Monday, November 19, 2007

Thinking about gifts & consumerism & meaning

I spent a great deal of time this week obsessing over whether we should try & buy Olive this barn for Christmas/Solstice. Which is crazy. It's $270 & she's only 16 months old. But it is SO beautiful & I love the ideas behind Waldorf toys.

So I had to sit back & really think about my motivations for buying. About toys & what I think about marketing to children. About what Olive would really enjoy. About my desire to give her things that will spur on her imagination & not just crap that only remains entertaining for a short period of time.

Last night I reread a couple of really great blog posts on toys & came up with some ideas for Olive & my niece Kaitlyn.

Olive loves doing up buckles & zippers. I have a book on sewing kids toys from about 1972 that features a house-boot that I can attach zippers, buckles & buttons to for Olive to play with. And I can make some little felt figures to go inside (like an old woman & her children?). I also received this amazing book for my birthday along with some cashmere (!!!) to knit the creatures out of. I'm planning on making the hen & chicks, along with some eggs & a nest. I was also thinking that a chalk board & some chalk for drawing would be fun, plus a couple of books of course. That should be good for gifts for the wee girlie.

My niece is 6, & is one of those kids whose room is jammed with 50 billion pieces of plastic. Literally. For her I'm going to pick up some early chapter books from the VPL booksale (Frog & Toad, some Doctor Seuss, Amelia Bedelia, good stuff). I'm also going to put together a finger puppet kit with felt, embroidery floss, & needles, & a kit to make clothespin dolls. Clothespin dolls kick Pollypocket's ass.

Toys. Knitting. Must. post. pictures.

Oy! Another amazing birthday present was 4 hours of housecleaning from a friend's lovely housecleaner. This afternoon Shawnee is going to scrub my floors, my tile, my grout. And Olive's going to go play with Etta. And I'm going to the gym! Woohoo!

2 comments:

brie said...

I was reading Boing Boing yesterday while I was at work and came across a thing that I would have loved to get as a kid (8-10ish). It's a giant cardboard rocket that you paint and decorate and play in. Made from recycled cardboard! It's from the UK. Anyhow, it made me think about our conversation about kid toys on Saturday---thank you again for the soup and being a lovely host (and Doug, too!)

karen said...

please do post pictures of home made toys!! ive been getting into toy making too (mostly waldorf inspired) so if youd like to check out my blog (in a few days when i get around to putting pictures on) youll see some of the beauties (and not such beauties) ive been whilling up. looking forward to a future of no more plastic toys in my house!!