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There are lots of reasons to want to make your own toys for your kidlets. It might be because of budget, space or just wanting to reuse and recycle what you have around the house. It was all of these reasons that led to me deciding to make my kidlet her own Cardboard Cot.

Soon I was figuring out how to recycle cardboard boxes into a cot. And surprising myself and my kidlet along the way with how well it turned out.

What you need:

What you will need for this project is hopefully already at your house.

• Cardboard box
• Cardboard rollers; eg Toilet Rolls
• Stanley Knife
• Scissors
• Sticky Tape
• Hot Glue Gun and glue.

Getting Started

The first thing I did was to cut off the side flaps on the top of the box.

The next step is to trim one one the longer sides shorter than the other 3 sides. I cut roughly 4-5cm down before trimming across.

Then to create the look of vertical cot bars, using your stanley knife, cut out narrow rectangles as pictured.

 I cut my bars free hand but you could trace them with a ruler if you wanted to be more precise.

 

 

 

To prepare for the legs, work out the placement of each roller on the bottom of the box 

Trace around each roller and then using the stanlet knife, carefully cut the hole out. 

NOTE: Only cut through the bottom layer of cardboard and not the inner flaps.

Attaching the legs

Once you are ready to attach the legs, you will need to have your hot glue gun ready.

Run glue all around the base of the cardboard roller and then around the side edge just above the base

Then quickly put the roller just inside the hole and push the inner flap down so it is flat against the base of the box.
Repeat for each of the four legs.

Once you have done all the legs, the rollers should be sitting inside the holes you cut, but the inner flaps should be sitting flat against the inside of the box.

This way the glue that was around the bottom of the roller will stick to the inner flap, while the glue on the side edges will stick to the inside of the hole.

Next flip the box/cot over and using your hot glue gun, run a bead of hot glue around the join of the legs and the cot. A bit like filling a gap with silicone!

I then glued the inner flaps down using some additional hot glue as well.

Then all you need to do is decorate your cot as you choose and put some bedding in for your kidlets toy or doll.

For more activities to do with your kidlet, make sure you check out our Busy Bags and Printables.