Otter and the handmade baby toys.

Once upon a time there lived a family with a Royal Mom, a Royal Dad, a princess, and a little prince. The prince was pretty brand new to the world, and was still busily trying to understand the way it worked. It seemed to his royally fretful mother that he was all mouth. Hungry mouth, testing mouth, tasting mouth. Every single thing he encountered went into his mouth.

The weather in the kingdom turned cold, and the hearts and minds of the children went to the holidays. The royally fretful mother got increasingly concerned when looking to getting her children gifts. Many of the merchants had been imprisoned in the tower for using toxic chemicals in their fancy, decently priced toys. She went to a few toy tinkers, but in that twist of fate that is commerce, their prices had skyrocketed in direct relation to their scarcity, and she simply could not empty the royal coffers on their high priced, yet toxin free toys.

Shopping for her eldest child was slightly easier that shopping for the prince. The royally fretful mother was taking the princess to the royal ballet as her primary gift, and the princess put little in her mouth at her age, but as news of more and more toxic chemical use spread, the holiday gift giving seemed bleak.

One day, the royally fretful mother came across a bolt of fabric, a ball of yarn, and an empty Teas of the Republic tin. Hmmmm... she thought. If I clean this tin out, fill it with dried beans and rice, and then cover it in a crochet cover, I will have an interesting baby toy, with no toxic chemicals at all.

Looking over her bolt of fabric she thought, a tossing game. I will cut out the patterns on this fabric, stuff them with beans, and make a scoreboard for my eldest child to toss the beanbags into. I can make a mobile for the baby out of the same fabric. Maybe even some cloth blocks, or a crocheted ball.

Seeking knowledge from Google, the royal sage, the royally fretful mother found crochet patterns for teas sets, teddy bears, everything you could imagine. Digging through her stray sock bag yielded legs for a colorful socktopus, and the contents of her craft bag yielded materials to cover a fleet of safe baby toys.

The holidays began to look more cheery, though very busy, for the fretful mother, as she gathered the materials at hand and a little craftiness to make safe, non toxic toys for her children this year.