DIY Barnyard Set

Cute faces and bendy pipecleaner legs give each of these critters their own personality.

What to Do: Coat a cork in acrylic paint; let dry. Cut your animal’s face out of felt (we got all our felt at MagicCabin.com), draw on features, and trim pipe cleaners for legs/feet, neck, and tail. To attach them, poke a hole in the cork with a toothpick, add a dab of glue, then push in the pipe cleaner. Glue on faces and any details, like beads for hooves, trimmed cotton swabs for ears, and pom-poms for woolly coats.  

Kids can really “plant” these teeny veggies! Start with lettuce and carrots, and see what else they want to grow.

What to Do: For the planter: Cut squares of brown felt to the width of a gift box; roll them into tubes and glue the edges together. Place a few side by side in box. Glue strips of white felt to outside for a fence. For lettuce: Cut a felt circle with scallopedged scissors. Fold it into quarters; glue it together.

For carrots: Cut two each of the veggie and leaf shapes from felt. Sandwich a piece of toothpick between them; glue together. 

Tip: Clip clothespins to wooden craft sticks for a fence.

This shoe-box-turned-barn has a real working door!

What to Do: Remove lid from a shoe box; flip box over. Draw an angled roof at one end. Cut it out with a utility knife (an adult’s job), then trim and bend the sides to follow the roofline; tape in place. Cut out a window and a door, then decorate the barn with red, white, and black painter’s tape.

For the sliding door: Glue a straw to the back of the cut-out door; let dry. Thread red string through the straw, line up the door over the opening, and wrap the thread around the sides; secure in the back with tape. Make a second floor: Glue a piece of the lid to the inside, then paint the inside red.

Make a silo: Wrap a piece of scrapbook paper around a Pringles tube; glue in place. Cut a small circle of white felt, cut out a wedge, then bring the edges together to make a cone; glue to the top. 

Roll up this mat to store it in between playtimes. 

What to Do: Customize a square of green felt with a pond, stones, path, and other details. Place them in position first, then glue them down.