Montessori dressing stand...Homemade!

I think the Montessori concept of "dressing frames" is a good one....to allow a young child to play with various clothing fastenings like buttons, zips, poppers etc because it will aid them in their learning to dress themselves inshallah....and kids love opening and closing things!

However, the cost of purchasing these frames is outstanding! I think I remember a set of 3 cubes (so each cube having 6 sides....6 different fastenings) costing £199 and that didn't include 20% tax which is added at the checkout!

I made a single dressing frame for £1 yesterday alhamdulillah, using an old shirt and a photo frame from the pound shop!

I used up an old shirt because I just wanted to see basically if this would work using a photo frame or not. Alhamdulillah it did, so  I hope to make some more child-appealing looking dressing frames inshallah with brighter colours and patterns etc.

Here is how I did it......

I took out the glass and board, leaving just the wooden frame. (I've kept the glass aside...thinking I'm sure one day it will come in use for some sort of craft project inshallah!....agh I have just thought of something....window painting/glass painting! hurray!

Then roughly framed the area of the shirt I wanted and cut out - leaving a wife gap to allow the fabric to be pulled over the frame sides.

 Next, I folded over the top and bottom edges and stitched down to neaten

although I didn't take a picture- I folded the sides over the frame and sewed down, leaving what is shown above, the finished item (poppers closed)

This is the frame with the poppers opened. (picture also upside down!)