Kiddy hacks

Robotic moves
Wendy and her 3 year old Ikea hacker, Satch, made this robot out of Ikea boxes. So don’t throw away those flat packs just yet. Of course, this can be done with any other cardbox too.

They painted the boxes with non-toxic silver paint and added a few tiny LED lights to illuminate the bottle cap eyes and the top of his head. Way cute.

See more of Satch’s recyclobot.

Frame up fun
Kristin had a fun activity for her kids. She says, “We collected all kinds of leaves both from the ground and foliage. The boys placed them where they wanted on the back of these frames from Ikea, add the plexiglass top and screw frame together to press. Couldn’t have been easier and the boys are proud to display them.”


See more of her kids’ leaf art.

Baby and toys can now share a bed
Dot’s got a toddler bed but a crib sized mattress. So rather than rushing out to buy a new mattress, she converts the end space into a stuff toy compartment. Neat idea! An extra bar is added to the end of the Kritter toddler bed to fit a crib sized mattress.

See more of Dot’s toddler bed with stuff toy compartment hack.

Roll out underbed book storage
Smilla from Iceland needed some storage to fit under her daughter’s bed to hold all her books, be able to roll out easily and look nice, not like a 5 year old had done it. I must say Smilla did a pretty fine job.

She says, “I prepared myself to build something from scratch and I was confident that it would definitely look awful considering that my building skills are none whatsoever. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money so I went to Ikea and found this great Apa storage box in the kid’s department. I also bought Slugger wheels.

I put it together and painted all the wood with light pink wall paint so it would match her room better (it’s all white, pink and brown…no wood). Fastened the wheels under …well, not the bottom…uhhmm…on one side! Or it’s supposed to be the side of the box. And to get a better grip when rolling it out under the bed I put a handle at one end (well not from Ikea but you can find lots of handles in Ikea).”




Crayon proof those tables!

Though the Ikea Latt kids’ table set is “wipeable”, you don’t want to spend all afternoon scrubbing crayon marks off the white surfaces. So, Faith, the Design Momma decides to “reupholster” the top and and chairs with some cheery wipeable laminate.


See more of Faith’s laminated kids’ table.