Sensory boards are a great way to have your baby or toddler explore their senses. My favorite part about a sensory board is the curiosity that it sparks in Luna. It's been really neat to see her independently play with the board my husband and I made for her. Everything on the board is designed to make her feel textures, discover sounds, explore cause and effects, etc.
I've seen sensory boards way before I had kids, and I always thought they were really cool. Now that Luna is 15 months old, she is discovering the world around her. Everything she finds and discovers is full of awe and amazement. Little kids really do know how to find the beauty in everything.
I've noticed Luna's natural curiosity, and I wanted to buy her a sensory board. To my surprise, the sensory boards I found had a pretty heavy price tag. There were beautiful boards on Etsy, but the cost was over $100. If anyone knows me, I just can't ever justify price tags like that.
Luckily, my husband is pretty handy and I'm somewhat creative. Over winter break, I convinced him to take on this project with me. It was fun spending the end of the year working on something together. I find that sometimes it is rare for couples to work on things together. He has his life. She has her life, and they go their separate ways. Ricky and I truly found joy in working on something together, especially for our daughter.
After a few trips to Home Depot and some Pinterest inspiration, we were ready to go on the items we wanted on the board. We tried to do a mix of items that we already had at home and a few things that we could buy at Home Depot.
Our list included the following items:
Fidget Spinner (had at home)
Door Stops (had one at home, bought one more)
Moving Gears (custom made by my husband)
Locks (bought at Home Depot)
Some sort of push down light (bought at Home Depot)
Bells (recycled from one of her toys)
Zippers (we didn't end up doing this, mainly because we forgot to buy it. lol)
The main thing we needed was the wooden board. I remembered that we had a wooden sign that said "Simply Blessed" or something like that, that I was ready to repurpose. So, we grabbed that wooden sign and spray painted it white. This gave us a clean slate to start our board with.
Next, we put all the things we accumulated and placed them on the board. We moved things around until we felt everything was exactly where we wanted it. I then took everything off, and I started hand painting on the board. I hand painted Luna's name, a flower, a cloud and a sun. My vision for the board was to incorporate woods, flowers and bright colors.
Once the paint was dry, my husband used washers and nails to make all the items on the board stay.
To make it a little more aesthetically pleasing, I looked around my house for different textures that I could add to the board. I found two wooden napkin holder rings that I hadn't used in years. I also found the wreath that my mom made me with the artificial flowers from my wedding. I was able to cut a few of those off of the wreath and add them to Luna's board. This was also the same day that we were taking down our Christmas tree, so I recycled one of my wooden beaded ornaments and added it to the board.
Just a side note, the moving gears were custom made by my husband. He has a 3D printer and can pretty much print and make anything we want. So, this one might be a little harder to add to your board. Here is a set I found on Amazon.
I don't know exactly, but I believe that we made this entire board for less than $35.
I don't know about you, but that is a price tag I can live with. I think that beyond the price tag, Luna's board has sentimental pieces, and it allowed us to work on something together, that we're proud of, for our daughter.
Here is our final product:
Alright friends, I hope you're having an amazing start to your year! I hope this inspired you to recycle and repurpose some items you already have at home. If you make your own sensory board, tag me on instagram, I would love to see what you come up with!
IG:from.mars.to.luna
Xoxo, Mars :)
Commentaires