Recent Bargains

Another quiet week here so I thought I'd share a few of our recent bargains.

 I picked this up today for £2 from a Facebook selling page. Bear loves the one at a group we go to, so now he has his own.

This was £1 from a nearly new sale...

As was this!

These skittles still have the label, and seem brand new. They were £3 from a charity shop.

The stroller was £10 from a Facebook selling page and makes Bear look as though he is in an armchair. (He's into clips at the moment so I couldn't get a picture without him in the way!)

I keep an eye out all the time for things we might need or toys I think Bear might like. For example, we have already bought a toddler bed with mattress, duvet, pillow, and duvet cover set from John Lewis for £25. The bed frame alone from Ikea would cost more than this! 

Have you picked up any bargains lately? 

Card Catalogue

Before little bear was old enough to do much more than bat at his playmat and roll over, I got excited about all the fun things I could do with him one day like painting, nature walks, counting games, science experiments and lots more.

To keep a record of all the great ideas I found online and thought of, I created a filing system of record cards. (I have an underlying fear that my bookmarks and Facebook likes will one day randomly disappear so I wanted to have an old fashioned, paper copy).

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The box is the bottom of a lunch bar box which just happened to be the right size. I covered it with some paper I had in my craft stash.

I really had way too much fun doing this! I decided on 6 colour coded categories; sensory, science and nature, maths, language and literacy, arts, and water. I made tabs by cutting off part of the header and drew up a key. Each page has a 'What you will need' list and a method, and an indication of whether it's an inside or outside activity. I spent many a happy hour colouring with felt tips, making everything neat.

When telling you about these activities, I will endeavour to track back to the appropriate source or link but will explain and apologise if I can't find where the idea came from.

Fishes in the Water, Fishes in the Sea

I like to make something for little bear's Christmases and birthdays (all 2 of them so far!). Someone on a Facebook group I'm a member of made this for her little one, and I thought it would be great for bear. My guess was correct, he loves them :)

I got the fish pattern from here and based the pond/bag on this pattern. I crocheted a long chain and did a dc in each ch to make the drawstring. I used scraps of acrylic dk yarn I already had (the white one was a different brand of yarn so it ended up bigger -grrr) including black for the eyes and embroidering the numbers on. They are stuffed with ce tested toy stuffing, which I also already had so this technically cost me nothing to make (win!). I think I used a 4mm hook.

When he gets a bit older, the fish can help him learn numbers and colours. I also want to make it into a fishing game at a later date, using sticky velcro dots and a stick.

To extend little bear in his play, we have put the fish into the ball pool and got him to find them. Talking through how many fish he has found and how many he has left resulted in his 4th word being 'fish' (shish). He doesn't say mummy yet but can say fish!

Little bear likes the fish so much, this is what happened when I was taking photos:

Posting Toy

When little bear was about 10 months old, we realised he liked putting things in and taking them out again. I turned to my trusty Imagination Tree and adapted a maths game slightly to indulge this new passion. I just cut 5 holes in a shoe box lid big enough for a milk bottle lid. I covered it with a piece of white paper because there was writing on the box. I coloured round each hole with a colour to match the different types of milk (full fat, semi skimmed, skimmed and 1% I think).

My mother in law came over one afternoon and saw the box in action. She mentioned at her work that little bear's favourite things were milk bottle lids, and lots of people she works with started collecting them. We now have more than we know what to do with!

Hours of fun with a shoe box and some bottle tops. He doesn't get the colours yet, but he can grow into that part. We did begin to regret making him this however when we found this outside the back door for a few weeks. As an extension of the shoe box, little bear had posted some toys through the cat flap :)

Anyone for Tea?

Little bear has just turned one (still don't quite understand how it happened!) He was a very lucky boy and got so many lovely new toys including lots to play outside (I will do a post about this in the future). However, it is inevitably the case that something is duplicated. Little bear got 2 of these:

Brilliant toy by the way - not something we'd seen before or asked for but Bear loves it.

The second one was from Sainsburys so we took it back and got a voucher (sorry Aunty Beckah). Now as luck would have it, they were having a toy sale! So in exchange for one toy, we got a tea set, some soft blocks and some squirter bath toys.

The tea set needed a bag. My husband suggested I made one to look like a picnic blanket so I did.

I bought some gingham (unfortunately, I didn't have any in my stash) for a few pounds, folded it in half and sewed around,  right sides together, leaving a small gap to turn it the right way round. I put some buttonholes in each corner and in the centre of the longer side (no mean feat considering my buttonhole setting on my sewing machine has stopped working!). I crocheted a long chain, measuring it as I went along, and threaded it through the buttonholes.

I'm not totally happy with the chain/ buttonhole combo but I couldn't think of another way of gathering the bag up. Still, it does the job and, including the tea set, only cost about £4. Win!

Sensory Toys

The first few posts will be recapping on things I've already done/ made.

When little bear was newborn, I spent a lot of time googling things with him asleep on me. I came across The Imagination Tree and liked the idea of sensory toys because of how they can aid development, and because a lot of them can be made very cheaply from things you might have at home.

These are the first ones I made (l to r) rain stick, ribbon pull, fabric pull tissue box, sensory bottles.

The rain stick is a poster tube which something was delivered in. I tried to get tacks to hammer in, like I'd seen in tutorials but couldn't find any. So I used scrunched up kitchen foil, taped to the inside of the tube. I poured in some lentils we had in the cupboard and taped the ends on firmly. The decoration is brown packing paper with felt tip squiggles (an enjoyable half hour once boy was in bed! )

The ribbon pull (from Imagination Tree) is a Cadbury hot chocolate tin, which I punched holes in and threaded through ribbon from my stash. I used glue dots to secure the lid and covered with paper from my very brief interest in scrapbooking. Wrapping paper would work just as well.

I have actually made 2 of these, the first from an actual tissue box. Little bear destroyed it within days so I put my thinking cap on for what I could use instead. I suddenly had a brainwave -formula tubs! I cut the bottom off 2, and slotted one inside the other, one each way up so it created a box. An oval hole in one end, some pretty paper and fabrics from my stash finished it off (if you don't have a stash of fabrics you could use, lots of shops send out free samples - you want to get different textures eg silk, satin, cotton, corduroy, jersey etc)

I got the idea for the sensory bottles from The Imagination Tree again, and they formed part of little bear's Christmas present when he was 7 months old. One is filled with buttons, one woth ribbons and  felt pieces, all of which I had. One has pompoms in, which were about £1 from Tesco, and I had to get glycerine for the liquid one to slow down the glitter (also has washing up liquid in to stop the glitter clumping). I also had to buy the bottles because, being frugal, we don't buy drinks normally (was a pack of 6 value water from Tesco).

I have since made a lolly pop stick pull (Imagination Tree again) from a milk powder tub. This one isn't that successful though as it's really hard to pull out the sticks - I think I need to make the slots I cut into the lid a bit thicker. 

Out of all of these, little bear still plays with the fabric tissue box and the sensory bottles the most. I leave them all on an accessible shelf though so he can choose what to play with (or chuck on the floor which is often the case! )