To celebrate her blog’s one year anniversary, Rachelle of Tinkerlab issued a challenge – do something fun with a cardboard box and share it with the world.

We’ve raided the recycling bin before for cardboard boxes (the peanut butter covered YUM sign was my personal favorite) but I tried to come up with something unique this time. And something not too messy because last night when a buyer gave me 10 minutes notice to see the house, I wound up putting a sinkful of dirty dishes in my car. Yeah, not my best moment but the house looked good!

My original thought was to create a solar oven out of a pizza box, but Claire has been obsessed with my scrap pile of fabrics (I’ve been busy whipping up curtains and she plays “sewing” or “spaghetti” with the scraps) so I instead I whipped up a cardboard loom for her.

The “how-to” for this project could not be easier, and for the minimal effort put into this, it kept Claire busy for a good hour.

While eating the pizza, I cut long vertical slits into the box.

See them below? Claire thought if she laid in the box she could be a pizza that “Mommy would gobble up in kisses.” This kid cracks me up.

We raided the scrap pile for a hodpodge of fabrics. Recognize the blue and green ones from the refrigerator quilting project?

I got things started for her and Claire pulled the fabric through each row. It was tricky for her to get the hang of it, but after a few minutes she was able to take over. If the slits had been wider vertical slats rather than single line cuts, weaving would have been easier.

Over and under. Over and under.

Claire complained the cardboard was dirty so I introduced the vocabulary word “patina.”

Once Claire deemed the weaving complete, she held it up and laughed at all the “tails” hanging down.

This led her to the conclusion that all along we were designing a kite. I went with it and tied a few scraps together for a line and we set out in the yard to launch our creation. Claire was quite the sight running around the yard with her pizza box flapping in the breeze — I’m all for creating a spectacle in the neighborhood if a happy kid is the result. Heehee!

Happy Blog-iversary TinkerLab! If you have yet to visit Rachelle’s amazing site, do yourself a favor and add it to your reading list, there is a lot of great things happening over there. And don’t forget to check out the other bloggers who participated in the cardboard box challenge below. I’d love to hear your ideas too! There’s a linky list at the end of the post share blog posts or leave a comment with how you and your kiddos play with cardboard boxes.

http://www.linkytools.com/thumbnail_linky_include.aspx?id=87279

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