Tag: toys

Sewing a Stroller

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Bebe, the soft doll the boys have, came in a stroller. It matched his pajamas and was perfectly sized for a small child to push around the house/neighborhood. What it wasn’t perfectly sized for was a four-year-old plopping his rear in it and pulling himself around the house. So it has needed some surgery for a couple years.

I had some green cotton left over from fixing up the balance bike, and I had some random remnant bin finds. I salvaged the hardware from the original seat and used what was left of the seat pieces as a pattern for the new one.

I made the main portions of the seat from the green material, then made bias binding for the edges. Actually, I first tried to reuse the original edging, but somehow it wasn’t long enough despite the fact that I used the original seat as the pattern. Go figure.

I also changed how the top attached to the stroller. It originally had a couple elastic pieces that went around the handle. I chose to do button straps instead. That way the whole thing is easily removable in case it needs to be washed. And there’s no chance of the elastic breaking down as the old ones did.

Lego My Table

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One of the boys with a June Birthday is completely obsessed with Legos. So I knew I wanted to do something Lego-themed for his present. I didn’t just want to get him another set to build, though. The perfect gift came across my feed one day when I saw this on IKEAHackers. Considering my entire room is furnished from IKEA, I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to make a simpler version.

Truthfully, the most difficult part was probably deciding how I wanted to glue everything down. We used Legos to hold the plates together (I found these plates on Amazon) before gluing them in place with rubber cement.

Altogether, the whole project cost around $30. Much better than the alternatives I found at Toys ‘R’ Us for about $100 more. Not counting drying time (or searching for the table in IKEA), it took around thirty minutes to finish this. Best to have at least two sets of hands, though. Even with the Legos holding them together, the four plates can get a little unruly.

Quick DIY: Rainbow Loom Handcuffs

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These are really useful for controlling rambunctious pre-schoolers.

Kidding! But they are apparently fun for them to play with. They are a little nicer than those plastic handcuffs that always break five minutes after you open the package, because these stretch.

They are also super easy to make. Start by using two rubber bands down the center of the pegs. Place a cap band on the end and work like you are making a regular bracelet. Instead of using a c-clip, place both ends on a holder (like a toothpick or some other type of stick).Now make a diamond bracelet using one end of the strand you just made as the cap band, and connect it with a c-clip. Do the same thing again for the other side of the handcuffs, and you are done.

Whole process takes ten to twenty minutes at most. Really super simple, and you can make it in any colors your tiny police officer wants. (Or super villain who likes being put into jail).