Egg carton

My daughter has a big love for dinosaurs right now. We have LOTS of little plastic dinosaurs, and she loves to take them on different adventures. She especially loves bringing them in the tub to play in the water. So we decided to build her dinosaur a boat out of recyclables and sail them in the stream!

The original inspiration for this project actually came from Parents magazine – the article for their DIY can be found here. And while theirs is prettier, mine is much simpler and takes far less time and effort, making it far more suitable for my two and half year old!

What You’ll Need:

Some form of empty carton (we used an OJ carton)
A straight(ish) stick (the mast)
An egg carton (more specifically, cut out one of the egg holders so you have a little ‘cup’)
Cardstock (for the sail)
Exacto knife
Hot glue
Single hole punch

After all your supplies are gathered, it just take a few cuts and glue spots and you’re ready to hit the high seas!! Or, the babbling brook as the case may be.

First I cut a small rectangle in the top side of the carton – this will be where the dinosaurs ride. I also dug out a tiny hole near the front – this is where the mast will go in. *Just an FYI, I ended up gluing down two halves of a toothpaste box in the bottom for the dinos to stand on – they were too small otherwise and just fell loose into the carton.*

Then I cut out a vaguely sail-shaped piece of cardstock, hole-punched it on each end, and stuck the stick through it. Voila, my mast and sail! I put some hot glue around each of the hole punches to attach it to the stick, just to ensure it wouldn’t slide down.

Then I stuck the mast in the boat, and glued it down at both the bottom of the boat and the hole so it was really secure.

Lastly, I cut a hole in the bottom of the egg carton cup and glued it to the top of the mast – an instant crows nest! I think that was my favorite part.

Then we loaded it up with dinosaurs and headed to the stream.

It did end up tipping over a couple times, but that was no big deal. The cardstock sail and egg cart crows nest do get a little droopy when wet, but still managed to hold their shape pretty well.

Eventually my miss got tired of sailing her dinosaurs and docked the boat so they could play in the mud!

I think this has been one of my favorite things to make with her. I love taking what would normally be useless items and making something fun to play with out of them! Plus it was free and took all of twenty minutes to through together. And she had a blast. I hope you enjoy it too!

Until next time,