I like playing and collecting old things...I can spend hours going through my old buttons....I have one of those big popcorn tins full of old buttons. Plus a few quart jars full. I also have old wooden thread spools too.
I collect and play with (especially with my grandkids)old tin spinning tops. I have both the pump kind and the kind you use a winder on the top then push the top out spinning like crazy. Then there is my jar full of old jingle bells of all sizes. And I have Denny's mother's old jacks. They are funny looking.

I'm also a play of a little more modern things...such as I have an orginal Nintendo and about 100 games,A super Nintendo , a Nintendo 64, a Playstation, a Playstation 2
and a Game Boy (the little square one,right before the DS)

Oh and I have a bag with about 30 Barbies and Kens...LOL I don't play with those...Those I collected for my grandaughters...I'm sure glad they've outgrown them...what a mess to clean all those up..

I guess I'm just a wierd "old" kid...who's grandkids call....grams

patti

Patti,

We will have to get together and play. I hadn't thought about the bells, I have tons I have picked up at thrift stores and garage sales. I also have several quarts of jewelry and jewelry . A lady in town gave me a candy box full of costume jewelry for the kids and now I can't find I think my mil in her cleaning psycho spell threw the box of jewels away.

Stacie

When I was young I could spend hours looking through my Grandma's old family pictures. She had a drawer full of them. I still love those old pictures.

I remember when my sister and I were wee tots, and we liked playing with objects that we could build with, or imagine grown-up stories. She liked dolls, pin-on jewelry, ribbons and "dress-up" clothes; I liked things like blocks, dominoes, screw drivers and an assortment of nuts and screws, wood scraps, coaster wagons, pocket knife for shaping wood, small saws, a dirt pile for shaping castles and roads, etc. We both whiled away many a rainy day with crayolas and coloring books.

With all this background, I yet warn about the choking hazard of small playthings for the very young children. We never gave this a thought when we were young, but the hazard was real.

That is how my girls played, about 27 years ago. :)

I am glad, yours get to do this. I think, most kids these days don't get to "really play". Way to much computerized stuff.

Moni

I wanna come play with you folks!

Sign me up. I'm a button collector; I love "playing" with my buttons, and old jewelery, beads, miniature things, etc. I have a few old family photos, and even more old antique-store photos; I call them my "instant ancestors."

It makes me want to cry to see fine old photos of elegant (or not) people sitting in boxes on the floor of the shops. I have to "rescue" them. I name them; give them a family title ("Great Aunt Matilda", etc.) and pop them in a book. Some future family member will shake their head in bewilderment. LOL

Your children sound like delightful people. It's wonderful that they can entertain themselves with the best toy of all...their imagination.

I also love old hanky's, pieces of lace, old sewing patterns, ancient books, old greeting cards, etc.

I remember 60 years ago at my grandmother's house playing with her button box. We would string them together to make necklaces. She showed us how to make spinning toys out of a big one and some string.

How do you collect buttons? I have so few, but then I used the ones I had in sets to sew on baby cardigans I have knit for a new baby.

Caroline, Patti and anyone that wants to join in, we should do a little swap of our stuff. We could fill a padded envelop with buttons, bits and pieces and cloth or crocheted things and swap bits and pieces. Anyone interested, just let me know, it could be a lot of fun.

Stacie

PS

That is why I am so upset with my MIL she threw away some of my "treasures" and in looking for others I can't find my bag of new miniatures that are all old that I just picked up. I was searching and got interupted and now don't remember where I put them and haven't the time to look for them.

I liked paper dolls and when even younger, the 'sewing cards' where you drew yarn in and out of holes to outline a figure. Kids like to 'accomplish' something.

I got a phone call from my daughter one day, after the family had all been here...with the great grandson.
He was spending the weekend with grandma (my daughter).
She said when they got home and were getting him ready for bed a bunch of my buttons fell out of his pocket in his jeans....LOL...he had gotten into my tin of buttons and got himself a handful.

He's a pocket kid...everything goes into them...

I imagine someday frogs will find there way in there too...

patti

My kids loved my buttons. I have a wooden box full of old buttons and it was a fun rainy day activity to sort through the buttons.

I also had a couple boxes of the medium sized waxed paper cups. They would take them out and make giant stacks of cups. They would try to see who could make the biggest tower, etc.

Also - card table tents! The best! Take a card table and toss a couple blanket over it for a tent. Better yet if you have some big boxes you can add out the back for tunnels.

My kids also like the old wooden spools.

Caroline, I love your 'Great Aunt Matilda' thing.... wouldn't it be fun to make an entire book like that? I'm thinking photos, especially if the time period could be identified, names, and stories! Stories told either about or 'by' the person in the photo. 100% fictional of course. I'd do it in a big (preferably old) scrapbook. My DH and I both love old stuff and digging out treasures at garage sales and second hand stores. This might be something we could do together this summer.

Last summer, we bought a old trunk/wardrobe. The kind people used to carry on ships. The mother of the woman we bought it from had used it when she came to the US from hawaii, to marry this woman's dad who was shipping home from the service. We have information on the year, where she came into the US, how she traveled to Michigan, etc. What a treasure!

Stacie...I'm game for the exchange, but give us plenty of time to prepare. I'm just now unpacking the sewing room "Ladies' Parlour" items.

My kids will play with anything...sticks, rocks, grass, flowers, absolutely anything they find. At the farm they would make big nests out of grass they would pull and put rocks inside. Then they would be the mother birds (or if it's Claire the "Mudder bird"). LOL I love that they are so creative. I'm so proud of them for it.

Danielle

jel48 -- Be sure you disable the locking mechanism on that trunk if kids will be playing with it.

One of my fondest memories was going to the fabric store in College Park, GA. It was in an old warehouse by the train tracks. They had two huge whiskey barrels FULL of loose buttons. The owner's daughter and I would play in them. After I was grown, I went to a small little fabric store in Riverdale (near College Park). When I walked in the owner looked at me and said she remembered me from the College Park store. It was the same owner but alas she no longer had the button barrels. Her daughter had the same special memories.

I have a button plastic tub now and my nieces would occasionally play in it when I was still in Atlanta. I still like to play with them! Your kids can learn wonderful math skills with their games and will make special memories to boot! Good for you!!!!!

I loved my grandmothers buttons when I was a kid. I also would spend hours with the Sears Catalog "shopping' for my dolls. My favorite toys were my barbies and my paper dolls. My barbies were the best dressed in the neighborhood as my mother sewed all of these teeny tiny clothes! She even made a beautiful closet to keep them in! I still have it too.

Trish