Homemade Toys - Picture Discs

I made this game/toy for my youngest daughter (D2) who is 19 months old and I must say I am so so pleased with the play value it has provided - even my 4 year (D1) old loves it.

Initially I made them just to give D2 a way of looking at photographs.  She absolutely loves sitting at the computer with me looking at pictures of people she recognises so I wanted to find a way that she could do this by herself.  Our efforts have 21 faces but can be as large or small as you like.

They were so simple to make - the trickiest bit will be finding enough jar lids (You could always mount your pics on cardboard but I feel the Jam jar lids make them really easy for little fingers to handle and should give a little more longevity too).

You will need:

• Photos of close friends and family
• Scissors
• A pen/pencil
• Glue (I found the only glue that would hold the pictures firmly in place was super glue)
• Jam jar lids or similar
• Something to cut round (I found a pastry cutter to be the perfect size)
• Half an hours peace and quiet to get the job done.

What to do:

• It really is as simple as cutting out the faces and glueing them in to the discs/lids.
• Leave plenty of time for the glue to dry.

Ways to play:

1. Just allow your child to explore them alone.
2. Look at them together and talk about each person.
3. Play sorting games for example:
• Who lives in our house? (The BigD's family all live in NZ so we do that too)
• men/women
• Adults/Children
• Hair colour
• Explore relationships - "Can you find Daddy's Mummy", etc...

If you dream up another way to play with them then I would love to hear it.  Please leave me a comment below or email with suggestions and I will add them here.

If you liked this post then you may also like to take a look at the "Busy Day" personalised story book we made.

Not suitable for really young children that are likely to put things into their mouths as the glue, I am almost certain, will be full of toxins!

Homemade Toys - Personalised Story Book

Last week I made a special book for D2. We called it "(insert D2's Real name here) Busy Day" I thought I'd share with you what we did.

We took the camera out with us for the day and captured the things we do on a daily basis. I chose a Wednesday as it is D2's favourite day - we go to "Booby Club", the local breastfeeding support group. I tried to mainly include things that happen EVERY day, breakfast time and getting dressed for example, with only a couple of pics that represent what happens on a Wednesday.

Once I looked at all the pictures we had taken throughout the day I soon realised there were going to be far too many things to hold her attention so I managed to get it down to 11 pictures.

Finding the right photo album for little hands was one of the biggest challenges. I wanted the book to be D2's, not something that only Mummy gets to touch. I found this one from boots, it has got a tightly bound spine, is just the right length, reasonably priced and I think it will last more than 5 minutes! The Pattern isn't one I would have necessarily gone for but beggars can't be choosers - If anyone finds a better one please let me know.

One final tip. Take all your pictures in the same orientation (All landscape or whatever is dictated by your chosen album). I leant the hard way and so a couple of the best shots didn't make it into the book.

If you liked this idea then you might want to take a look at my post on home made picture discs.