DIY Christmas: Tinker Bell Sensory Manipulative Toy

Not really sure what to call this, it's not a "shape" sorter since it only has 1 shape.   As part of Karma's SPD therapy toys like this are referred to as "manipulative toys" because they require kids to use more fine motor skills so that's what I am going with.  It's also made with different textures to appeal to sensory seeking kids.

As with the Tangled Tower and Felt Book this is something I was totally inspired to make on my own therefore I will tell you how I made it BUT I am not exactly crafty so there may be easier ways.
Mine sort of evolved as I went.  The original plan was to cover the ribbon spools with scraps of wrapping paper and paint the tin.  Then I decided to paint the spools instead but as I went the paint was not covering the writing so I went with cloth instead.  The Tinkerbell theme was just a fluke that happened after I started.  Original Theme was going to be Shapes/Letter/Numbers painted all over the can and the spools.

What You Will Need:
Old Coffee Can or similar container.
Old Ribbon Spools
Paint
Glue
Scrape cloth/ribbon
Anything else you think will add appeal.


To Assemble
First wash out coffee can and dry- I do not drink coffee so I found someone who did to give me a can.  Similar containers will work too.

Once coffee can is dry paint it.  I tried painting mine yellow at first with plans of painting shapes and letters on top.  The yellow was not covering the writing on the can at all though so I painted blue on top and it morphed into this teal blue color.

Tinkerbell over yellow paint.
You can see the paint was not covering well.

another fairy over a redish orange paint

As I said above, original plan was to paint the spools in primary colors and paint shapes, letters and numbers on top of that.  The paint was not covering so I was inspired to add some sheer fabric on top, fabric that you could still sort of see the paint through but fully covered the writing on the spools.

Once I started adding fabric on I was inspired to use some fabric that matched the tin.  Instead of trying to cut out the fabric and glue on top (which I know I would have failed miserably at) I glued the fabric to the spool and once dry, cut around the edges.

I was also inspired to use ribbon on a few sides of the spools to give some more texture to them.  I did this in a similar fashion as the fabric by gluing the ribbon on and then cutting around it to fit the shape.

Original plan was to paint the lid but instead I decided to use fabric on it as well.  Again, I glued the lid to  the fabric and cut to fit afterwards,.  Make sure you glue the fabric to the sides of the lid as well.

Once glue is dry and fabric cut to fit, cut a hole in the top just long and wide enough to easily slip the spools inside.

as you can see, I painted the inside of the
spools as well.  This is the one with the
orange ribbon above on the other side.

That's it, you are done.  There are tons of different ways to make this.  After I was finished I was inspired that, if I had more ribbon, I could have wrapped ribbon around the can gluing as I went to create a nice textured strip pattern.  you could still use old wrapping paper scrapes, construction paper, etc.
Chalkboard paint would be fun to do, especially on the can.  Wish I had some of that!

Love,
This wanna be crafty mama,
Christy