Easy and Cheap Play Food

This is perhaps the cheapest, easiest, and also most played with craft I've ever made. 

One day we had paper plates in the living room and I got the idea to draw food on them.  I didn't expect Natalie to love them so much.  We go through little spurts where she plays with them a lot for a few days, then the stack is lost in the back of the toy chest.  Each time we pull them out, I add new foods.  I'm quite impressed that she can always tell what I've drawn (but I still write on the back of each what it is for Daddy and baby sitters). 

All you need to make this is a stack of white paper plates and a pack of crayons.  Total cost: $2 if you buy your supplies at the dollar store.

There is no prep, no clean up, and its fun and easy to do.  Where Natalie is still too young to draw food, I make all the food, but an older child could join in.

To decide what to drawn, I always drew the foods we had recently eaten or food Natalie loves.  

Pictured above:
Bottom row left to right: meatloaf with peas, cheese pizza, bacon and eggs, cucumbers and baby carrots, apple and pear slices
Middle row left to right: mac and cheese, crackers with cream cheese, toast with jam, pepperoni pizza, mashed potatoes and winter squash
Top row left to right: yogurt and pretzel sticks, burger with fries, chocolate chip cookies, watermelon

Not pictured:
Cake, cereal, broccoli, fruit salad, chicken nuggets, waffles, pancakes