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A couple of weeks ago I was perusing etsy's Waldorf toy section looking for inspiration for Holly for Christmas. There are so many tempting, beautiful toys. Holly's at an in-between age so it's hard to know what to get her. A lot of what I was drawn to were suited more to kids who are a year or two older than she is. I was tempted to get a few of the wooden animals or puzzles, but eventually I stumbled upon a peg/cup color matching set. Once I had found something I liked, I naturally hemmed and hawed and ultimately decided to sleep on it. A few days later I went back to etsy to look at it again and I couldn't find it anywhere. I was crushed. Holly loves putting things into other things, and this seemed like a toy she would have a lot of fun with. A few days of pouting later, it occurred to me that I could probably make it for her. I'd seen the wooden pieces at craft stores before, so it was really just a matter of painting them. Benjamin Franklin's had exactly what I needed, so yesterday I got the watercolors out and went to work:

I'm pretty happy with the result. I went with watercolors because it shows the grain of the wood. There was a minor moment of panic when I put the yellow guy into his yellow cup and realized he was too big for his "home". It was doom and gloom for a minute there until Dave pointed out I could just sand the opening a bit wider. Why didn't I think of that? Last evening I noticed the paint dusts off in your hands when you play with them, so I'm going to have to seal them before wrapping them up, but I think Holly's going to enjoy them.