Frugal bowling game

For this week's frugal tip, I'm rerunning one of my tips from the beginning of 2011. It's one of my absolute favorites, because it comes from my youngest daughter, who was five at the time.

I was about to recycle an ALDI apple juice bottle, when she asked if she could have it.  I asked why, and she said that she wanted to make a bowling game out of it, with the bottle as a pin.

The ALDI apple juice bottle is a great size for this - it's stable enough to stand, but not so stable that a ball rolling into it would definitely knock it down.

So I thoroughly washed the bottle and let it dry, then recapped it.  She set it up, rolled a soccer ball at it, and knocked it down.

"Mommy,' she asked, "could you save me all the juice bottles so I can have more to play with?"


So, over the next several weeks, we saved six bottles.  Then she and her (then) ten-year-old sister had a great time combining soccer and bowling, by kicking the soccer ball across the room into the "pins."

Though store-bought toys are great - and we certainly have our share of them - sometimes kids can just have fun with things around the house!

What other household items have your kids (or you) made toys out of?  Please leave a comment below!

For more frugal tips, please check out the bloggers listed on the left sidebar under Frugal Tips Linkups. There are lots of great ideas on each blog and I'm sure you'll find lots of wonderful tips!