Trip to Paris!

Last night we packed our bags for a fun impromptu trip to Paris, France! The girls dressed up in their most colorful outfits, and fanciest …. .sunglasses..?? We left from Washington, D.C., and we didn’t have any delays, problems with airport security, or any turbulence. A very smooth flight! Well…. the pilot may have taken a […]

Rainbow Village Printable

As soon as I finished designing one of these adorable paper cottages, the girls went off to play with it while I made a bunch more! We had lots of fun playing with these, and then took them apart and stored them flat in a file folder for future play times. They are very frugal […]

Easy Fishing Game

We went fishing in our foyer this afternoon — it was so much fun! I made up some fish out of pipe cleaners, attached a magnet to the end of the string on the fishing pole (a stick from our backyard), and we had an instant fishing game! Merlin wanted to play too! For the […]

Fairy Cafe

During Clara’s afternoon nap, Emily helped me declutter the sewing room.  I was re-organizing a drawer with thread, when I looked over and saw she had fashioned a table from some empty thread spools. We got a teensy bit side-tracked …….. I found some toothpicks with umbrellas in the kitchen and added them to the […]

Elevator Fun

We did a bit of tidying up that involved several trips up and down the stairs. So we installed an elevator in our foyer! Problem solved! Added bonus — the buttons on the inside of the elevator helped with Clara’s number recognition. Suddenly, I had no shortage of helpers to make the trips up and […]

Configure Your Own Cardboard Castle

We made this cardboard castle set, and it kept the girls happy and busy for a large part of this afternoon. For something as frugal as cardboard, it was a big hit! Not only did they spend a lot of time immersed in pretend play, but they also really enjoyed getting to decorate the castle […]

Simple Farm Take-Along Toy

I had a bit of red and white wool felt leftover from the fold up kitchen set I made last week, which worked out perfectly to make this sweet travel farm set! It was an easy, quick and very frugal sewing project that gave the girls hours of imaginative play! The animals are the free […]

DIY: Travel Play Kitchen Set

This travel play kitchen set was super-frugal to make, and is perfect for small living spaces since the entire set folds up! I’m thinking we’ll take it with us for trips to the garden plot, visits with grandparents, or just playing outside in the backyard like we did this afternoon. I used an ordinary folding […]

Pretend Play on a Dime — Donut Shop

It rained all day today, so while Clara was napping, Emily and I had a nice pocket of time for some crafting. She worked on some adorable paper dolls, and I put this together — A Mini Pretend Donut Shop! I used tan felt to sew the donuts (and batting to stuff them), then cut […]

Pretend Play on a Dime — Garden Center

Emily loves to pretend that she works at a garden center. She can spend hours arranging and re-arranging the flowers (as seen here), planting pretend seeds, and caring for her pretend plants. So Mark and I put together a little store front for her about a year ago, and she has been playing with it […]

Shop Update! Butterfly Play Set

Once upon a time, there was a little caterpillar who liked to eat lots of leaves. When he was full, he spun a cocoon, and went inside. He was in there for a long time! Then, the cocoon started to move, and…… out came a beautiful butterfly!! Emily had so much fun playing with this […]

Invisible Basketball

We had beautiful weather this afternoon, making it the perfect day for a fun game of basketball. There were just two problems: 1. We don’t have a basketball, and 2. We don’t have a hoop. So while our neighbor was out running errands, we snuck over to his driveway for a quick game of INVISIBLE […]

Penguin Playset Tutorial

We were going through the girls out-grown clothes and deciding which ones to donate to Goodwill, when Emily spotted these old microfiber tights. She declared we could make a penguin from them, and of course I had to agree! To make your own penguin playset, you will need: some felt, thread, old microfiber stockings, and […]

Handmade Holidays — Dolly & Me Lounge Pants

I had purchased one yard of pretty flannel fabric at JoAnn back when it was on sale, with the intention of sewing some cozy lounge pants for Emily. When the pants were done, I had just enough fabric leftover for a fun pair of matching pants for Dolly. Emily was so happy with these! Dolly […]

You can’t catch me!

All four of us enjoyed some late night baking this evening. We made gingerbread cookies! This is an activity Emily has been begging me to do for ages, but I’m not much of a baker. At all. Clearly, it was time to call in reinforcements! Hey, I know my limits. First, find the perfect cookie […]

Felt Food Giveaway… and Our New Etsy Shop!

It’s our one year blogiversary! To celebrate, I thought we would revisit one of our first craft posts from the archive, do a fun giveaway, and open a new Etsy shop! We have been very busy around here! One of the first crafts I ever posted at Frugal Family Fun Blog was for a felt […]

Hey there Little Red Riding Hood

I finished sewing Clara’s Halloween costume last night because there’s no sense in waiting until the last minute, right? Fortunately, this sweet hooded poncho for Little Red Riding Hood took less than 10 minutes to put together. I used 1 yard of costume fabric from JoAnn that was just $2.49/yard. Bargain! I love that her […]

Time Warp

We have entered the time warp that is Grandma and Papock’s house, where the girls are enjoying all the wonderful toys Mark used to play with when he was a kid. Don’t you just love that they saved this stuff? It’s a real trip down memory lane, I tell you. I couldn’t help but smile […]