Sometimes Monday mornings just call for staying in your PJ's and crafting. And what better way to craft than to make animals out of recycling. Unfortunately for us single-use cardboard and plastics are a part of life, but we do try to reuse things before they go to recycling.
Lara and I made a giraffe, and an elephant out of old containers and cardboard rolls, with our trusty roll of masking tape-I may have taken that cue from my good friend Play School. We have a packet of googly eyes that will probably last us forever, and some pipe cleaners (I have no idea where they came from) that make brilliant giraffe ears, elephant trunks and spiders legs. I was also pretty impressed with Lara's creativity to make some bird wings out of masking tape and put them on a straw.
Children are amazing, they need the tiniest nudge in the right direction and they sore. Since this crafting morning together I've been able to leave Lara to "do crafting" independently and she has made some great looking lady beetles and spiders out of the lids of sour cream containers, stickers and the reused pipe cleaners. I guess this is what parents did before batteries and televisions. It isn't always easy, but when it works it's bloody brilliant.
I was pleasantly surprised by how long these DIY toys held up with a two year old and eleven month old playing with them. They probably lasted three weeks before their legs were too beaten up to stand, and that was when I removed the tape and put all the other materials back in to the craft box.
Of course I had a heap of fun making African safari animals. Who wouldn't?!
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