image by WordRidden

I love DIY. As I mentioned in another article, I have been hand making a lot of presents for my kids. Last year I had been eyeing the beautiful wood play food at one of our local toyshops, but at $2-$10 apiece I could really have only afforded a couple of items.

I did some searching online and discovered loads of knitted and crocheted play food on Etsy. Of course, that was out of my price range too, but I do know how to knit and crochet, so making some was in the realm of possibility.

I started with something simple, a pancake. I took some light brown yarn from my stash and crocheted a simple flat circle. I was initially intending to make two circles, stuff them a little bit and sew them together, but Cheyenne discovered me while I was crocheting and when I told her the circle was a pancake she ran off with it and started playing. I decided that if a simple circle worked for her as a pancake, it was good enough for me.

I went on to make some brown squares for bread (knitted with thicker yarn), some curly green circles for lettuce and some red circles for sliced tomatoes. I knitted some yellow squares for sliced cheese and crocheted some simple strips of bacon, just alternating between a light brown and a darker reddish brown yarn to make the stripes. Finally, I made some sunny side up eggs by making an asymmetrical white “circle” with a more symmetrical yellow circle sewed on top. Eventually I may attempt the amazing pies, cakes, sushi and other goodies I’ve seen on craftster and Etsy, but for now my kids are happy with their simple play food. I’ll never forget the day I was knitting a pink scarf and Cheyenne walked up to me and asked, “Mommy, are you knitting me some ham?”

Kits can be a fun thing to make and they don’t require any craft skills at all. Every year I look through catalogs like HearthSong, Rosie hippo and others and see kits for making all kinds of fun projects. Many of the kits are pretty expensive and could be made cheaply at home. Jewlery kits, embroidery kits, tied fleece blanket kits, knitting kits, sock monkey kits and cookie-decorating kits can be assembled pretty easily.

I saw a kit once for “snow painting” that was essentially just spray bottles with food coloured water. A box of food colouring and some $.99 spray bottles would accomplish the same goal. Add a list of instructions and you have yourself a fun, inexpensive gift.

Another fun item I saw was an ice cream maker in a ball. The idea is that you put the ice cream mix in the center of the ball and fill the outer ring with ice and rock salt. Then you roll it around until you have ice cream. The same thing can be accomplished with two coffee cans, one smaller and one larger and some tape. If you live in the frozen north, like me, you can just roll a coffee can filled with ice cream mix down a snowy hill. You could even include a sled for the kid to chase after the ice cream can.

Homemade books on MP3 or CD can be a fun gift if you have a digital voice recorder, or voice recording software. You can make up your own story or packaged with a copy of a picture book so you can “read” to your favourite far-away niece, nephew or grandkid.

One of my children’s favourite gifts from their paternal grandfather was a homemade book. He began with a letter to my girls telling them a little bit about their family’s history. Behind the letter was children’s book of his own creation about the life of his mother when she was a kid. He left blank spaces for the girls to colour their own pictures and imagine what her life must have looked like. It’s a really special gift that cost him nothing but time. If you are an artist, you could add some drawings of your own, or even work in the reverse. Draw a series of pictures and have the child write the story.

Kids thrive on creativity. They love knowing that something was made especially for them and they usually don’t care how much you spent. What they really want is time, thought and love.