Quick, Easy DIY Busy Board for Toddlers

This DIY busy board is made of items you probably already have (or could easily find) and requires minimal tools, so it’s the perfect beginner project that’ll give you a much-needed 20 minutes of free time while your small demon exerts some energy and builds motor skills. Win win.

It’s weird how in every stage of parenting we realize how good we had it in the last one. Our girl is almost one now and while we’re finally getting some payback for the endless diaper changes with hugs, giggles and the sound of little feet storming down the hallway, she Just. Wants. To. Touch. Everything.

This DIY busy board has been in my head for quite a while but was one of those little projects that I put off for a really long time for no reason. We’ve spent about the last month slowly building a whole ass fireplace in our living room, though, so there’s been a disproportionate amount of stuff everywhere that’s very tempting and choking hazard-y, thus baby girl needed something to distract her and keep her, well, busy.

We’ve talked a lot about this fireplace on Instagram and in our newsletter, so if you don’t already, make sure you’re following along!

DIY busy board

The beauty of this idea is that you can really make it anything you want – color, shape, trinkets, it’s all up to you. I was aiming to use up as much scrap wood as possible, so I made my backer board out of beadboard we had leftover from our budget bathroom makeover, and used the paint color Terra Cotta Urn by Behr, which I used on one of baby girl’s DIY scalloped bookshelves recently.

Cut your board

I first measured how tall I needed the whole board to be, for me it was about 23 inches to fit under a window, and cut my beadboard down to that length. So then I had a 23-inch tall board, and using the piece of scrap I had, it was about 24 inches wide.

I marked the center point of what would be the top, and using my miter saw, set the angle at 31.6 then cut from the center point out to the edge. I repeated that step on the other side to make a little house shape.

Quick tool note: I know I’m being extra and making a little house shape, but if you don’t have any saws, you could definitely do a rectangle shape and have the guys at your local hardware store cut the plywood piece down for you. A lot of big box stores like Home Depot also have a section called project panels where they’ll have 2’x2’ sheets that would be perfect for this!

Sand and paint

I then sanded down the beadboard and gave it a coat of paint with a roller. Side note: Painting beadboard is tedious with all those little cracks, but so worth it.

While that dried, I cut down a couple of tiny trim pieces I had left over from another project to make a little roof for my new house shape.

I used that same angle – 31.6 – on both ends of each trim piece and they fit together nicely at the top.

I stained it with the Golden Oak stain I used on our butcher block island and used my nail gun to attach it from the back so I wouldn’t have any nail holes (but again, if you don’t have a lot of tools, you could use wood glue and just leave it to dry on there with something heavy holding it down).

The fun part: Attach your trinkets

This was the best part for sure, and took a bit of tinkering around to find the best configuration.
I got a couple of items from Amazon, but mostly just walked the hardware store aisles and found little pieces that I knew baby girl would love to play with.

What I used on our DIY busy board:

• Dog training bell
• Craft wood cutouts (I spray painted these gold and stacked them like little flowers she could spin)
• Puck light
• Caster wheels
• Springy door stop
• Zipper
• Cabinet latch
• Hinges (I used scrap wood to make little windows)
• Chain lock

Attach to your wall

Being that we’ve only got a teeny little house, we really don’t have a lot of space for all these things we keep making, but I deliberately built this busy board to fit right underneath one of the windows in the nursery. I just used regular screws and added them into the wall. If you aren’t hitting a stud, make sure to use anchors because believe me, your little one will definitely be going nuts and yanking on all those little parts in no time.

Let us know if you make a DIY busy board – we’d love to see! And make sure to sign up to our newsletter for more project ideas!