Frugal Halloween tips from livingonadime.com

Halloween find: http://www.menus4moms.com/articles/frighteningly_frugal_fun.php
Fake blood, wounds, homemade facepaint, etc. Don't buy when you can make!

Junky toys underfoot + toss away magnets = FUN

I hope I'm not the only one with a few of those "where'd we get that toy?" toys laying around.
I was thinking of throwing it away when I saw some phone book magnets that were pending the same fate. Combine them with superglue, stick it on the fridge or dishwasher and VOILA - a toy that is never in the way, and that your toddler is suddenly interested in b/c it has an affixed place where he can run by and make it spin anytime he takes the fancy.

Color-mixing and paints with a dollar-store apron

Seen a cute manufactured Toddler artist kit that you wanted to get for your little Rembrandt? I'll bet that you can have much more fun without paying the price!

I got the idea from my sil: for this project, I filled each mini-muffin compartment with water (she used ice cube trays), brought out the food coloring and gave him a chopstick for mixing. We practiced counting with the coloring drops, colors, descriptive & decision making skills, and an emerging language pattern of his (Verb+ing) as we made a big deal out of mixing and stirring. He then used a little craft paintbrush that I had (otherwise could have been a Q-Tip) on a normal old coloring book page (you can print free coloring pages for preschoolers at many sites online- google it!) and painted to his heart's content - about 80 seconds of contentment anyway :) He's 2.  So much fun together!

Free and simple Kiddie-table

So I've been wanting a cute table for my kids to be able to sit at for snack time or for craft time. It would be nice to try and spare my dining room table a bit of kiddedness. But, as per the theme, they were all expensive! So on with the hack:


Take one STURDY cardboard box- cut cleverly-placed rectangles out of 4 sides. (You know which 4!)
Use some tape to reinforce the edges and cover any sharp edges from cutting.

Reinforce the box flaps underneath to maintain tabletop shape.
Get carried away with the tape as you notice "just one more spot" that could use some protective coating.

So there it is, and in the next post I'll show you a homemade activity we do on it.

Einstein didn't have Baby Einstein

When I began delving into the wonderful world of children's toys, I was fresh and excited, looking forward to heightening my little Jack or Jill's cognitive capacity through sound modern developmental research. Now, as a slightly more seasoned mother, when I see neat toys at the store I say a special phrase to myself (Einstein didn't have Baby Einstein) and think "How can I give my kid the same learning experience for free?"
The next series of posts will be on some of my attempts and discoveries at hacking toys and games, and how my kids have liked them.