Cardboard stove made from three boxes in our recycling pile in the garage.
A little paper, tape, a spool that is on the inside with the dial attached to it, and voila, one child sized cardboard stove. The door handle I am a little proud of - it is from an airbed box that is the back part of the stove. It was too perfect not to make use for something I was wondering how I would do! Esme said no painting- because it takes so long to dry. She wanted to play with it right away - no more of the waiting. Then she made pretend tea and threw hot dogs in the oven. *heh*.
I wrote her name and the year on top of it we will see how long it lasts as a toy. Her Magic Theater Box from when we moved her to her room is over a year old and still in use, played with every couple of days. It is getting in rough shape - but I had been able to paint that one with semi-gloss so it has lived through a lot of humidity and rough play.
Further ideas:
pot holders sewn especially for her
used a 1/2 egg carton to make a muffin/cupcake pan for her - now she wants felt muffins as toys
felt birthday cake? She loves to pretend to make cakes alerady
cheap spatula - she was trying to turn pancakes with a knife and having a hard time
We talked about finding a box the right size to make a cradle for her baby doll, with a pillow and the blanket I had made for it. This is the first time she has really played with a baby doll for years - I think it is because she met a little girl at school who likes dolls. It is really sweet though, especially since we mostly skipped over this stage before. She named the doll Billy - and it is a boy or a girl as she wishes... we found a Duplo block piece in her collection that was perfect to use as a bottle and I took some scraps from my table to make a blanket for it. She has insisted on tucking it in and feeding it for about three days in a row, and has been receptive on how to pick it up 'properly' and to learn not to mistreat it because you would not do that to a real baby etc.. she said 'oh, that's right', and carried it properly, set it down nicely and then pretended it cried a little while later for food.
She is also taking another try at learning the rules of checkers... played a decent game against me last night and I let her 'win' during the middle, so she did win at the end but I made it harder as the pieces dwindled so she had to really think.
