How to Make a Cardboard Bed for a Plush Toy
You are going to love this back to school family tradition, plus a cardboard craft idea for your kid’s plush toys!
It’s back to school season and I found the perfect book to read with our kids and get them excited about their first day meeting new teachers, playing with friends and learning while having fun! Its name is Back to School with Mac, and as I read it to my son I knew that the story was going to be meaningful because it was not just a book, but the details of a fun family tradition that reaffirms positive encouragement and friendship.
Unfortunately I don’t think you can find the book anymore, and the website about it doesn’t exist anymore, but read about the tradition below because it can be super helpful for your kids to let them know that everything will be fine back to school, and so they don’t feel too alone or anxious about it.
Kim DiLoreto is the author of the tradition and book Back To School With Mac. She originally wrote the story a few years back for her youngest daughter when she was in Kindergarten. She struggled with the end of summer/back to school transition. To help her see that this time of year could be a fun time and not an anxious time, she wrote her a story and accompanied it with a small apple plush toy. This became a tradition for them, and she saw that this tradition helped to turn tears into smiles.
Since this worked so well for her daughter, she thought this tradition could help many more kids. She decided to self-publish the book and worked with a toy designer and manufacturer to create Mac, an apple plush. Mac, the magic apple, shines at the end of summer. The book encourages families to pick a date when Mac’s magic will arrive. Since Mac is not longer available, you can substitute him with any other fun character and plush toy your kid loves.
Mac or any special character plush toy can play with the kids all day long, go to the park with them, help them bake cookies and even ride a bike with them. It’s at night (with the help of us, the parents) when this special plus toy friend magic come to life. He/she likes to leave treats or small back to school gifts to get the kids excited about that first day back to school.
Now, you might we wondered, what does this story have to have with a cardboard box DIY project?
Well, my son started a bit of daycare not long ago, still not all day but it’s a step! The transition wasn’t easy, and although he is doing so much better, he sometimes expresses to me that he feels anxious, especially when there are too many kids in the daycare room. It breaks my heart to see him feel that way. But I also believe that these situations prepare us for preschool and kindergarten.
I want to teach him how to deal with those feelings in a positive and encouraging way, and what better way than by giving him a new friend, Mac, with whom he can share those worries and insecurities and feel heard and understood.I read the story to him as soon as the book arrived. Jaxon was listening carefully, but what caught his attention was hearing that Mac’s magic arrives at night. So he asked “cama, Mac?” which I translated as “Where is Mac’s bed?” And then, the idea of making a cardboard box bed for Mac arrived. It was a good one because this afternoon Jaxon put Mac in bed next to him and they both took an amazing nap.
Want to make one for your new Mac or any of your kid’s plush toys, check out this simple tutorial:
MATERIALS:
How to make a cardboard bed for a plush toy:
Download the printable: Cardboard plush toy bed printable image below to recreate the bed’s structure, trace the shape on a cardboard box.
Note: A few moths ago the site crashed and we lost all the PDF printables that we uploaded in the site. You can download the image below and use it for your projects. I’m sorry if it doesn’t have the printing quality you are looking for.
Here is a printable to make a tiny and cute cardboard bed for your kid’s plush toys.
2. Cut the outlines of the cardboard bed and fold the inside lines
3. Glue all the pieces together to close the bed’s structure
4. Cut an extra rectangle to make the headboard of the bed
5. Glue the headboard into the bed’s structure
6. Cut a rectangle out of the white felt
7. Fold and sew the rectangle to make a tiny pillow. You can fill it with small pieces of felt or tiny pieces of fabric
8. Cut two extra rectangles of felt to make some sheets and bedspreads
This are the steps about how to make a cardboard bed for your kids tiny plush toys