How to create wooden toys for your children. Simple wooden toys are easy to make and children love them.
Old-fashioned wooden toys are wonderful gifts both for children from one to ninety-nine. They have the advantage of allowing a child's imagination to roam and develop naturally. How many times have you seen a child ignore the expensive toy and play with the box it came in?
Most can be made very inexpensively if you have some basic carpentry skills and the appropriate tools. You will need, a drill with assorted sized bits, a chisel, saw, hammer, screwdriver, nails, screws, sandpaper, and paint along with some small scraps of wood.
Start with something simple like blocks. You don't have to stick to the standard square blocks, think of rectangles, cylinders, pyramids and arches. Two dozen blocks can create a fort, or a castle a tower, or a space ship. As long as the smallest blocks are too large to fit in a toddlers mouth then the size is immaterial. You should plan for all the blocks to be interlocking. For example the rectangles should be two, three or even four of the square blocks long and one or two blocks wide. When you have cut the blocks, sand all the edges into a slight curve, this will help eliminate splinters and make injuries less likely. If you use enamel paints the blocks will have a fairly durable surface. Be sure to use lead free paint in the primary colors since these are the ones that kids love the most.
Cars, trucks and wagons are not difficult. You will probably want to add wood glue to your list of supplies if you are going to make some of these types of toys for children. Find a good picture of the vehicle you want to create for your child and look at it in terms of squares, rectangles, and cylinders. A pick up truck, is a long rectangle with a square at one end, sitting on four short cylinders. You can of course get more creative, and put sides on the truck bed so that your child can haul things in the back, but you are still working with the same basic shapes.
If you use two dowels for the axle going through the body of the truck or car it will be almost indestructible. For older children you can use a chisel to create the windows, and make markings for the doors, and handles. When you assemble the pieces you should glue and nail or screw the pieces together for extra strength. Remember to sand smooth and round any edges that will be exposed. Bright primary colors in lead free enamel will finish the vehicle.
A doll carriage is a harder project but still not difficult. You will need to create the doll carriage with a specific doll size in mind. Plywood will allow you to create the body of the carriage with little or no difficulty. Don't forget to make a mattress for the bottom, foam makes this easy, and a few stitches on a sewing machine will create a workable mattress cover out of a pillowcase. The wheels will need to be larger cylinders, about the same height as the body of the carriage, but again dowels can serve as axles.
The handle should be about the same thickness as a broomstick. Use plywood to create the side supports for the carriage handle and you will be ready to sand, not forgetting to round all edges. If you used plywood you will need to pay special attention to the edges, and finish them with half or quarter round molding, to avoid injury from splinters.
The possibilities are endless only limited by your time, patience and imagination. Dollhouses for the 11 1/2-inch dolls that are so popular now or how about a wooden toy chest to keep all those wonderful toys you have made? You could even make some beads to string, by simply drilling holes in small wooden blocks that have had the edges rounded. Babies like toys that move, so put wheels on an lion, or giraffe.
Remember to always use lead free paint and round all corners. If you decide to add a pull string, make sure it is too short to wrap around a child's neck and where possible always use two methods of attaching parts together. Your creations should last for many years, and with a little bit of touch up paint can be passed on to future generations.
