www.thetoymaker.com/2Toys.html
A familiar scene during the holidays is
watching the younger kids getting as much fun out of the box as they do with
the present. Older kids are exempt as they're jaded by peer pressure and
advertising. And they go out of their way to annoy anybody older than 30. If
you've got a color printer and a little time, here are a bunch of simple paper
toys you can print out, tape together and delight your youngsters. Pinwheels,
popup cards, and even a theater can be found.
Bernie Rhinerson
July
26, 2004
EDUCATION
The Toymaker
Costa Mesa parent Marilyn Scott-Waters
offers a free collection of toys children can print out and make for
themselves, such as a pinwheel or a bug box. "It is my wish to amuse and
delight," she says on her site.
ARTELLA MAGAZINE
TheToymaker.com is Marilyn Scott-Waters' world of paper
toys and other delights. She provides free patterns for making all kinds of
wonderful things. A real online gem.
Web watch
By
KEVIN SAYLOR
December
17, 2004
Paper party: Make toys the old way
What's on the site: Create toys from
paper
Bottom line: Who needs Santa's workshop,
anyway?
Parents love to
tell you how much harder their childhood was than yours. Surely you've heard
the cliched walk-to-school story. Apparently, adults used to walk 50 miles to
school, barefoot, through fields of nails and broken glass, uphill in both
directions, while bloodthirsty wolves nipped at their heels. And your parents
didn't have toys. They played with clumps of dirt and rusty doorknobs. It was a
hard-knock life indeed.
Fortunately for
your parents and thanks to the Internet, they can finally toss out those old
toys and construct colorful new homemade gewgaws. At Thetoymaker.com, children and parents alike
have access to free folding-paper toys of all sorts. Make paper playthings,
holiday cards, valentines, sun boxes, baskets, bags, origami, ephemera and
more. All you have to do is pick your favorites, print them out, and battle to
fold the patterns correctly.
Toys
and paper products range from the easy to the difficult. There are butterfly
baskets, pop-up unicorn boxes and old-fashioned pinwheels. You'll also find
an Advent calendar, a candy cane bag and an elf ball, perfect for the holidays.
Kids from 1 to 99 will delight in awe and wonder at these vivid toy
--
Buell museum's exhibit provides
'dreamy' fun
The Geometry Toy Factory - a happy world of paper toys by
artist Marilyn Scott-Waters - is
the primary treat as the Buell Children's Museum opens a new exhibit,
"Dreams You Can Count On."
There's plenty more to amuse, entertain and teach, but it's the skills
and fun that Scott-Waters' paper
cutout toys convey that make the new museum exhibits extra-worthwhile. Youngsters will have the chance to cut out
and fold the simple designs, glue them together and make toys.
Marilyn Scott-Waters
Buell museum's exhibit
provides 'dreamy' fun
By MARVIN READ
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
The Geometry Toy Factory - a happy world of paper toys
by artist Marilyn Scott-Waters - is the primary treat as the Buell Children's
Museum opens a new exhibit, "Dreams You Can Count On."
There's plenty more to amuse, entertain and teach, but
it's the skills and fun that Scott-Waters' paper cutout toys convey that make
the new museum exhibits extra-worthwhile. Youngsters will have the chance to
cut out and fold the simple designs, glue them together and make toys: simple,
attractive and downright creative.
Marble Mice
At the heart of the Scott-Waters toymaking activity are
patterns from her book, "The Toymaker," that allow kids to make
boxes, spinners, a little mouse that rolls around on a marble, a tooth-fairy
gazebo, a tiny bus, a box to hold bugs or pebbles, a bear wagon, a puppet
theater and much more.
"My goal is to help parents and kids spend time
together making things. For the Dreams You Can Count On exhibit, I
created paper toys for kids to color and make. The museum will also show samples
of paper toys that I have made for my Web site ( www.thetoymaker.com ) and book," Scott-Waters
said.
"About five years ago I started working at home
and making little peep boxes, paper pop-up cards and toys in my spare time.
Then I would literally stuff them in a bag in the closet where they weren't
doing anyone any good. So, last year, when my husband asked me what I would like
for an anniversary present, I asked for Web hosting so I could build a site to
allow people to download the paper toys." The overall museum exhibit is
held in coordination with the Crayola Dream Makers program, based on lesson
plans from the national visual-art standards and the principles and standards
for school math from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
A Dream Theater
Donna Stinchcomb is curator of the museum, which will
host the current exhibit through May 28, and which features programs that make
the facility an excellent site for school tours.
Admission to all the Sangre de Cristo Arts and
Conference Center, including the children's museum and the Helen White
Galleries - with their documentary photography, Rembrandt prints and a variety
of paintings and other media by local artists - is $4 for adults and $3 for
children. Schools may schedule age-appropriate tours for $2 per student, with
additional opportunities available for artist-in-residence workshops in
theater, visual arts and creative movement for an additional charge. Students
in districts 60 and 70 are prepaid.
Call 583-6217 for more information on booking a tour,
lunch arrangements at the Kid Rock Cafe, lesson plans and state standards.
Museum
hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information,
call 295-7200.