Food for Play

KidCraft Kitchen $30 from craigslist (regularly $140)

Lady genevieve discovered her new kitchen, that was supposed to be a birthday present- though upon discovery it was not hidden very well.  It was in plain sight actually.  We've had it for over a month, and only recently had I been concealing it with towels.  She hadn't taken notice of it before then.  I briefly had it uncovered to check out the shelf heights.  And then I never draped the towels back over it.  As I was working in the kitchen, she stood in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room.  In amazement she said, "kitchen!" and ran over to it.  And the rest has been history- she loves it to pieces.  It it seriously hours of fun, and I hope that remains.

I decided to make play food out of our empty containers.  We took a field trip to the grocery store in search of small size packaged foods.  We came away with an individual bottle of milk, Tropicana Orange Juice, a tiny single service of Naked Juice (Green), a small ice cream container, Parmesan cheese, ketchup and a few canned items.

To make it fun, we filled each of the bottles with a little bit of kids Crayola paint & water to coat the inside of the bottles with appropriate colors.  White for milk.  Orange, Yellow & White for Tropicana OJ.  Green, Yellow & Teal for the Naked Juice. Red for the Heinz Ketchup.  I may have added too much water, as the liquid still slowly moves around inside the bottle.  But I like that it re-coats the inside when I shake it around, so I don't mind.  They turned out super cute.

I saved and cleaned one single serving of Peach yogurt.  Cut a piece of thin cardboard the shape of the foil lid, as extra support.  Then used Mod Podge to glue everything together.  I used chip clips on each corner to hold it together tight while drying.  I coated the entire outside of the yogurt with the Mod Podge to make it smooth and keep the label from peeling off.

For canned goods, so far we have a can of tuna.  Our can opener cuts from the side, which is awesome since it cuts without creating sharp edges.  I used the Mod Podge to glue to top back onto the can, and then completely coated the exterior of the can to make it smooth and keep the label from peeling off.



For kitchen tools, I found a few cute pieces from Savers (our local Thrift Store).  A small sauce pan, a small mixing bowl, and mini-muffin tin.  I found some other things around our kitchen to add to her collection.  I also cut a new sponge in half so she would have something to clean her kitchen with.

We made some canisters for flour & sugar out of basic brown boxes from the craft section at Joann's.  Spray painted the lids Rubbed Oil Bronze, and the bottoms a textured cream- both spray paints I already had on hand from other projects.  I coated them with Mod Podge to smooth out the exterior and keep the spray paint from chipping later.

As easy as it would be to go an buy play kitchen food & utensils, it is so much fun to make your own unique collection.  I also tend to think this may be the more economical route to go as well- as toys are quite expensive.  This food collection has only just begun.

Felt Farfelle (Bow-Tie Pasta)

I made some felt pasta for the food collection.  Here are a few websites that I used to make our felt pasta:

Felt Farfalle (Bow-tie)
Felt Ravioli
Felt Tortellini

Felt Ravioli Pasta

 

Felt Tortellini

 They turned out pretty cute.  I purchased pre-cut felt squares from Joann Fabrics.  I also had to buy pinking scissors to make the cute zig-zag edges on the ravioli & bow-tie pasta.  They were more expensive than I imagined, but I used a coupon so that helped with cost a bit.  A very inexpensive craft to make for fun play food.  I found that the ravioli were the easiest to make, since I could use the sewing machine.  I had to hand sew the farfelle and machine & hand sew the tortellini.  I initially rolled the tortellini incorrectly, but I was able to flip them inside out and roll the correctly without a hassle.  Lady genevieve is going to know her different pastas with the help of our little felt foodies!

Happy playing!