What's the best thing your parents made for you when you were a kid?

wonderfulname · 25-02-2012 07:23PM

The-Rigger wrote: »

Cabbage water?

Yeah, if you boil up red cabbage you can use the resulting liquid as a pH indicator and add various household chemicals to make pretty colours.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/acidsbase1/a/red-cabbage-ph-indicator.htm

44leto · 25-02-2012 07:31PM

My Ma knit me an Aran jumper, I still have it and treasure it a beautiful piece of craftmanship.

Augmerson · 25-02-2012 07:39PM

My Dad made me keep writing my name.

Jesus Wept · 25-02-2012 07:44PM

TeddyTedson wrote: »

My parents sent me away so didn't really make me much :-/

Poor Ted. There there.

wonderfulname wrote: »

Yeah, if you boil up red cabbage you can use the resulting liquid as a pH indicator and add various household chemicals to make pretty colours.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/acidsbase1/a/red-cabbage-ph-indicator.htm

Nifty! Very inventive.

Dudess · 25-02-2012 07:51PM

My mum knitted loads of ace little clothes for my baby dolls.

Micky Dolenz · 25-02-2012 07:53PM

Lovely dinners, a home, a beautiful life.

And they didn't abuse me.

thanks guys,

boodlesdoodles · 25-02-2012 08:08PM

My dad built me a two-storey dolls house. Massive thing. He hung lights from every ceiling, that were battery operated, carpeted the floors and thatched the roof! He was a trained thatcher so he thatched a pattern into the roof that made it look shingled. He also made me a sugán rocking chair and many personalised hurleys through the years. He worked as a gardener and I was forever getting flowers off him. I miss him so much.

Dudess · 25-02-2012 08:10PM

boodlesdoodles wrote: »

My dad built me a two-storey dolls house. Massive thing. He hung lights from every ceiling, that were battery operated, carpeted the floors and thatched the roof! He was a trained thatcher so he thatched a pattern into the roof that made it look shingled. He also made me a sugán rocking chair and many personalised hurleys through the years. He worked as a gardener and I was forever getting flowers off him. I miss him so much.

Your dad seemed ace. The doll-house seems amazing - I always wanted one.

boodlesdoodles · 25-02-2012 08:24PM

Dudess wrote: »

Your dad seemed ace. The doll-house seems amazing - I always wanted one.

He was, we were very close. When I worked in our local town, every second Saturday he used to come in for the afternoon and we would have a few pints together. Gas man really!

JustAThought · 25-02-2012 08:59PM

My dad used to make obstacle courses for us in the back garden!!! I still have some old grainy pics of us shrieking with the madness of it & climbing over mini Walls & through tyres. Just brilliant!!!

AudreyHepburn · 25-02-2012 09:22PM

Time.

They always made me feel loved.

They gave me my little brother .

And they made the woman I am today.....and I will also be thankful to them for that.

Dudess · 25-02-2012 09:27PM

boodlesdoodles wrote: »

When I worked in our local town, every second Saturday he used to come in for the afternoon and we would have a few pints together. Gas man really!

Legend. Heck, I'd even love a handmade doll-house now.

Carverkid · 25-02-2012 10:44PM

My Dad does everything to keep me outside, he's made me catapults, ramps, bows and arrows, everything. As I grew older and my interests changed, surfboards, spear guns and on one occasion a massive storage unit for all this stuff started to come out of the shed. He always includes me in his projects and he's retiring on Wednesday so I can't wait to see what he starts at next. Mam is an amazing cook/baker/foodie and she always makes delicious food out of nothing. She also has spent the last six years getting up at half five in the morning to drive me to the pool and really back-arse surf spots. Amazing woman. They both gave me strong independence and a love of reading I can't say enough about them.

Dudess · 26-02-2012 07:47PM

skirtgirl wrote: »

My mam... used to make cups out of silver packaging from ciggie boxes. I thought she was brill!

My nana did that - I loved it, she did such a pretty job of it too!

naughtysmurf · 26-02-2012 10:43PM

Two wooden box's containing three flashing bulbs with red, blue & yellow lenses, Tadaa, disco lights

Pretty impressive for the late 70's

Yes yes that's the late 1970's

Dudess · 27-02-2012 12:37AM

Matchboxes, thumbtacks, square of cardboard covered in tinfoil - voila, a (albeit small) Barbie/Sindy dressing-table.

citytillidie · 27-02-2012 01:01AM

My mum made a cake for my 6th birthday like a snooker table

Karona · 27-02-2012 01:43AM

My parents never really made me anything, they would tell me to try to make it by myself and I would although I wouldn't get very fair.

My Dad preferred to buy us things as he went with so little when he was young, he swore his own children would get things they really wanted. He would buy us Barbies anytime he went away to rugby matches so I had the most Barbies in the street and the best ones too.

As for my Mam she gave me great advice although I didnt listen to her a lot of the time. :rolleyes:

Chuck Stone · 27-02-2012 02:01PM

My Dad used to take us on what we called 'adventure walks'. My Granny on my Mother's side lived in the countryside about 4 miles from the town we lived in by road but only about 2½ as the crow flies i.e. the 'adventure walk' way.

Adventure walks involved going through fields, crossing little streams, climbing hills, avoiding bulls, pushing through thorny thickets etc. Pure excitement as a kid going the 'adventure way'.

When we got to my Granny's house there was always a cup of tea in Granny style cups and fresh scones - real country Granny she was.

sbsquarepants · 27-02-2012 02:20PM

When i was about 10 my da made me a peg gun shaped like a machine gun - it was cool as fúck! When my friends saw it they all pestered heim to make them one so he spent a whole weekend churning out peg guns.
We were, at that stage, the mosty heavily armed gang in tallaght, nowadays he'd need to be enriching plutonium to make a claim like that!:D

Sleepy · 27-02-2012 03:05PM

Any other parents reading this and taking notes?

Conall Cernach · 27-02-2012 03:26PM

My da was a joiner so he was always making us stuff like bird houses and that. He made us a gun out of wood like one of those elastic band things but this one shot big thick black rubber bands that were very sore and had an effective range of about 10 yards. He used to make us bows and arrows too. If he had an interesting shaped off cut of wood he'd take it home along with some smaller bits and pieces and let us build something out of it. I remember I built a battleship once out of a piece of mahogany that was near two foot long.

kylith · 27-02-2012 03:49PM

My dad built me the most amazing dollshouse with working electricity. I had hours of fun rewiring it

My mum once made me a birthday cake in the shape of a stable, with boudouir fingers for the roof, and the windows picked out in jelly tots. It was amazing, and chocolate.

lubo_moravcik · 27-02-2012 04:18PM

Chicken pie, then my Dad stuck my face in it because I never liked it

jester77 · 27-02-2012 04:49PM

My mam got up a half hour before me every morning when I was going to school. I had a massive appetite back then and was playing sport for a number of different teams with a few games a week and training every day. A normal bowl of porridge was not enough so she would serve me a large pyrex dish full of porridge instead. That was then followed by a small fry-up with sausages, rashers, boxty, pudding and eggs and washed down with tea and a few slices of toast. She would then make a packed lunch before I left.

She's awesome

I'm lucky if I have a slice of toast for breakfast these days

Nothingbetter2d · 27-02-2012 06:09PM

zerks wrote: »

This was inspired by Japanese woman who built her 4 year old son a replica F1 car from cardboard,looks pretty cool too.

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/LeCf7XxACv3Finoc3fRX1A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/motoramic/rb8minicardboard.jpg

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/mom-builds-4-old-spot-replica-red-bull-175055702.html

My father built me a go-kart when I was young,those were the days when parents built stuff rather than forking out hundreds for it,plus it could be modified any way we wanted.Amazing what could be done with some pram wheels,pieces of wood & rope.

Did anyone else's parents build them stuff,be it a go-kart or a tree house?

i remember when i was about 6 my uncle building my brothers and i a go kart too

my uncle knicked my grandad's lawn mower engine and hooked it up to the go kart... it did about 40 miles and hour lol. we used to race up n down the road in it.

we had it for about 5 months before the gardaí eventually took it off us

Stinicker · 27-02-2012 07:00PM

My dad built me a "playhouse" when I was 7 or 8, it was no different to a garden shed as it was before you could into a DIY store or order a mass produced piece of crap from a garden shed store. It was cool and all my toys and stuff were in there.

As these things were either very expensive to buy at the time or just not available, I think our one would have cost £1,800 to buy and every so often random strangers would come in asking where we bought it and loads of local people asked my dad to build one also for them.

It is 18 years old and each year we give it a paint of ronseal and eventually last year the roof had rotten off it due to the felt deteriorating and we put a new roof on it and changed a few rotten boards and I have no doubt it will last another 18 years or longer.

I can remember building it my dad, handing him nails and hammers and when it was finished we had enough timber left over to build a dog kennel for our little terrier, the the kennel has since rotten and was broken up for firestarters seven or 8 years ago and the little terrier since died but the playhouse stands to this day a testament to my dads skills for someone who never had any carpentry training and worked in a total different industry.

Funglegunk · 27-02-2012 07:09PM

My Mam made me a massive hovercraft cake for my 6th birthday.

Chuck Stone · 27-02-2012 07:14PM

My Dad made me a Duffle coat out of left over plywood.

All the other kids laffed but I just sang my 'sticks and stones can't break my bones because I'm wearing a wooden jacket' song.

fusuf · 27-02-2012 07:39PM

M cebee wrote: »

my mother made me a pair of trousers out of old curtains

sewing machine was a great invention

I bet they looked rad! You must of been the coolest dude on the block!

Best thing my da made for me has to be a wooden slingshot when I was about 8.

What's the best thing your parents made for you when you were a kid?

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