To market, to market!

Whilst pottering around Pinterest this evening, I spotted a post about a market stall made from an Ikea shoe rack and Ikea wooden storage box. I thought it was really cool, then suddenly thought: "I have those things already..."

After a little rummaging to find out exactly where they were, I created one little market stall for the Little Crumpet to play with tomorrow.

I had absolutely everything already! Wooden, plastic and felt fruit and vegetables, wooden cupcakes and felt donuts, flowers from our Gardening box, Crumpet's till. The little shopping bag is the bag our wooden building blocks came in. I used the frame of the wooden storage shelves on top of the shoe rack for additional shelves. One day, I will make an awning and little sign to go above, but not bad for an evening out the blue!

Under the sea sensory play

I made up an Under The Sea themed sensory box this evening, for the little crumpet to explore tomorrow.

I coloured some rice blue, using gel food colouring, added blue and white pom poms, and some blue, green and silver sequins. I found some blue netting left over from a tutu I made, so I cut that up into thin slivers and added it into the tub too (although when I showed Crumpet earlier, she immediately took it out the tub and threw it on the floor, proclaiming "Not like!". I lined the tub with some blue tissue paper for a crinkly sensory touch.

I added some yellow, green and blue Duplo bricks and some wooden blocks for rocks.

We bought a tub of sea animals when we had our family day to the aquarium in January, so these have taken pride of place!

I've looked out some of her books which are sea linked, so I've put these on her play table too. I hope she enjoys playing with it!

Crumpet spotted the tub laid out on her play table, in the playroom, after her breakfast. She stood at the door, hopping excitedly from foot to foot, calling "Want it! Open door!"

The first thing she did was remove the netting from the tub; "Not like it" She then proceeded to "ooh", "aah" and "wow!" as she discovered all the creatures. She toddled through to the lounge to show her Daddy the creatures she found and then took him one of the books to read.

Invitation to play: flower shop

Flower shop invitation to play, all ready for when the little crumpet wakes up from her lunchtime nap!

It was so easy to put together, I picked up bits and pieces when I was shopping.

Seed packets, flower pots and seed markers: Wilkinsons
Artificial flowers: Ikea
Hand trowel and rake: Asda
Seeds: packet of wholefood seed mix, Asda
Soil: the rice is coloured with red and green food colouring, to make it brown, and a generous sprinkling of cocoa powder. The flowers are standing in chocolate playdoh. You can find the recipe from Anna at The Imagination Tree here.

Beware! It smells amazing so your little one might want to eat it!

The till and shopping basket are both from Early Learning Centre, watering can is from Wilkinsons and the colander is from B&M Bargains. The sorting tray is a card fruit tray that I painted.

Little crumpet absolutely adored playing flower shop! She's still too young for proper role play, but she had great fun scooping 'soil' into the pots and tipping it back out again, sticking her flowers into the playdoh soil, and emptying and refilling the packets of seeds! We spent well over an hour playing together! Our playroom may now have a good sprinkling of rice everywhere, but nothing a quick sweep and hoover won't fix!