23 Feb, 2009
Large cardboard boxes and shadow puppets
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Easy ways to make kids happy|File under crafty
Remember this box?
Heh. Well, now it’s this:
… a shadow box “theatre” for the lovely shadow puppets we bought from this Etsy store last Christmas. (Here’s the whole set. It makes my heart go squeak. I display the whole thing on the fireplace mantel when not in use. That’s how much I love it. )
It was Sarah’s idea to put the balloons in there (“Look mummy! A rainbow!”) and after we had exhausted the limits of our imagination with Yeti vs. Ms. Toothfairy we played “shadow show and tell.” Each girl collected objects around the house “for show” while the others had to guess what it was by its shadow. The girls did some hand shadows and brought the flashlight up from the basement and played with it for ages. (What is it with kids and flashlights?)
I was just happy to sit on the couch and rest my weary old self. ;)
You can make your own shadow puppets and shadow box theatre too. Here’s a great little YouTube video about making simple puppets out of black paper. It’s worth seeing just for the vampire duck!
The shadow box theatre was easy. Just cut a big hole in the side of a cardboard box (moving boxes would be great for this) and tape a sheet of freezer paper on the inside. Voila! You’re ready to put on a your very own show.



