DIY Building Blocks

Do you remember the cardboard bricks that only the best church nurseries and day cares had?
I loved those things and thought they might be something CJ,  Miss Mak, and Bean would like too.
<enter my inexpensive solution with big impact>

This was the perfect time of year to start our collection as boxes flowed in to our house with the Christmas gifts. Each time the kids opened a gift that came in a box we tested the sturdiness of the box and if it passed the stability test we set it aside to wrap in wood grain contact paper which we purchased from Home Depot for about $7 a roll. The set we ended up with took three rolls of contact paper and we love the result! 

They were easy to put together and the kids love them just like I had hoped. One of the great things about the set we created was that we picked the box sizes we wanted and so we are able to make castles and forts that Hubs and I can fit into with the kids. 

{Miss Mak the princess and CJ the ferocious fire breathing dragon}

{the princess showing the dragon who's boss}

Looking back we should have given this to the kids for Christmas and saved ourselves some work finding other gifts but our pain is your gain as I highly recommend giving this a shot if you have builders in your home. You can start saving boxes now and have a huge stash for next Christmas!  

 

 

And... if you're not up for making boxes or don't have access to larger boxes, my sister was able to find sets of 40 for our kids for Christmas from Melissa and Doug. They are smaller but also much sturdier since they have cardboard supports in the middle whereas our boxes are empty and can't have weight put on them and smaller size means easier to store. {Another painful lesson learned.}

Happy Building!