DIY LIVING SMALL WORLD PLAY TRAY

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My daughter has been getting really into her painting and drawing lately, and bless her sweet little soul, and as much as I adore each and every single portrait of me looking like some form of bulging spiky potato on stilts, there’s only so much room on my fridge...

Dino Cave

Now I always like to repurpose her beautiful artwork rather than having it hit the recycle bin (although thanks to Bluey's dad that’s no longer a completely unacceptable option ), and today is no different.

Sometimes we find ways to repurpose it together, (actually, I think that’s another blog post altogether, seriously if you don’t have a house full of paintings and drawings you don’t know quite what to do with, are you even a parent ?) but today I think these are a little too recent and I’d be pushing my luck. So I’m sneakily cutting them all up into a big bowl of boiling water to create some kind of paper-mache like substance and that is Step 1 of our living small world play set-up, see the rest of the steps below.

Materials needed:

Materials Needed

• A big tray or dish to create your small world in - I feel like this would work great in one of those ‘tough trays’ that all the cool kids seem to have. I’m not cool. I have this big ol paella dish and that’s what we are going with.

• A stack of beautiful artwork that it’s going to absolutely break your heart to destroy - knowing that eventually this whole set-up will most likely make its way to the compost heap, keep in mind the types of materials used in the art and if they’ll be safe for your soil. Homemade plant-based watercolours are perfect, I’ll be sharing more about those down the track.

• A big bowl with boiling water

• A smaller dish to use if you’d like to include a pond feature in your small world.

• Some paper towel or tissue-type paper - optional

• Some flour or non-toxic glue to add to your mache mix - this is also optional, it will help hold the paper together a bit if you are wanting to build more structural elements. I feel like cornflour is probably what most people would use. I have none in the pantry right now so I’m using rice flour and hoping for the same result.

DIY Dino Small World Play Tray

• Some recycled bits and pieces to add your structural elements

• The most important ingredient is Chia Seeds.

Your regular supermarket type will do the trick.

This is where I’m just going to jump in and say my first attempt at this didn’t work out.

I originally used coffee grinds in the hope they would give my play tray a more earthy soil-type look. So you’ll see them in the ‘materials’ pic I’ve included.

Don’t do it. They went mouldy and I had to chuck it all out and start again.

Method

1.) Your first step is to shred, cut, rip or tear up your little ones' masterpieces because you are a monster. Throw them in a big bowl with some boiling water and your flour/glue of choice and mix it to create a mushy claggy paper-mache substance.

Base Landscape Ready For Chia Seeds

2.) decide on the layout of your small world. I’m basing ours on the positioning of our pond and a cave.

3.) Start laying your gloop around to build the texture of landscape you desire. This is where you can also add structural elements with your recycled pieces. I’ve gone with a cave made out of a cardboard box and covered in my gloop mix.

I’ve also added rocks and garden pebbles to break up my landscape a bit.

4.) Once you are happy with your structural base, you can add some paper towel or similar to just hold a bit of moisture for seeds to grow in. I did this then added a bit of craft brown paper (also recycled drawings) on top so it still looked a bit ‘earth’ like but you don’t have to do that

First Chia Seeds Beginning to Sprout

5.) Add your chia!

My gloopy landscape was already pretty damp, so I just sprinkled a decent amount of chia around and it stuck to most places. If you have any slightly more vertical surfaces you are having trouble getting the seeds to adhere to, you can just mix some in a small amount of water and make a bit of a paste and it will stick nicely.

6.) Use a spray bottle of water to keep the seeds damp enough to germinate.

Wait a few days and then watch your small world landscape come to life.

7.) Turn it into whatever kind of small world you desire. We have gone with dinosaurs but I'm sure a fairy land would work wonderfully too.

Did you try this? Let me know in the comments and follow my socials for more creative at-home activities.

Finished Living Small Dino World Play Tray