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DIY Toys, Baby Cradle – Sustainable Gifts Your Kids Will Love

In Design, Furniture on

Just thinking of toys brings out the kid in all of us.  So actually making one with your own hands and some left-over pieces of wood is all the more fun. Handmade sustainable gifts for someone you love. How cool is this?! It will instantly become a family heirloom. It’s a gift to remember. For a quick head start, check out the programs on Smart Healthy Green Living.   

This sustainable gift and DIY toy is a wooden trike

Wooden Trike by Robin Lewis, host of Robin Lewis Makes on Smart Healthy Green Living.

Robin Lewis Makes, one of the fun and informative shows on SHG Living, shows you step by step how to make DIY gifts such as a wood rocking horse and a tricycle.  Check out Robin’s videos and hop into your workshop or garage to get started. Oh, what fun!

Today, you visit the big toy store retailers and what do you find? Toys made of out of plastic, plastic, and more plastic. Toys are likely made in China. Do you know what’s even in them? The whole process of making DIY toys and sustainable gifts is so much more nurturing.

Hidden Toxins In Gifts, Toys, and Cloths

We put our kids in car seats to protect them but we give them lots of low-grade, poor quality plastic toys to play with, or shall we say to chew on. It’s a well-established fact that many plastics and many paints give off toxic VOCs (volatile organic compounds) from VOC paints.  When you think about it, you would never want your baby’s delicate body to be contaminated by such harmful materials. You would choose natural materials.

You can’t see these toxins.  They are in the air, and, before you know it, they are in the lungs and/or the intestinal tracks of your young child or infant.  So it’s easy not to notice these toxins and to ignore this potential danger. Ask yourself: Could this be a contributor to the many respiratory diseases prevalent in young children today? Are you willing to even a chance here?

This sustainable gift is a wooden baby craddle, DIY woodworking at its best

Robin Lewis, host of Robin Lewis Makes on Smart Healthy Green Living, built this wooden crib for his newborn a few years back.

Do you know what paint was used in the construction of your baby cradle?  Is it VOC-free paint? Did the manufacturer disclose it?  Chances are if the manufacturer used VOC-free paint they brag about it on a label.  Conversely, if not, you may well have toxic paint covering your baby’s cradle.  During teething, guess where your baby will nibble and bite? You guessed it, anywhere they can and that includes the slats of the baby cradle.

The answer is easy:  Remove as many potentially hazardous materials from your children’s and your environments.  This literally starts right in the cradle. Consciously select healthy building materials instead. Follow RobinLewisMakes in the way he reuses materials.  Another simple approach is: Look for European brands when purchasing products for your baby. European consumers are ahead of US consumer awareness in healthy and eco-friendly building designs and materials.

So back to Robin Lewis Makes.  Not surprising that Robin has a full segment on how to build a baby cradle with natural materials.  It is a particularly beautiful, swinging baby cradle at that! Another gift to remember in his family. Check it out. See for yourselves.

Sustainable Gifts

Get into the fun of making DIY toys.  Make toys, a baby cradle and so much more as sustainable gifts. Sustainable gifts have natural materials.  Wood is a beautiful material. Don’t send it to the dump. Reclaim it and transform it into fun DIY toys.  Robin Lewis shows with his sustainable gifts, you can even combine different woods. These are playful DIY toys or a baby cradle with cool designs.  It doesn’t all have to be “matchy-matchy”. It’s a gift to remember exactly as it is. Make Holiday or Birthday gifts.

Let your imagination go. Use what you have or can find around you. Get into making these and many other DIY toys, a baby cradle, tables, and other sustainable gifts.  Love to see what fun creations you come up with!