I gave my daughter a "busy box" for her 7th b-day. She LOVED it. I got a Sterlite plastic tote with a handle lid at Target for about $7. Then at craft stores I got her some acrylic paints, brushes, a couple of wooden birdfeeders to paint, birdseed, a journal, gel pens, and a disposable camera, and a $20 gift card to Jo-Ann for more craft stuff. I let her paint the birdfeeders and we put them on hooks outside the front window and back window by our deck. She played the role of birdwatcher, recording in her journal all the "important" things she saw on every other page and took pictures, which after we developed, she glued into her journal on every other respective page. She felt SO important....like she had a job. It was so much fun for her. The $20 gift card, I explained to her, was to go and buy any craft things she wanted that would fit into her now empty busy box so she could have a craft box of her very own to whip out on any rainy day or whenever. She bought some glitter crayons, a coloring book, some scrap material, felt, googly eyes, craft sticks...all kinds of stuff. I do the same thing with the $100 limit so this was under and she really had a lot of fun. She is constantly using her busy box and will add things to it all the time - like bottle caps, toilet paper tubes, whatever. She's 8 now, and her completed bird book is one of her most prized possessions.