Homemade Toys for Creative Play

Our interest in homemade toys naturally follows our desire to teach homesteading values! Isn't something much more meaningful when you made it yourself? Why miss a great learning opportunity?

homemade toys

We also encourage homemade gifts, so these are great ideas about what to make for each other for holidays and birthdays.

Our Favorite Homemade Toys

Here's some of the things we've made so far and really like.

Homemade Playdough
Create a learning experience and save money by making your own homemade playdough. Pouring and measuring the ingredients also turns it into a math lesson.

Homemade Slime
Create an easy home science experiment and sensory fun by making your own homemade slime. You can make glow-in-the-dark slime, too!

Homemade Wood Toys
Saw and stain your own durable non-toxic homemade wood toys with information about my experiences making wooden blocks, multicultural peg people, and a cave stacker.

Rainbow Gnomes
Make a set of beautiful wooden peg people rainbow gnomes as a homemade birthday gift to expose your child to embroidery and toys made of natural materials.

Knit Animals
Learn how to find cute toy knitting patterns and safety tips to make safe, soft, hypoallergenic knit toys like the little knit animals we use in our stories.

I'll add more projects as we complete them. I would love to hear about the interesting toys you make, too.

The Gnome Home

There's a BIG project underway right now, we're so excited! We have built our own 4 level wooden gnome home.

gnome homeOur gnome home is nearly built! Next we add a ladder and rope bridge.

The levels are made of purchased and cut wood, but the maple branches are from a limb that fell off a tree at my grandmother's house. They were sawed into sections then screwed on to look like continuous pieces again. More maple wood slices make the stairways, which are tacked together and slightly moveable.

We made a ladder to connect the upper levels, and we have supplies for building a rope bridge to connect the top two pieces. We'll have more photos as we finish it up and add homemade dollhouse furniture and seasonal decorations.

The plan is to use some of those extra branches that are sticking out as places to hang seasonal flags we make and other holiday decorations.

And who lives in this big beautiful house?

gnome familyGnome family made from wooden peg dolls and wool felt

We chose colors of wool felt, wool yarn hair, and cotton embroidery floss to dress our gnome family of wooden peg dolls.

The wood makes them feel solid and sturdy. The wool adds some softness in case they are dropped. It also holds warmth and makes the dolls a pleasure to hold and use.

In the Waldorf tradition, faces are left blank or decorated at the bare minimum so you can imagine whatever expression.

We'll be doing lots of play with gnomes and homemade toys for our two years of homeschooling Waldorf kindergarten!

Please keep in touch so you can see when I share more photos. This project was inspired by the beautiful work and tutorials for a gnome home and accessories at Wee Folk Art.

Teaching our children how to make their own toys is part of the self-reliant mindset we want to cultivate.

More to Explore

rainbow gnomes
homemade wood toys
homemade slime
homemade playdough
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