My inspiration for this activity came from the craft website The Imagination Tree. I loved the idea of creating a small world play within a suitcase, so I was delighted to discover these little suitcases on sale in my local craft store, Spotlight. I based the scene (roughly) on Singapore's business district with the skyscraper, river, bridge, palm tree and the yellow and blue Singapore taxis. Wugs adores cars and in particular running his cars over different surfaces, so I created the bumpy ramp from an old cardboard box and car parking area from two rubbery heat resistant mats. I wanted the scene to be multi-sensory so I used materials of different textures (clear coloured paper, perspex, foam, card, felt, wood etc) and I glued everything down as some of the parts were too small for an 18 month old.
I have plans to extend this small world scene to incorporate a felt road mat with Singapore landmarks on it that could be laid outside of the box so that the car that comes down the ramp would land on the mat. The mat could then be folded up and placed in the box when not in use.
Wugs loved this small world play and enjoyed opening and closing the suitcase and carrying it around. We bring out the suitcase only occasionally so that Wugs continues to treat it as something special.
What we used:
Small suitcase
Card
Foam Sheets
Perspex
Coloured ("sweet wrapper") paper
Craft sticks
Pom poms
Felt
Heat resistant mats
Cardboard box
Paint
Glue
Scissors
I took the idea of sticking glitter and sequins to contact paper from our suncatcher craft. I used just an A4 sheet of contact paper each time which I changed once enough glitter had been collected onto it. I poured glitter into small containers for Wugs to pour over the contact paper and spread around as he chose. Once he was finished, I sandwiched the glittered sheet between the two sides of laminating paper and whizzed it through the laminator to seal it properly. Then I drew and cut out shapes and outlines of the boys' hands using a washable marker. I hole-punched the glitter decorations in the top and threaded them with string and then hung them from Wugs' and Dooey's tree in their play area.
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The preparation for this art took a little while as I needed to cut the tape and place it onto the card for Wugs. A bit of precision is required here because if the tape is not aligned perfectly, the letter looks disjointed. (For example, in the first picture, on the bottom of the first "N", the tape wasn't overlapped exactly and it shows up when the resist tape is peeled away). The first picture also shows what the art work looks like before the resist tape is removed (see the two middle letters).
I have been trying to build our
activities around particular themes this year.
This month we were focusing on the sky and the weather. As Wugs has just learned the word for “sun”,
it felt appropriate to create a sun-shaped suncatcher. 
I made the beach and coral reef scenery by drawing the images on foam sheets, cutting them out and dipping them in water which made them stick to the window. The coral reef scenery was made from some glittery foam sheets, which added a nice effect. I dyed the bath water blue and added a couple of interactive elements: A bucket of "sand" which was made from shaving cream, yellow food colouring and a little sea salt (Wugs had great fun painting the tiles with this) and a tub of "ice cream" which was actually a bath bomb with a turtle inside. I haven't introduced Wugs to bath bombs yet, so he was a bit wary of all the fizzing, but was thrilled to see the little turtle popping out. 
What we used:
