MacGyver Mom Crafts

Well, it finally happened. Vee has grown tall enough to skim the top of her tiny hand over the edge of our storage shelf and grab hold of whatever happens to be sitting there. Yesterday she got her hands on a favour box I had designed, filled to the brim with jelly beans.

At first, she just reveled in her feat. Then, she discovered what a great shakey-thing the little box was. I watched transfixed, wondering at what point to intervene with the ever-too familiar ‘NO NO NO NO!!” Happily she continued shaking, perhaps with more force than I initially thought, because in about 30 seconds there were beautiful, colourful, choking hazards littering my living room floor. Crap.

It was the end of something good, and there were tears. It took me a full 45 minutes to calm my tot down and clean up. When I finished, she had seized an empty Gatorade bottle from the recycling bin. Greaaaaat. “Ok Sweetie, let’s give that to Mommy..” was met with hysteria and awesome toddler impudence. We played tug-of-war with it for a bit and then she faked me out and darted down the hall. Crap!

I’ll admit it was my need to be loved again by my daughter that motivated me to be creative. So when the Martha Stewart-esque light went off in my head I decided to go for it. Here’s the before and after of my favours, and Vee’s new favourite shakey-colour-thingy.

Jelly Bean favour boxes, suped up with ribbons and buttons. Not, however, toddler proof.

I wrenched the sticky Gatorade bottle away from Miss Stealth, by luring her over to her highchair for some yoghurt. That’s when I made my move. I washed out the bottle and dried it, and threw in the Jelly Beans. Then, I craftily added the ravaged ribbon from the discarded box remnants and tied a neat little bow around the cap. Sweet. The result? More smiles than you can shake a shakey-thing at.