Welcome to metomi.com, your online source of creative activities for children! We kick off our first creative edition with a tribute to one of the top children's toys of all time...the cardboard box! Be it a nice big television box, or a newly empty cereal box, these seemingly dull objects are always fascinating for children. How many of us have bought well-thought out gifts for our children, only to find the gift off in one corner and the box repurposed as a new kind of toy?!

So...on your next "indoor playdate" with your favourite young people, pick up a couple of boxes at the local grocery store, some inexpensive craft supplies at the nearby dollar store, add one or two odds and ends from around your home, and you're all set for an hour or two of fun! We've listed some great ideas for budding box artists, although we're sure your children will have some great ideas of their own. Remember, don't plan too much in advance, spontaneity is fun! Happy Creating!

There is something really cool about letters and brown paper packages, sending, sorting and receiving them! So one day at home, we fashioned a cereal box into a mailbox. Just cutting a slit on the side carefully was all it took. The tab at the top of the box was great for opening and closing the mailbox. We then moved some toy boxes around to make our post office, a few other empty boxes for packages, some scribbled papers enclosed with tape for letters, and we were in business! It was a hoot for the kids to write letters, drop them in the mailbox, work the post office, then deliver the mail to the other rooms in our home. And at the end, you can still recycle the cardboard!

The number of moving vehicles that you can repurpose a larger box into is endless! Try a couple of large boxes lined up and decorated to make a train. Cut out some windows so the stuffed animal passengers can sit in the box and enjoy the view. Cut out a few paper wheels for aesthetics, or go the extra step with cardboard wheels that actually go round and round - poke a hole in the cardboard box and affix the sturdier wheels to the box with the help of brass fasteners, straws or pipe cleaners. Add two cardboard wing pieces to make wings for a neat airplane. By the way, we're assuming the kids want to sit in them, but if you can't find big boxes, you can still fashion a few vehicles for those stuffed animals to ride solo, and still have a ton of fun!

Your smart children can pick out a familiar animal, maybe one they have seen at the zoo, the library or the preschool. Big boxes are good if they want to wear them like masks, smaller boxes are okay for tabletop creatures. If you're really stumped about how to draw the animal, and have access to the Internet and a printer, go to your favourite search engine and do an image search for that animal. And of course, the creature can be found within the child's imagination, the most exciting creatures of all! All you need is a pair of scissors, some coloured paper, and glue or tape. Maybe a few items for decoration like pipe cleaners for whiskers, cotton balls for fur, and something noisy like bells, a tambourine or a toy maraca for special effects!

We find that children love playing pretend! We mentioned one of our favourites, playing postoffice, above, but there are many more themes that will brighten their day. How about Space, where the children can repurpose larger cardboard boxes into futuristic robots and aliens, and travel to the Moon? Or a couple of boxes attached together to make a fine cardboard ship worthy of sailing the seven seas! And of course, a few boxes to make a castle fit for a young prince or princess, with turrets, windows and doors would go great with last year's Halloween costumes too. Same magic ingredients: big boxes, coloured paper, scissors and glue (may need tape for the more stubborn items!)

Home sweet home...here's an opportunity to make a life-size home, where a few cardboard boxes can be used as pretend stoves, fridges, and tables, or one big box for a play-size dollhouse. For the dollhouse, one piece of sturdy cardboard taped in the middle of the box could create two floors. If you're feeling ambitious, try a staircase from one floor to the other! Each room can be decorated with paper and other odds and ends to make them look just like home. Add some cardboard people to the mix, that look like each member of the family! For something a bit simpler but just as fun, cut out "houses" - pentagon-shaped cardboard pieces - one for each extended family's "house". Tape each house to another until you have a zig zag string of little houses. Decorate each and glue photos of each family in their respective "home". There could be a grandparent house, the uncle auntie and cousins house, and of course, your own house...folds into something that looks a lot like a book! Happy Designing!