I love this time of year. It’s when all the best toys come out! Forget singing dump trucks and the latest “___-Me Elmo,” I get excited when they stock the front of the store with sidewalk chalk, frisbees, and cheap plastic buckets. Hula hoops and rubber balls and jugs of bubble stuff, squirt guns and pinwheels…sign me up!
I thought I’d see what Etsy had to offer on that score.
1. Hand-Spiced Cotton Jump Rope by Jupiter’s Child 2. Personalized Custom Teepee by Zooble 3. Twirligig Playsilk Streamer by Beneath the Rowan Tree 4. Balloon Ball Cover by SDK Designs
What do you think about that balloon cover? It’s a fabric…ball, for lack of a better word. You stick the uninflated balloon through the opening, blow it up, and tie it off. That way your balloon is protected from sharp things (like toddler teeth, in this house) and it contains the pieces if they do manage to pop it. Cool!
5. Racecar Sidewalk Chalk by Sunshine and Sidewalks 6. Child’s Play Bow and Arrows by Backwoods Toys 7. Under the Ocean Card Table Playhouse by Imaginative Play Toys 8. Bug Hut by Puddlebymarsh
I included the Bug Hut because it was the kind of thing that made me smack my forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” Plastic canvas would be perfect for containing bugs (did I mention that the boys had a series of ‘pet ants’ recently that they housed in old bubble bottles?) and it would be dead easy to make one of these. Not that it would hold ants, but anything bigger like a cricket or a caterpillar, sure.
Also, Max saw me scoping out Backwoods Toys for this post and is now begging me to make him a bow and some arrows, or a slingshot at least. His birthday is next month – can you believe this little goose is about to be seven?! – but I’m not much of a weapons crafter so it’s possible we’ll be placing an order.
For this guy.
He looks a little young to be handling weapons to me!!!
