Over the next few weeks, my son and I will be trying our hand at making toys, some of them modern and some old-fashioned toys of the type my grandmother might have known in her early-twentieth-century youth. I’ll be sharing the how-to and our results with you as we go. While we’ll be working on projects suited to his age (7), many of the things we’ll be doing can easily be enjoyed by both older and younger kids as well.

There is a lot of appeal to homemade toys: They can be made for little cost, usually of materials you have around the house (or recyclables that you’ve saved) and they give you the chance to work and problem solve with your child. Making your own toys helps fight boredom, teaches ingenuity, teaches traditional crafting/making, and at the end, you’ve either got something new to play with or at the very least a good story to tell.

I’ll be taking some time after work this week to consolidate our supplies and find out what we still need to make the specific toys he and I have already discussed – recycled racers, puppets, kaleidoscopes, magic lanterns, periscopes – as well as the other things I have up my sleeve. I’ll provide a detailed list of materials needed for each project, but below is a list of supplies I’m hoping to have on hand when we begin, which could be adapted for use as an indoor scavenger hunt for you and your kids:

• Adhesives & Fasteners
  • Brads
  • Glue and Glue Sticks
  • Invisible tape
  • Mucilage
  • Painter’s tape
  • Paste
  • Staples
  • Stickers
• Craft Supplies
  • Beads
  • Chenille stems/pipe cleaners
  • Glitter
  • Googly eyes
  • Popsicle sticks/tongue depressors
  • Sequins
• Markers, Pens, and Pencils
  • Ball-point pens
  • Colored pencils
  • Crayons
  • Markers – non-permanent
  • Standard pencils
• Miscellaneous
  • Aluminum pans – preferably those bound for recycling
  • Cotton swabs
  • Dowels
  • Empty plastic water bottles with caps and rings
  • Items from the recycling bin
  • Paintbrushes
  • Plaster of Paris
  • Rubber bands of various sizes
  • Toothpicks
• Paper, Paperboard, Tubes, and Cardboard
  • Assortment of papers – various weights and colors
  • Cardboard of various sizes and thickness
  • Cardstock
  • Construction paper
  • Egg cartons – paper and styrofoam
  • Empty cereal and cracker boxes
  • Junk mail
  • Magazines to cut up
  • Newspaper – for keeping work area neat and for use in projects
  • Pizza boxes (only if they’re more than 95% clean/food-free)
  • Scraps of wrapping paper
  • Small to medium-sized paper bags
  • Tissue paper of all types – craft paper as well as used gift wrapping
  • Tracing paper
  • Tubes from plastic wrap, foil,  wrapping paper; tubes from paper towel and toilet paper rolls
  • Wrapping paper
• Ribbon, Yarn, Sewing Notions, and Fabric
  • Assorted lengths and widths of ribbon
  • Buttons
  • Fabric scraps – from sewing or old clothes that can’t be otherwise re-purposed
  • Kite string
  • Medium-weight twine
  • Yarn
• Rulers and Measuring Devices
  • Measuring tape
  • Rulers
  • T-Squares
• Scissors, Cutters, and Punches
  • Corner punch
  • Hole punch – round
  • Scissors – regular
  • Scissors – unusual edges
  • X-Acto knife and cutting mat – for adult use