Peixinhos No Sotao shares a simple play mat idea for playing cars. She offers a basic template, so you can keep it simple or jazz it up as you wish! See it here!

Love this toy dump truck made from recyclables! See Origami Mommy for the details!

This super-fun homemade toy from Julie K in Taiwan is a fabulous way to let your little ones practice screwing the tops on and off of bottles without losing the caps. Perfect for car rides! Check it out here!

Busy Books are very popular right now…for good reason. They’re compact and loaded with fun things for littles to do while (hopefully) sitting quietly. If you’ve been thinking about making one but are at a loss for ideas, be sure to check out Little Hands Big Work. I love the pages in her most recent book. I think my favorite page is this key and lock challenge:

This would keep my girls busy for quite some time! Go here to see the “Bitty Busy Book” and find more ideas in her original, “Big Busy Book”

Trixi, from Coloured Buttons, has been coming up with some really amazing kid toys using matchboxes as her foundation. This doll house is incredible with all of its tiny details, plus she’s added a bit of ribbon going through the roof making it highly portable (and fun to wear)!

She didn’t stop with this dollhouse. In fact, she challenged herself to complete weekly matchbox crafts for a month! This tiny rock theatre is another one of her creations:

Her other matchbox projects include a board game and matchbox bugs! I hope you’ll check out all of her matchbox crafts. You will surely come away inspired!

The Thrifty Chick came up with a clever remake of the classic game of Checkers. Here she shows how you can easily make over an existing Checkers set to make your own set with family photos!

I love this set of personalized name blocks from Melissa at Chasing Cheerios!. These would make a great gift for any child, especially those just learning to spell their name. What a fun way to practice putting the letters in the right order! Older kids could take it a step further by rearranging the letters to see how many words they can spell using the letters in their name, and the younger ones could simply enjoy stacking and playing with the colorful blocks! Go to Chasing Cheerios for the how-to!

How sweet are these pipe cleaner fairies from 5 Orange Potatoes? They would go perfect in a backyard fairy garden! Click here to learn how to make the fairies.

This little sea monster glove is a great way to make use of a lonely glove while making something fun for the kiddos to play with. Crafts and Creations with KMOM14 has a tutorial on her blog!

These gorgeous beanbags from Salt and Chocolate would make a wonderful addition to a child’s felt toy collection. They look so soft and calming, don’t they?! Plus, you don’t have to worry about your toddler throwing these rocks in the house! Click here to read more!

Here are a few more free felt food tutorials for me to add to my round-up:

From American Felt and Craft:

Cherry Pie

(Thanks to OCP reader, Alicia for the tip!)

Crackers

From Ikat Bag

Felt cake and decorations She also shows how to make individual slices so your little one can serve up cake at her next tea party!

Amanda at Kiddio shares a fun and simple way to add some fun to your kid’s bath time!  Let them help make these little soap boats and then watch ‘em sail their sudsy creations in the tub! I love it!

These safety cone car garages from One More Moore are brilliant! There are no instructions for making these, but I think with some orange felt and a little interfacing, a savvy sewer could whip one or two up quite easily. Lemme know if you try, and be sure to check out One More Moore for the original!

Joys Hope shares how she made this adorable baby crinkle (and taggie) toy that would make a perfect baby gift! Click here for the tutorial!

Ack! These dolls are soooo cute! I spent my down time during my fabulous weekend off working on one simple baby bib (this one), so I don’t think I’m quite ready for a knitted doll yet, but I’m bookmarking this pattern from Yarnigans for when I am. You can see it here!

Amanda at Kiddio followed the recommendation of her daughter and punched up the fun factor of their sidewalk chalk! Click here to see how they made these fun, multicolored chalk hearts. I could definitely see these going into some summer goody bags!

I don’t know why, but this marshmallow shooting apparatus from The Idea Room makes me giggle. I can just picture a bunch of kids running around shooting fluffy little marshmallows at each other. Total fun…for sure! Click here for the tutorial!

These ginormous lacing beads are the brainchild of Michelle at Her Cup Overfloweth! Click here to see how she used foam swim noodles from the Dollar Store to make this fun activity for her kiddos.

Doesn’t this sidewalk chalk paint look like glorious messy fun?! Cornstarch has some pretty amazing properties and I love how it makes the colors look marbleized as they mix together. Click over to Ohdeedoh for the how-to!

My toddler hasn’t been interested in her lacing beads lately, and I think this activity might be a great way to add some novelty to her day! The Wonder Years shares how she created this toy for her daughter using items she had around the house. For more of a challenge, you could create separate cards and have your child stack the beads according to a given color sequence (a la this post)

Out of the Crayon Box created these sweet little baby boys for the Craft Hope project and is sharing the pattern and a tutorial with her readers. I love her idea of sponging on the hair! Go on over for a link to her tutorial, and if you haven’t heard of this project yet, please click here to read more.

Patterns

Little geisha girl from Le Fee Crochet (from the author of Crobots). Just replace her dress details and hair ties with metallic ribbon and you’ve got the little geisha bot from the book!

Sleepy Sarah from Owlishly

Chubby Fish from My Gurumi

Amigurumi Doll from Stitch

Pear pattern from Amigurumi Girl

Banana from Amigurumi Paradise

Bear and honey pot from Ana Paula

Hello Kitty from Armina’s Ami-Nals

Eggs from Bitter Sweet

Bruno Bear from Knitting Turnip

Snail pattern from Knotty

Bunny Boo from Roxycraft

* Please check the respective copywrite info for each of these patterns. Most are for personal use only and may not be sold or reproduced.

Learning Amigurumi:

See How to Start Amigrumi from My Gurumi.

Check out some great video tutorials from Roxycraft. She’s also got crochet tutorials for left-handers (look all the way to the right in her sidebar)!

Visit Planet June for many tutorials to help you along your way.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, go back over to My Gurumi to learn about adding hair!

Snazzle Craft shares a free pattern for some fun felt food. Click here if you’d like to add sandwhich and chips to your felt food collection!

All of these remakes of men’s shirts are just so inspiring! Most recently, Shannon from luvinthemommyhood created this dress and I absolutely love it. Love the colors, love the breezy look about it, love the flower…love everything about it! It’s also encouraging to know that a beginning sewer created it since I’m still a newbie myself. Shannon doesn’t have a tutorial up yet, but she’s working on one so keep an eye out on her blog!

Dot from Dabbled has created some crazy hand puppets using felted sweaters. They look like a ton of fun to make and play with. Go to Dabbled for a how-to!