Wipes Box Toy

For my first project of my 2014 craft challenge, from this blog post, as seen on Pinterest: I made a baby wipes box ‘toy’ for Snorzy, with fabric squares that he can remove again and again.  Maybe making this was a little bit stupid, since none of my three kids ever did the ‘pull every baby wipe out of the box’ thing, maybe I’m just encouraging bad behavior.  He drives me so crazy anyway, though, in that he hardly plays with toys but instead looks around for anything he can get his hands on that he *shouldn’t* play with.  I think I wouldn’t even mind so much if he pulled real wipes out of a current box of wipes, if it would keep him sitting still for five minutes and not pulling on electrical cords or knocking over my things. 
I cut out about twenty squares of fabric in a variety of colors and textures, using pinking shears to get a hard-to-ravel edge without having to do any sewing.  I opted not to do applique letters or numbers on the squares yet, but if he ends up liking this toy a lot I’ll add them later.  To decorate the box and hide the brand labels, I covered it in bright blue duct tape (left over from Primo’s Tron costume from a few Halloweens ago).  So far he likes the box itself more than the fabric, and it’s a little hard to get him to take the fabric squares out (we have to pull one out halfway and then show it to him).  He likes opening and closing the box, though, and if we take the fabric pieces out of the box for him and throw them around, he plays with them.  Yesterday he stood there and carefully handed me one after another, while I said, “Thank You” for each one.  Time will tell if this turns into a favorite toy, but it was free and he’s played with it a little, so I’m satisfied.

Craft Challenge 2014

I’ve decided to make something every week of 2014, starting this past week (I’m writing on the 10th, but I swear I finished the first project on the 7th!)  I have a Pinterest board or two filled with things I want to make ‘someday’, but the other day I was looking at my ‘Snorzy’ board and was horrified to see several cute, simple things that I meant to make for him for which he is *already* too old!  Ever since I had to virtually give up knitting due to hand pain, it has been hard to always have a project on the go—it’s so much easier when all you need is two sticks and some yarn.  I find that once I get started on a project it’s not hard to stay motivated and finish in good time.  It’s just the beginning that is the biggest obstacle for me.  So many of the things I do as a homeschooling mom are either consumable or never-ending (cooking, laundry) or have such far-reaching consequences that I don’t get a satisfying ‘ahh, I’m done’ feeling (teaching the boys lessons, manners, how to live in the world).  It’s nice to have something to point to at the end of a short period of time, about which I can say, “I made that”.  Hence, this New Year’s challenge: I will ‘make something’ – complete some kind of multi-step craft project—every week of this year for a total of 52 projects by year’s end.  We’re several days into the second week and I don’t have an idea on tap yet, so we’ll see how I do at sticking with this challenge.  I’ll also have to figure out the rules for myself as I go, in regards to big projects like quilts—can I count each part of the process as a mini project?  But I give myself permission to count *very* simple crafts, as long as there is more than one step involved—for instance, see my next post, on my first project of this challenge—a Wipes Box toy for Snorzy. 

Technorati Tags: Pinterest,crafts,quilting,Snorzy,projects,challenge,2014,homeschooling,knitting,Wipes Box toy