{"id":5659,"date":"2010-07-23T07:54:42","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T14:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=5659"},"modified":"2026-01-31T14:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T22:18:29","slug":"frugal-toy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2010\/07\/23\/frugal-toy\/","title":{"rendered":"Frugal Toy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday Bean and I went to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hhpz.org\">Happy Hollow Park and Zoo<\/a>. We had lots of fun with the rides. One of the featured activities was Cardboard City. Visitors are encouraged to play and create a city of cardboard based on imagination in the Meadow, using old boxes and paint. And this gave me an idea.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been wanting to give Bean a barn to play with, but many of them are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/products?q=toy+barn&#038;hl=en&#038;scoring=pd&#038;cat=1253&#038;lnk=catsugg&#038;ei=wqlJTO2TI5aoiATmxYzQCA&#038;sa=X&#038;ved=0CL8DEIYIKAA\">outrageously expensive<\/a>. So I found an old box and, with a little cutting and taping and painting, ended up with a barn. Bean helped me paint the barn red. Then I took over with the roof and trim, and collaged the inside of the box. I&#8217;ve had the paint, paper, and tape on hand for years, so for a very minimal cost we have a toy barn! It may not last as long as a wooden one, but we had fun making it (especially me). Now all we need are some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/products?q=toy+farm+animals+safari&#038;hl=en&#038;cat=1256&#038;scoring=p\">farm animals<\/a>!<\/p>\n<div class=\"photopost\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mindfulone\/4820634687\/\" title=\"barn from a box by Mindful One, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4122\/4820634687_556654ab46.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"barn from a box\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"photopost\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mindfulone\/4820635919\/\" title=\"barn inside by Mindful One, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4122\/4820635919_f2bd78a5dd.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" alt=\"barn inside\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"photopost\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mindfulone\/4820645727\/\" title=\"close-up of walls by Mindful One, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4116\/4820645727_08de74a76d.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"close-up of walls\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"photopost\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mindfulone\/4821254390\/\" title=\"Bean exploring by Mindful One, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4076\/4821254390_b4f624c809.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Bean exploring\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday Bean and I went to Happy Hollow Park and Zoo. We had lots of fun with the rides. One of the featured activities was Cardboard City. Visitors are encouraged to play and create a city of cardboard based on imagination in the Meadow, using old boxes and paint. And this gave me an idea. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,48,214,25,34,27,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-community","category-domestic-arts","category-education","category-motherhood","category-recreation","category-regional"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5659"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13581,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5659\/revisions\/13581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}