Pinterest love!

These days, I am totally in love with Pinterest, as many people seem to be! ;) There are just SO many ideas out there, and if I find anything, anywhere on the internet, that I'm interested in, I can pin it in a second to a categorized virtual pinboard. This REALLY helps me with my foggy pregnancy brain, because I can't remember a thing I found or where I found it these days, lol! So it's great to go to my "ideas for the boys" or "school ideas for my 1-4 year olds" boards (I have LOTS of boards!), or even my "recipes" board, and see my options for new things to try that I already love the look of. Or a new recipe - never going to lose that once it's pinned! :)

Pinterest is really inspiring me to MAKE stuff for the little ones' school time. There is so much out there, so many crafty mamas have made some awesome stuff for their littles - particularly Montessori type stuff. I love the things I'm finding! I am itching to get crafting, but just don't really have much time for it. I just love the idea of making things that my little ones can use and really learn from, and which can be passed on to other toddlers as we have them. I especially like the frugal ideas, so as to make great stuff for them to learn from AND save money! :)

Last night I finally got chance to repurpose an old tray we've had for years, and don't use. It's a chrome-edged, wooden-based tray, and the wood was pretty stained and cracking a bit. We have other bright coloured trays and never use the old wood/chrome one. I saw this coloured car playmat that someone made for their little one to practise colour matching with, and LOVED it. I pinned it right away and forgot about it. Then a month later I saw this colour match car parking activity in exactly the same style, but this time placed inside a tray for a Montessori "tray" activity for a pre-schooler, and I pinned it immediately.

Finally I have made my own! I originally planned to make a card/paper coloured car park like the examples, and use it as a tray liner for this old tray, but when I got the tray out to measure it, I realised it would be really cool to paint it in there permanently with acrylic paint! I LOVE painting in any form, so I was thrilled to get the paints out last night and start mixing colours! :)

Here is the finished article. I am SO pleased with it! :) I matched it up with cars for an activity for Benjamin's workbox today, and ALL the boys were so excited when they saw what I'd made! Benjamin had no trouble matching the colours and naming them all, and loved playing with it for about 45 minutes after initially doing the matching!



I'm so pleased with it that I wanted to blog about it right away, and knew I needed to just DO IT rather than hope I found time later! I should always blog this way! Mind you, now lunch is running late, so I had better go and get that done! School is already finished for the day :)