Graze Box Hack - part 3!

This blog is primarily about making stuff and I apologise that recently there hasn't been much of that going on. Damn cute babies getting in the way!

Anyway, today I have another brilliant Graze Box Hack to share with you. If you are a regular reader you'll know that I've been putting my empty Graze boxes to good use by turning them into portable toys. You can find those posts here and here.

This latest hack was actually made by my lovely friends & work colleagues Laurence and Laura as a surprise gift for Wiss when he became a big brother.

He was so excited as it arrived in the post for him, and look at what they made...

Graze Box Subbuteo!

They have thought of everything from the wobbly flickable players, the team names, the cheering crowd and there's even a way of keeping track of the score with little pegs in holes. Genius!

We've had loads of table top South London derbies already, and like all the other Graze Box Hacks it's totally portable. So you can play wherever you want!

Has anyone else been inspired to turn their empty Graze box into something else? Please feel free to leave me your links or photos below, or tweet me @thisiswiss I'd love to see them!

Graze Box Hack - Whitstable Crabbing Game

If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know what a wonderful time we had in Whitstable a few weeks ago (there's a post all about it here.)

One of the things that Wiss enjoyed most was crabbing on the beach. He was taken under the wing of a very experienced 9 year old crabber who showed him the ropes, and he caught 5 crabs!

I wanted to make something that would remind Wiss of our holiday and so the 'Wonderful Whitstable Crabbing Game' was invented! We made it together in an hour or so and it's been played with every night this week. Beware, it can get very competitive!

To make the Wonderful Whitstable Crabbing Game you will need:

I stuck a photo of Wiss on the beach on the lid of the Graze box, and a sea bed image inside the base. I used the same image to make half of the card disks, and the other half were just plain white.

Onto the plain card disks I drew 10 crabs, 8 seaweeds & two extra bonus disks - some pirate treasure and... a cake, of course! (This was Wiss's idea) Finally I drew some bacon to add to the crabbing line as bait. This is the magic ingredient - all crabs find raw bacon irresistible! While I drew, Wiss coloured them in.

To make the counters you will need to sandwich a piece of the magnetic strip (or you could use a paper clip) between a disk with a drawing and a disk with the seabed. I used double sided tape on each disk for speed but glue will also work .

Next make the crabbing lines for between 2-4 players. 

Now you're ready to play!

The rules: place all the counters in the Graze box with the sea bed image showing (they should camouflage with the box). Take it in turns to lower your crabbing line and see what you catch.

Depending on the age of your child, you can alter the ways to win. The easiest way is whoever has the most crabs, or whoever has the bonus counters. For older children you could assign 0 points for seaweed, 2 points for a crab and 5 points each for the bonus counters.

Happy crabbing and happy holidays!

If you'd like more ideas on upcycling your Graze boxes check out my previous post. And if you do make any Graze Box Hacks yourself then please share them with me, I'd love to see them!