I know I’m not saying anything new when I say this. But the ability of a child to be simply ecstatic over three cardboard boxes simply blows my mind.
We have recently discovered that in the toddler nursery at church, Olivia has become quite infatuated with the large plastic doll house.
And at home, she has started to roll-play more with her stuffed animals, making them walk, bounce, run, and play together.
Well, after an Aldi’s run, I saw an empty box in the living room while she was playing with her stuffed animals and a light bulb went on in my head.
I flipped it over and it became a house for her stuffed Mickey Mouse and Tigger! Oh, was she tickled! They went in and out. And in and out. And in and out.
Fun times.
By then my creative juices were really flowing. I looked through our recyclables and I found an empty tissue box. This became a bath tub! We even used a place mat as a wash cloth. But wait! Turn the bath over and it becomes a bed! However, Mickey and Tigger couldn’t both fit. Rather than have them fight over the bed, I ran to my closet and got a child-sized shoe box. A second bed!
We used the place mat (again) as a blanket.
AND, (how cool is this) the shoe box bed doubles as a toy chest!
It’s been a good three days now and these three boxes are still her favorite toys in the world. That works out pretty good for me, as they cost me nothing.
The only drawback is how tacky they look in the middle of our living room. But I can live with that.
For more frugal tips, head on over to Crystal’s blog!
Boxes are amazing aren’t they? For our nephews, it’s balloons. They have a birthday party, get lots of presents, and have more fun playing with the balloons than anything else.
I’m all about the simple toys.
At Christmas when my son was little, he opened his presents and was so excited at what he got. But when dad opened a gift that had a big box…my son lost interested in his Christmas gifts and played with the box instead. It was months before I could get rid of that box. lol
Ann’Re
This is cute and reminds me of a project I saw years ago with plastic shelving. The 4 snap together type from Walmart. This creative mom had covered the shelves with pretty contact paper, and on all 3 sides she had glued on cardboard to fit. On all of the cardboard she had put pictures of the different rooms etc. The dollhouse looked like the one you see at JCPenney for about $200. I think that was more for a barbie type house. But those little shelves could also make great baby beds! You’ve got my creative thoughts going!
You shop at Aldi’s 🙂 i can tell by the box.
I remember all the great times I had with boxes growing up. The bigger the box the better. Do you remember the days of building forts out of blankets, sheets, couch cushions and kitchen chairs? Now kids have all these weird pop up for things. Where is the creativity in that?!
The best memories of my childhood either involve a tree, a box or a homemade fort. Funny how things change huh? I bet most children now days would look at you stupid if you tried to get them to have fun with those.
They’d probably ask you for the remote or gameboy…
This sounds like me when I was little. 🙂 I had a shoebox bed too!
I played a lot with Fisher Price’s little people, and I used a child’s bookcase as my dollhouse. Also, sometimes we’d play “hospital” with our dolls and we’d use our pillows as beds. If you roll down the pillowcase a little bit it serves as a nice blanket! Pillows also are useful for school desks too. 🙂
Classic, and priceless! What a creative imaginative child — and Mom, too.