Julia Janzen

Most people who know our family know how much my little GIRL loves to play with trains, trucks, and backhoes.  She has a flowery fairy garden bedroom(pretty much the only girlie thing she has besides a few dresses). She loves her books that are now EVERYWHERE, but recently her biggest interest are her trains.  Our family recently has started to make a shift to owning less stuff and really looking at what we purchase and how it affects the planet.  Then I ran into a small issue.  Well not that small actually.  More like a 36 lb, 3 ft 3.5 in., blonde, blue-eyed, three year old variety that was determined to get us, her Grammy and Pop, or Santa to buy her a GIGANTIC train set at Costco that was just calling to her.  It really isn’t about the money because it wasn’t that expensive but… we are starting to consider the impact of too many toys and did I mention it’s HUGE!?  Our house is already home to an indoor slide/playhouse, a bouncy horse, a life size sheepdog, a play kitchen… oh yeah and ALL of those BOOKS!  So enough of the big stuff already.  Enough STUFF in general.  BTW  the next person who gives her a stuffed animal has to take 10 home with them… consider yourself warned.

So what’s a mom to do when the whining ensues about Thomas the Train REALLY NEEDING a tunnel and a mini tantrum is in the making?  She asks her 3 year old.  (Thanks Love and Logic parenting)  :D  ”What a bummer!  You really want a tunnel, but we don’t have one.  Hmmm How can we have a tunnel that doesn’t cost anything and we can get rid of when we’re done with it?”  ”We can make one Mommy.”  Ah HA!  I have a genius for a child.

But then… I start thinking,  ”Holy moly what in the world am I going to make a tunnel out of at 4 p.m. in the afternoon while I’m cooking dinner at the same time?”  This is what we came up with:

Our Homemade Mountaintop Train Tunnel

1 paper grocery bag turned inside out

All purpose craft glue, Elmers, whatever is gooey and you have on hand

A bag of cotton balls

Crayons, markers, paints etc.

A pair of scissors for mom

Turn the grocery bag inside out.  Lay the bag flat so you can cut both sides of the tunnel entrance & exit at the same time. Next draw trees, rocks, whatever you would see on a mountain, all over the bag.  You can be as fancy as painting the whole thing… yada yada yada but I really wanted this to be her project and her vision.  Next open the bag back up and crinkle it a bit to give it a rounded top but this doesn’t have to be perfect at all.  Tear apart cotton balls and glue to the top of the mountain.    That’s it!  A free tunnel that is fun to play with for a couple of days then it’s completely recyclable.

This was a very fun project that kept Kate entertained while I was cooking dinner, took a minimal amount of items to make, but most importantly showed our daughter that you don’t have to BUY something to get what you want.  Using a little creativity you can make something that doesn’t have a negative impact on the planet AND is actually more fun than playing with a piece of plastic for a couple of days.  The very best part was how excited she was about making it herself.  You really can’t put a price tag on the thrill of accomplishment can you?