of our living room cushion.

Then I remembered Made by Joel's Cereal Box Marble Run!  I made them a couple of times for the boys at school and wondered how the girls would like it.  I saved two cereal boxes and made this marble run version in about 10 minutes.  I used masking tape to adhere the cardboard cutouts to the wall under the stairs.

Watch them go!

Weeee!!!

I followed Made by Joel's tutorial and left a little ledge at the bottom to keep the marbles from rolling out of the box.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they loved it more than I expected!  One afternoon, my daughter spent hours (yes, hours!) playing with this marble run.

Made by Joel has a detailed tutorial on how to make one.  If you try it out, we hope you have as much fun with it as we have! : )

Homemade Toy Kitchen

Since my daughter Therese enjoys playing with toy kitchens, I thought I'd make one rather than buy the glammed-up, plastic kinds in the department stores.  The inspiration for this toy kitchen came from the book lent to us by my sister-in-law (Children's Rooms: Practical Design Solutions for Ages 0-10).

The book's version was nice and basic - made out of a brown box, silver packaging tape and black paper for the controls.  I wanted to make an exact copy but I thought I'd use the pink packaging tape I had on hand (from the pink flamingo mallets we made for Therese's "Alice" birthday party) and cover the slightly worn-out box with yellow, pink and green paper.    

Part of the fun in putting it together was sourcing all of the add-ons with my hubby - the pots, pans, cooking mitts, mini tongs, purple baskets, S-hooks, foil pans, etc. from the local grocery store, hardware store and Divisoria, the local market district in Manila!  I think we did a pretty good job! 

On S- hooks: Oven mitts, strainer, detachable purple basket with mini tongs, ladle and server  

Stovetop made out of foil pans (held in place by double-sided tape).  Controls are black kettle cover holders!  Underneath is one of my best finds - aluminum foil tape!

Detachable purple baskets holding sponges and mini plates.  

The "oven" is on one side of the box and on the opposite side is the "ref."  Inside the ref and oven are shelf racks to serve as the oven grill and ref shelving.

The purple baskets are detachable so they can serve as "shopping baskets" when Therese and her cousin Sophia "go to market."

I love that the girls keep busy playing with this kitchen set!   

Here's a photo of them "cooking" white beans!  

And Therese checking how the "doughnuts" are doing in the oven.

A rough guide to the oven and ref measurements.  Do adjust the measurements to the size of your box. : )