Indoor Igloo

BURRR!!!! Baby it’s Cold Outside……Yes today was one of those bitterly cold days up here in good ol Wisconsin. Temperatures around 4 degrees without a windchill. These are the days that its to cold to send your kids out to play and they are itching to do something. Lucky for me I have a ton of unused flat rate boxes that I use to send out items once in a while. Really you can use any boxes you have lying around, or even sheets work for this. I remember back when I was Jesse’s age, that’s what my Brother and I used to build forts and tents in the house when we couldn’t go outside to play. I made sure not to destroy the boxes so I could use them again in the future.

As the morning set in today I could see that my little one had a little more energy than usual and figured that he could use a good project to work on and play with. I just received a brand new shipment of Large flat rate boxes and my Husband and I decided to build an indoor igloo for Jesse.  My Husband did most of the constructing of little igloo while Jesse and I decorated the inside with his beanbag chair, a little clip on LED light, and some of his toys. We finished it off by adding a small flat rate box and taping it to the pillar and using it as his personal little mailbox. All this was done just in time for the mail lady to come and bring a letter that had some stickers in it for him to add to his stickerbook collection.

 This extremely cheap family activity was able to give our entire family a fun-filled afternoon and evening. It was such a delight to see him interact like he was an adult going into his own home and then having to leave to go to work. (Just like his Daddy) When he would get home he would check his mail. Most of the time I just filled it with our left over junk mail. I love being able to do projects like this that make our little one interact, think, and problem solve. As Jesse was the one that added the chimney to the igloo. I just can’t see taking it down tonight so I am sure we will have another fun-filled day with it tomorrow, seeing how we are expecting up to 8 inches of snow tomorrow. 

I just wanted to share this to remind everyone that it doesn’t take much to entertain your family and this did not cost us a dime. I look forward to sharing more of our cheap family activities as they come up. If you have any suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Stay warm

 

 

 p.s. Yes that is a small “Christmas Tree in the corner of the photo. We are starting to get our Valentine’s day tree set up for next month.  I will share photo’s after the tree is finished being decorated.

By the way Listia is a great place to get stickers, embellishments, and other materials for crafting really cheap. It’s where I get 75% of my material and even a few items to pamper myself once in a while.  The reason I am telling you is because unlike Ebay its free. There are some items that might have minimal shipping costs, but for the most part you can find free shipping on a lot of items. You can find a link to it at the bottom of the page if you are interested in checking it out.

Santa’s Elves Entrance

This was such a fun project to work on with my little boy. He is still in the age where anything that lights up or is special is like magic. I was trying to find something for us to do that was different from making decorations for the tree or the walls. I had a big box left over from when we bought our carpet cleaner and decided to use it instead of sending out to the recycling bin. This project ended up looking so nice that we are using as a center piece in our house layout. When we host Christmas this year the food table will be set up near the elves door way and north pole sign. There are also some snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, and the entire house is lit up in blue LED’s. Anyway the kids will love creating this project and it will remain loads of fun for them while it’s on display. It will also make for a great conversation piece with all your friends and family. You can really decorate the house with whatever material you like and design it so that it fits your Christmas Theme. I worked with some materials that I had extras from other projects.

 

Supplies I Used:

• 1 big box
• 8 sheets of plain red tissue paper
• 2 sheets of red designed tissue paper
• 4 sheets of white tissue paper
• Glitter
• 1 half piece of white construction paper
• Christmas Lights

 

Instructions:

1. Take your box and stand it so it’s the tall way.
2. Then take a scissors and cut out your door, just make sure you don’t cut it all the way off.
3. Then cut out the bottom of the box.
4. Take your roof paper and glue that on to the top of the box.
5. Then glue on the siding
6. The next step is to glue on the paper for the door.
7. With the card board that you cut off earlier cut a strip and fold it a few times to make a square for the chimney and glue that on top of the roof paper
8. Take a smaller strip of card board for the door knob and brush a coat of glue on it
9. glitter your door knob and then set aside to dry.
10. Then with your half sheet of paper make your sign for the door. Ours read Santa’s Elves Only, However yours can say whatever you would like it to say.
11. I decorated our sign with glitter also
12. Then glue on your door handle after its done drying
13. The last step is to finish adding whatever little touches you would like to add to the house. For instance, I added Christmas Tree Lights. If you would like the pattern and instructions for the lights please leave a message for me in the comments section of this post. Thank you

Thats It. Jesse loves this house and plays with it everyday. I really liked the way it turned out and I would be really excited to see how your Santa’s Elves Entrance turns out!!