There are only nine days left until our vacation starts! We are heading to the Outer Banks with my in-laws, though the kids don't know where we are going. We are taking two and a half days to get there which means a lot of time in the car. Last year when we went to Arkansas the kids had little boxes with crayons in them to use with their plastic lap easels. They were a disaster! Crayons were everywhere and the kids couldn't rip and pull the paper so I had to constantly climb to the back and help them. NO MORE!
I started by making some lap desks using the second half of this tutorial. I knew I didn't want the crayons to get away this time, so during my brainstorming I had come up with a way to keep them all together. We use the Twistable Crayons at our house since there's no paper to peel, no broken crayons, and my youngest can't eat them. I test drilled the clear end of one and fit pull-chain through it and my idea took off. I had my husband drill three new packages of crayons (I could have done it, but wanted him to have some part in it. Turns out he didn't really care.) I bought a package of pull-chain and some connectors at Wal-mart and also some lanyards. I looped the lanyard through the hole on the clipboard, strung the crayons on the chain and then put it on the key ring at the end of the lanyard. TA-DA! Instant crayon leash! :) I also got some spiral-bound drawing pads at Wal-mart for $2 each so they don't have to worry about losing paper all over.
The kids also needed some new pillows. They used to have small pillows I found at a dollar store, but even as small as they were they were too big. Plus, they kept dropping them! (A common problem with my kids.) For months now they've been pillow-less which makes it especially hard for my daughter to sleep since she has no back to her carseat to rest her head on. I remembered having seen this tutorial a long while ago, so going from memory (because I was too lazy to look it up) I ended up with this:
It's a lot smaller than the one in the tutorial, but I think it will work just fine for my kiddos. Plus, I added the ribbon to tie it to the headrest adjustment bar. That way if they don't want to use it, then can just throw it behind the seat and pull it up when they want to use it. No more pillows, or crayons, on the floor! :)
A spur of the moment project was this beach bag. While we were shopping I saw a woven beach bag which go me thinking about carrying our towels or whatever to and from the beach. But since I'm frugal, I didn't want to pay $8 for it so I headed off to the fabric department to check the remnants. I hit the JACKPOT! I found a piece of 72"x 2 yard piece of yellow netting for $1.56!!!! Although it was a pain in the butt to work with, I managed a decent bag with tons of extra. I already had material I knew would go great with it for the handle and also for the top binding. I whipped it up while the kids slept and although it isn't the prettiest, it will serve it's purpose, and for a lot less than $8. :)