Copy-crafting!

This morning, I was catching up on my blog reading. I read one of Kory's recent entries on Live Completely and was inspired!

Jackson and I ran to the craft store and picked up some essentials and I got started making Waldorf-inspired toys for him and Keelin. I have always purchased these kinds of learning toys, but have never even considered that I might be able to successfully make them myself! You know, let's be real. I LOVE handmade toys and LOVE unique educational materials to use with my little ones, but we're on a budget! I don't have an endless supply of funds to spend on Etsy, so anything that I can do myself is a great benefit!

Bitty Man armed and ready!

He helped me put together and paint a wooden tractor model!

No pictures, though. It was "his." Nooo pictures!

$1.00 for a wooden basket!

Perfect for holding peg people!

Like these!

That fit into bean pot candle cups like these!

Kinda line this!

I made a set of 6, a rainbow!

Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Purple, and Orange!

A Power family easter basket! :)

I also picked up a bag of recycled cardboard eggs!

The bottom left egg is unpainted for this photo.

Just thought I'd share what I spent my afternoon doing!

I did some sorting balls in the colors to match the cups,

pastels for the eggs!

All finished!

Haven't decided whether or not to give the other peg people faces...

Anyway, visit Kory and show her some love! She writes a delightful blog!

I'm planning to make these and more for favors to give guests at Keelin's 5th birthday party this summer- no plastic ickiness here!

If you're one of Keelin's friends mommies, I ruined the surprise, but I just had to share :)

Where do you put the batteries?!

I was playing with my munchkins this afternoon and decided to snap some photos of them playing. I can count on two hands the toys these kids have that are battery-powered. Most of our toys are kid-powered :)

We used to have all of the light up, noise making, Disney character covered plastic junk. The more I researched, got headaches from the noise, and realized that the mess was NOT something I wanted in my home, we started slowly but surely minimizing the number and type of toys in our house. At last count, we have 7 toys that require some sort of power, including the tv that I have in the back of the house for the kids to watch the occasional movie on. The rest is mostly wooden, imagination requiring, and I love it! And so do they!

Keelin trying to use a wooden pizza cutter on a wooden apple stuck together in the middle with velcro. She's wearing a bioME 5 "K for Kangaroo" shirt.

Click here to see bioME 5's organic clothing options for kids!

Here is Jackson playing with the apple and Keelin playing with the darn pizza cutter ;) She's cutting a wooden loaf of sliced "bread" held together with velcro.

They were pretty hung up on play food this afternoon, but you can also see the Plan Toys lace up shoe, and the Melissa and Doug toys- the word matching game, the tool set, etc. We love Melissa and Doug, even though their items are mostly made in China and we wish they would make them here in the U.S.A.

Jackson, making a pizza for his big sissy!

Little mess maker! Keelin would run away before I could take many pictures with her in them. Don't know why she was being camera shy today :-/

So there ya go, y'all! Just a little peek into the toybox. So many people act like our kids are deprived because they don't have TONS of toys or the "latest and greatest," but shoot, they are happy kids and I feel good about what they have to play with. Kid-powered is the way we like to do it at our house :)