Marilynn is the artist and she makes these wonderful toys available for free. You can contribute to her endeavor financially if you like, or even buy her book of papertoys as a thank you, but her heart is generous and she does not charge for these toys on her website. All you need to make them is a computer, paper (cardstock works nicely, ) and a printer.... or you can purchase her book!
These photos were taken on a really busy and playful day where we made all sorts of papery things. There were paper r people , a.k.a. paper dolls, (both boys and girls,) which we dressed in their fancy historical costumes...
We did a dog show, (which had a wide variety of dog breeds)
The kids took turns being the various dogs, doing dogs tricks and distributing prizes! 
some fun animal finger puppets which did a very nice puppet show,
and best of all, we made turtles!
I am not sure "why" exactly, but the turtles were an absolute hit! Before I knew knew it, everyone getting into the action, coloring one, or two, or three turtles to call their own! . When we ran out of printed ones we began tracing the ones we had made and making more!
Of course,
it had to be
labeled
"TOP SECRET."
But with permission, I snuck a peek.
Everyone was having fun together and was in the mood for playing with, cutting out and coloring... and racing ...turtles. It was a glorious day of good, old-fashioned, family fun!
When we were done coloring the turtles, Papa set up the turtle race, and before long they were all off and running!
Did I say running? I really mean... RUNNING.
This was the really fun part....
You see, no one but Papa and I really knew what the race would be like and even we were a bit surprised to see it in action. It was great! The kids had tied a string to their own turtles and were just pulling them around the room on the floor, ready to race! One turtle was even tied to a helium balloon and was doing some parachuting around for a while.. Everyone had their own vision of what the turtle race would be like. Some imagined that they would be pulling their turtle with a string, others figured on pushing it, maybe even running with it on top of your head as they prepared for the races. Finally, the race was one and they lined up, following our directions....
You can only perhaps imagine their surprise when they were told to simply sit still and jiggle the string in their hands to make the turtles run all the way to the chairs and over the finish line! And boy, was it a surprise to us all to actually see them all go!
Here they are at the start line... on their marks and ready to go!
The paper turtles will be racing to those chairs.
"get ready..."
"GO!"
And
they
are
off!
and running!
Hooray for Turtle Day!
