Autumnal 3-in-1 Tuff Tray

It can be frustrating when you spend time setting up a tuff tray & then it barely gets any use. But sometimes you can engage their interest again by adding to it or changing it slightly. I kept this autumnal tray going for over a week by adjusting the focus.

It started off as a scavenger hunt, finding the autumnal items and ticking them off. 

Then after reading the Brambly Hedge ‘Autumn Story’ book about Primrose the mouse and her friends I drew little mice on squares of paper with a letter on the back of each one. 

They had to find the mice and then work out what words the letters spelt. The colours of the mice told them which letters went together to form a word.

Finally I added some Happyland fairy houses and fairy figures to make it into a fairy woodland dell for small world play. 

The base of the tray was covered in a piece of pvc from Dunelm with a stone pattern on. They sell it from large rolls and there are all sorts of designs you could use for tray themes - under the sea, grass etc. It was £3.50 for a metre and then I trimmed it to fit the shape of the tray. Over that I used cardboard tubes painted brown for hollow logs, real conkers and pine cones, artificial leaves from our Seasons party but you could use real leaves, free samples of artificial grass and prosecco corks painted to look like toadstools. The autumnal backdrop was also from our Seasons party and cost around £5 from eBay. I like to get as much use as possible from the items I buy - this backdrop is currently being turned into the Forbidden Forest ready for my son's Harry Potter birthday party!