We’re continuing with our series of reader appreciation giveaways in celebration of our upcoming 1,000th post here on Frugal Family Fun Blog, and this time I am so excited to host a super-fun giveaway sponsored by my friends at Makedo!! If you and/or your kids love building creative spaces with cardboard ((umm…hello, who doesn’t?!?)), you should know about Makedo.
Makedo, an Australian toy company, makes and sells re-useable safe-saws, connectors, and cardboard hinges — allowing kids ages 5 and up to create amazing toys and spaces from recyclables! It’s sort of like our Invention Kit, on steroids. They have a Free Play kit, and also several “find & make” kits that give kids a bit more direction for building.
We have enjoyed our Makedo kits for almost a year, and the kiddos have made such great memories with these. To give you an idea, our Makedo kits helped to make exciting cardboard planes from diaper boxes.
And…. a sweet flower shop from moving boxes!
And even a fun dollhouse from shoeboxes!
These are just some of the things we’ve enjoyed creating with our Makedo kits. What I adore about these kits is the virtually endless possibilities for imagination and creative play — all with the use of recyclables!!
Now the FUN part — One lucky Frugal Family Fun Blog reader will win a Makedo Prize Pack consisting of a Free Play Kit for One and a Find & Make Cardboard Play House Kit to kick start some serious creativity in your household!! Giveaway is open world-wide (Yay!). To enter for your chance to win, leave a comment on this post sharing an idea for something you or your child would like to build with a Makedo kit. For an extra entry, leave a separate comment telling us about your favorite childhood toy. Fun, right??
This giveaway ends Saturday, December 17th @ 6:30pm EST and winner will be chosen at random. (See Official Giveaway Rules.)
Good luck!!
[Update: This giveaway is now closed, and the winner is…. Simone E! Congratulations, and a big thank you to everyone who entered this amazing giveaway! Another super-fun giveaway starts soon!!]
My son would love to build a castle with a makedo kit.
A kitchen! My boy (2yo) loves pretend (and real) cooking and he would love a kitchen with storage. I had never heard of those until this post of yours, they look like a great invention 🙂
vehicles , my son will love it:)
gr8 giveaway
I’ve been thinking about making a cubby house with hidden features like a bookcase that opens as a door and double hinged doors that open one way as a cupboard or the other way as a window a la Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. This would save me a lot of stickytape.
I would like to build a play bakery shoppe or a kitchen. . . or even that flower shop! Thanks so much for hosting this giveaway!
I would make a play restaurant or a castle for my 2 boys. I would love to win this – we’ve had a lot of crappy things going on in our life the past month (job lay off and insurance loss, major move in with in-laws b/c we couldn’t keep our home, all of our stuff – including most of my kid’s toys – in storage) and this would be a boost! That’s why I’ve been making a lot of sock donuts lately! Anyway – definitely a play restaurant or a castle!
We’ve made stovetops and houses with cardboard boxes but this would expand our options even more! I asked my 5 year old daughter and she said she would build towns with the makedo kit. She’s already drawing out the floor plans so hope she’ll win! Thanks for the giveaway!
My son, Sagan, wants to build a rocketship with his makedo supplies!
My favorite childhood toys were things we found around the house or outside…paper, bricks, bottle caps, rocks, etc. They were perfect for making dolls to building forts!
Sorry, I used the wrong e-mail in my previous comment above.
We are big time fort builders here at my house. Definitely a fort.
My favorite childhood toy was a Barbie and some silk scarves. I would wrap the scarves in various fashions around my doll.
Definitely an airplane. Or a pirate ship. Maybe a pirate airplane ship! The possibilities are endless…
My favorite childhood toy…I remember LOVING the little loom you could weave stretchy bands on to make potholders. I made a lot of potholders.
Dollhouse slash care bear house slash princess castle. Thanks for the chance!
My girls would love to build a castle for their princesses!
Favorite toy… Probably barbies. Mine were always having babies. 🙂
I already know my kids would build houses for their stuffed animals. So fun!
There would be some serious boat making over here!
My favorite childhood toy was anything crafty. I didn’t really play with toys much at all. But I loved me some crafts! And really any kind of pretend play. Now my kids are the same way!
We would be building a playhouse
My kids would want to make a castle or fort, for sure!
Favourite toy as a kid? Lite Bright and Easy Bake Oven!
My favorite childhood toy were these cardboard boxes that were shaped (and colored) like bricks. We used to wall ourselves in
My boys would love to make forts 😉
I’ve been hoping to get to try one of these out, maybe this will be the time! I’d definitely help my girls make a dollhouse or a car, both frequently attempted but never quite mastered around here.
My favorite childhood toy, beside the Barbies, was probably my domino race set. I spent hours making tracks and knocking them down.
We would definitely make a play kitchen first. Next,a fire truck or firehouse.
My favorite toy as a kid was my green Glow Worm. So much so that I tracked one down on eBay to get when I found out I was pregnant with my first. It was worth the expense to me to have him play with something from my own childhood. The thing is as old as I am!
My boys would build a train. We have a card board box “Dinosaur train- Time tunnel” right now. It’s been so much fun! We have had it up for months now!
I liked playing house with my baby dolls when I was little.
When I first saw this toy I figured it was too young for my boys. I figured wrong. My 11 year old wants one for Christmas! 😉 I’m 99.9% sure he’ll build some sort of plane.
I loved Etch-A-Sketch and Lite Brite when I was younger. 🙂
My 3 year old has been into barbies lately – I’m sure she’d love making them a house to play in.
Right now we are building a TV out of cardboard, would be fun to make a camera to go with it
My kids are constantly making forts and buildings out of our furniture and blankets, this would maybe be a little easier on our home layout!
My little guy has been really into “Space” lately, so he would probably like to build a space shuttle.
I loved rocks growing up, ha! And books 🙂
My children would go crazy for this, hope I win! I’m sure they would make all kinds of things. Right now probably a manger for the nativity they keep acting out 🙂
If we received the Makedo kit, I would build a doctor’s clinic for my 2 yo daughter. She loves playing doctor and “borning” her babies. I think it would be a delight to make a clinic room with a doll bed and counter space, a door and window and a clipboard holder. (Wow, now I want to play in it too!)
My favorite childhood toy was my stuffed penguin, Pengui. The simple things!
My kiddo loves dogs, so I think a multi-story dog super-house would be in order!
My favorite childhood toy was one of those geometric puzzles that let you make your own designs – all of the symmetry made this little anal-retentive heart happy!
The things they would think! I could see a beauty shop, a restaurant, a library,…
My favorite childhood toy was my Fisher-Price record player and all the story books/records that I had.
Oh pick the Zackeys, we’d love these kits!
hard to choose just one, but right now I’m thinking of my red haired cabbage patch doll, because I wanted her so badly and loved her so adoringly, she became part of the family, and she shows the love and frequent outdoor play I did with her!
We’d love to build a doll house with a make do kit. I have some wooden peg people to paint for my daughter–they need a home. 🙂
My favorite childhood toy was a doll. I got her for free by collecting 8 million (or maybe it was just 32–I can’t remember exactly) proofs of purchase from the Blue Bonnet Sue margarine boxes. It took my FOREVER, but I loved her. She was soft doll (I thought of her as a “rag doll” like Laura Ingalls had) and had a blue bonnet and blue dress with an apron. Loved her!
I’ve been wanting to make a mailbox for my kids – this would be great! And I’m sure they’d love a car. Or plane. Or train. Or house… castle… stable… fort… store… yep, they’d love it!
My daughter Sophie would love to make a fairy house!
I think my daughter will end up building a firetruck. She is into playing firefighters lately.
My favorite childhood toy was legos. I used to love building houses with them.
We would make a pirate ship. To sail on the high seas of our living room!
My favourite childhood toy was a date stamper, glue, envelopes and all my books. I used to play libraries and make little borrowing cards and stick envelopes in the back of my books so that I could check them in and out for my family and stamp them with the due date! Of course now there are bar code scanners which isn’t quite the same….
Oh wow! I love the idea of these kits but have never used one….yet. I’m also so proud that they are Australian!! My girls would make a doll’s house as my 6 year old absolutely loved the one your girls made with shoe boxes, and they’re old one has fallen apart.
My fave childhood toy was Big Loader, a set of dump trucks and scooper trucks etc that would go round a little track and pick up little balls and deliver them to the dump area and back again. It was mesmerising. Not a very girly toy but there you go.
my kids would love to build a playhouse with boxes using these! what a great idea!
my favorite childhood toy was my cabbage patch kid doll. i loved that doll so much!
A pirate ship, a big house, an ice cream shop…well, I could think of a lot of things to build! Looks like such a fun toy!
I have never seen these before. How cool are they!!! I’m sure my daughter would want to recreate the horse stable we built out of cardboard last winter that recently saw its last day. That would be first on the list.
My favorite toy when I was a kid was my bear, Ted E. Bear. He is now 34 years old and still with me. He definitely shows signs of all the places I dragged him.
We would love to make an old-fashioned fort. With lots of openings my boys could crawl through and set up for my daughter to play in.
My favorite childhood toy was and is plain wooden blocks.
Thats such a cool idea! Thanks for the giveaway!
A bus! Of course 🙂 So that my girls can travel to all sorts of places and take all their special friends with them. They are both very good drivers. Nice giveaway Valerie, good on you.
We would so make a castle!
We would make vehicles including a sub, airplane, and tank. My boys probably would think of things I can’t to make as well like dragons, whales, and who knows what else.
A favorite childhood toy was a cradle my dad made me. It was sturdy enough for me to climb into it and pretend it was other things as well.
We would build beds for my DD’s Build-A-Bears. Maybe even…a couch, coffee table, wardrobe…who knows!? 🙂
Layla loves to play in her kitchen, but it lacks counter space, similar to our real kitchen. I’m thinking an island for her to have more room to play…
Favorite childhood toy…do the great outdoors count?? Ok, how about my playmobil. Loved that stuff. Layla loves hers now, too! Fun, basic, use your imagination toy. ahhh….
I would love to make a play kitchen out of cardboard! This kit looks so cool!
My favorite toys were my Cabbage Patch Dolls. Love how they are trying to make a come back right now 🙂
We would love to build a space ship.
Books!
A race car and a castle.
My daughter wants to build a Barbie House.
I think my boys would enjoy making a train station or a train with these kits. Their totally obsessed with trains.
My favorite toy? The easybake oven!
I always loved making forts as a kid. I made them all over the house, in the backyard and in the ditch behind my house. I also loved playing softball, so a bat and ball are also favorites.
Ooh, the possibilities are endless! We would probably use it to make a store out of cardboard boxes… or maybe even a dollhouse… or both!
My favorite “toy” growing up was my giant bin of dress-up clothes!
My son would love building forts with Makedo.
My kids would love to build a fort or kitchen area.
We would make a cupcake shop. Cupcakes made out of everything are a favorite in our house, so a place to sell them would make my daughter’s day:)
If we won we would make everything! and anything! Castles, boats, shops, mailboxes, train stations… whole cities!
My favorite childhood toy was cardboard boxes, specifically shoe boxes that I could make into houses for dolls- complete with paper cup elevators! Winning this would be like reliving my childhood with my children!
My daughter will love to try to build a 4stars restaurant (kitchen and all the rooms)with this awesome kit!
my kiddos are big into cardboard boxes. i would love to see their imaginations run wild with this kit
it would have to be a castle…we already have a knight and a princess costume to go with it!
my favorite toy was a clunky piano. love that thing. just new that i would be a pianist one day. oddly enough, i play guitar now.
My daughter has been interesed in how animals make nests and burrows and live in hollow trees, so I suspect we would be making structures that evoke these things, or whatever suits her current fancy. Sounds like fun!
I loved having a collection of loose materials for making anything and everything…my parents let me create “art center” in my room with interesting cast-offs, as well as tape and glue. As for toys, I loved Lincoln Logs, miniatures, stuffed animals.
They would probably each want to build their own house so they could pretend they were neighbors! So neat!
My favorite childhood toys … well I have the best memories of my cabbage patch doll & pet… and playing GI Joe with my brother!
We’d like to make a frontier fort.
What *wouldn’t* my boys like to build with this? Hmm…today, I’m gonna have to say a fort.
My favorite childhood toy. Well, I gotta be honest, the first thing that came to mind was anything I could use as a parachute to jump off our front porch, umbrella, sheet, garbage bag…you get the idea 🙂
My son and I would love to build an ice cream truck/stand. We’re always pretending to play that, so I know he’d be thrilled to build one where he can serve me ice cream from the window. 🙂
My sons would love to build a bakery
My favorite childhood toys were dolls and teddy bears…my sister and I would hurry and gather them all up to save them from the flood or some other natural disaster.
My two year old would be building trucks of some sort!
A favorite two from childhood – a latch hook kit.
My children would build so many things with Makedo. And I would have a lot of fun watching what they came up with.
A train would be fun!
I want to build a zoo for DS, and maybe a maze of shoe boxes to use their ZhuZhu pet in.
I played with my dolls a lot growing up and I was also a big fan of the game Kerplunk!
My kids love playing pizza shop and I know they would enjoy making a real pizza shop. They would also like to build an airplane or car. The possibilities are endless.
My favorite toy growing up was fashion plates. I loved mixing and matching and making cool outfits.
My kids love playing restaurant, so a storefront or counter for dining would be lively candidates.
As a kid, I loved my dollhouse best of all. Cool idea to make one out of boxes until they are old enough for more delicate dollhouse furniture, etc.
I would love to make a grocery store or a bakery for my girls. They pretend that all the time. Thanks for the chance to enter.
My daughter and I would love to build a flower shop and a puppet theater. She loves to sell things and loves to put on a show!
My favorite childhood toy was (and still is!) Legos.
The airplane looks SO fun!!! I know my daughter would love that… something princess-themed would probably also be made as my daughter is very much a princess/fairy girl too 🙂
I loved the YO YO and slinky when I was a kid!
Jeeps!
My favorite toy?? Um books (I know, not a toy), Art supplies and Roller Skates.
My daughters and I would build a boat!
Stuffed animals were (and still are) the best!
We have been using boxes for boats & trains lately. I’m thinking Makedo could help us jazz them up quite a bit!
My favorite toy as a child was our couch cushions. I used them for everything.
I would love to win this kit! They would have come in handy for my son’s last birthday when we built him a pirate ship out of a refrigerator box. We’re thinking outer space for his next party and these would be very helpful in constructing a spaceship!
(patetes@charter.net)
As for my son’s favorite childhood toy- LEGOS hands down! 🙂
oops my fave toy! That would have to have been my fisher price family play sets!
We’d totally make a rocket…..and go exploring!!
My favorite toy?? Either the Barbie my mom used to make clothes for, or a plain old set of paper and pens.
My son and nieces would love to a fort with it.
Thanks
Mary
ladefly@aol dot com
A dinosaur, probably triceratops. Or a rocket ship command module to crawl inside (he’s on a space kick lately)
My favorite toys when I was a kid were hippity hops and bean bags. We had red, yellow and brown ones (it WAS the 70s after all) and so we made huge hamburgers with some kids inside and some on top squishing the whole thing down. Good times, good times.
I would love to make a fort with my boys
When I was a child I loved My Little Ponies
We live near the ocean, so we would love to make a boat!
My favorite toys when I was younger were a pogo stick and some stilts that my grandfather made for my sister and I.
my daughter would love to make a play aquarium! she loves fish! she call’s them ‘ishies!’
If we won a Makedo pack, my guess is that my son & husband would want to make a Tardis from Dr. Who.
Favorite childhood toy? I loved my chunky toy drill & my stuffed polar bear, Eleanor.
We would love to make a castle and then a club house and then a school and then a ………………..! Endless possibilities!
nancyecdavis AT bellsouth DOT net
My favorite toys growing up included Barbies, Legos, and Hotwheels.
nancyecdavis AT bellsouth DOT net
I think we’d build a rocket ship! To the mooooonnnnn….. 🙂
Hello,
My son dreamed of a bed in a cabin. Thank you for introducing us to the mark. I do not know if it can be found in France.
Thank you for this blog full of good ideas.
Happy Holidays and New Year.
Elisabeth
My kids would make a rocket ship!
My fave toy growing up was a stable for my Breyer horses.
We’d definitely make a pirate ship!
I loved Barbies as a child.
My three are ready to build a rocketship to blast off! 🙂
As a child, I loved playing with my baby dolls!
We would make a spaceship…and explore the universe.
Favorite childhood toy – an Apple II+. I would spend hours making pictures with the pixel editor.
My son would love all this! He would love to make a spaceship!
Definitely on my wish list! We would make playhouses, rocketships and trains.
I would love to build a doll house and some vehicles too!
Favorite childhood toy? A doll (I only had one!)
These are so neat. Maybe we could build a sailboat!
Oh, what fun! We are huge fort builders in our house, but the airplane idea is just perfect for my aviation buff!
My daughter is too young to make stuff like that on her own, but her cousin would love to make lots and lots of play scenes for his cars!
My son and I, would love building planes and trains with this cool kit. I am excited! Hope we win!! 🙂
My son and I would enjoy building many things with this very cool kit. One thing we would build for sure, would be a Thomas The Train with a few “buddies” (freight cars)being pulled behind.
As a child, my favorite toy was the very first, Nintendo game station! Loved that thing! 😉
My girls have already decided they need: a castle with towers, two boats and a lemonade stand. I hope they are very busy and have lots of fun with whatever they build.
My favorite toy was my view master, and my slides (some of which I think may have been passed down from an older cousin).
OMG! First of all, thank you for hosting a worldwide-open giveaway.Secondly, I would definitely be making that doll house from shoeboxes should I get to win the kit. Oh, my mind is already racing with all the ideas!
Ooh.. My favorite toy or rather toys were my dolls:-) Love’em and when I see my daughter now playing with hers, I just get to relive my childhood:-)
I am planning to make a boy-friendly doll’s house from boxes leftover from Xmas and pages from interior design magazines as wallpaper – this would save a helluva lot of double sided tape!
Blue Skies,
Charlotte
makedoandfriend.blogspot.com
Love to make an animal hosptial~! tracietrump@yahoo.com
My favorite childhood toy was a simple wooden dollhouse my steddad made for me. I had wooden furniture for two rooms but for the rest i made furniture from boxes and paper. I played with it for years and years before passing it off to my younger cousins. I am hoping to soon have it back for my kids.
these look soooo fun! i’d love to make a rocket ship!
My sons would love to make that play house!
I loved playing with Barbies as a kid. I got all of my mom’s and cousin’s hand-me-downs. There were some sweet vintage outfits.