Singaporean mother turns everyday household items into toys for her children

SINGAPORE — Like every child her age, little Ada gets bored easily. But these days, rather than ask her mother for screen time on the family's tablet, the five-year-old tells her that she wants to make something.

“She’s the boss,” jokes her mother, 33-year-old Sophia Huang.

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The truth is, this is the scenario that the crafty children's book author was hoping for when she started getting her children involved in making their own toys.

Whenever Ada and her two-year-old brother Eli are bored, Ms Huang creates toys for them with their assistance, using everyday household items.

They have stopped buying toys, except for special occasions such as birthdays or Christmas, though Ms Huang notes that the children do not have a preference for store-bought toys over the homemade ones.

It began three years ago, when Ada was about two, when Ms Huang and her husband started getting inspired by posts they saw on websites such as Pinterest, which featured guides on how people can make toys at home.

Over the years they have embarked on a variety of toy projects for the kids, catered to each child’s preference.

Ada, Ms Huang says, likes puppets and cute animals, while Eli prefers mechanical toys.

For Eli, Ms Huang once created a marble track by upcycling — or creatively repurposing — used cardboard rolls. She has also made him a plastic bottle race car with bottle caps for wheels and a balloon for the “engine”.

As for Ada, Ms Huang has made a fairy costume and slippers for the girl. And to celebrate the festive season, she and Ada created a nativity scene out of an old box and a handful of used toilet paper rolls.

This pastime has its practical benefits. Toys are expensive and the children have “such short attention spans” before they lose interest in them, Ms Huang notes.

The process of creating things also gives the family time to bond and teaches her children to be more resourceful.

“(As parents) we are always asking how we can ‘engineer’ our children to be more creative and to pursue their interests,” Ms Huang says. “So this is my way of doing it. I don’t believe in enrichment classes.”

It is also her way of doing her part for the environment by reducing consumption and waste and recycling old items and materials.

It is a lifestyle philosophy that is not too common here, Ms Huang says, noting that even when she wants to give away clothing that her children have outgrown, it can be difficult to find people willing to accept them.

“We just want new things,” she says.

By upcycling, Ms Huang says she gets to give her old items a new lease of life.

She also hopes to teach her children to shed the throwaway mindset.

She seems to have made progress.

She recounted how she recently bought Ada a coin bank which broke within two days of the purchase.

It would have been easy enough to order a new one, but instead Ms Huang took it apart and fixed it, and later received a letter from her daughter: “Mommy, thank you for repairing my broken toy”.

“I never thought it would have an impact on her, but it did,” she says.