Did you play with Sylvanian Families toys when you were a kid? I did and I loved them, so when we were offered the chance to review the Bear Family I jumped at the chance because, well, I’m 35 and I wanted an excuse to play with them. Go me! With my daughter being one and my son being four Sylvanian Families are a pretty new thing to them, so I thought I’d set them a little crafty challenge, also they love little suprises! These card teepees are super simple to make and would suit most other small toys too. So that you can do as little prep a possible, I’ve included a free downloadable template so if you want to know how to make a toy teepee all you have to do is print it out and get decorating!
Materials:
Card
Selotape
Scissors
Felt tips (I always use washable ones)
Wooden kebab sticks, sharp ends cut off to be a couple of centimetres longer than your teepee.
How to make a toy teepee
First, print off your toy teepee template onto thin card or cardstock and cut out the shape. Older kids can do this themselves but I did it for my children. Fold the template in four places from the dotted lines at the top to the corners at the bottom and along the tab at the side. When the teepee is folded, cut off a small amount at the top to make room for your tent poles. At the side of the teepee opposite the tab, cut a line on a slant to make a door for your toys to go in and out through.
Your toy teepee is now ready to decorate! We used felt tips but paints, stickers or stamps would be great too.
As you can see, my daughter really likes to decorate EVERYTHING. It only took a baby wipe to clean it up though.
Once your teepee is decorated, turn it over and using selotape stick four kebab stciks / tent poles into each teepee, one in each fold of the tent.
Seal your toy teepee closed using another piece of selotape.
Your Sylvanian Families are now ready to go glamping in their super cool teepees!
My kids both loved this craft, to make it a bit more special for them I prepped all the materials in advance and put the materials, bear family and pens in a paper bag for them with instructions that The Bears wanted to go on holiday but needed a new tent! This has also had the added bonus of getting the kids (and..err..me) excited enough to book ourselves a little camping trip for in a few weeks. We had loads of fun playing with the toys in the garden and I’m personally hoping to have lots more fun with the Bear Family in the future!
Disclosure: We were sent the Bear Family to review, all opinions are my own. Sylvanian Families do have a pretty awesome camping set available however I figured mine would want to go glamping 😉
Oh my gosh i love these they are so cute ! My daughter use to love sylvanians and we have loads of them all boxed away as she no longer plays with them , i am tempted to get them out so i can make them a teepee and play with them myself x
Just go for it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is so adorable! It would be great craft to talk about different cultures with kids.
This is all kinds of adorable Kate – what lucky Sylvanians you have! 😉
Thank you so much. So easy and so simple. Me and my kids love crafting so thank you very much for this very cool project. Our whole house is full of sylvanian family – This is the perfect craft for us.