Now some of you may think that the prospect of a 14 hour car trip with 5 kids would scare any sane person out of their minds. Which either means that I'm insane, or I know secrets!!! We had a 14 hour (drive time) road trip planned for this summer. My hubby was going to be travelling a lot this month, so once the kids were out of school, we packed our bags and headed south. I love to surprise my kids on the day of the trip with fun goodies to help keep them entertained. Between those goodies, movies, and my audio books - I was looking forward to a nice peaceful ride. And believe it or not... I got it! A few potty stops, a few food stops, but we made good time and there was little fighting or screaming! YEY! Really - when you think about it - when the kids are trapped in their seats and I have an audio book (so I can ignore the barbie movie they are watching for the 10th time) I'm one happy camper! The only thing better is when my hubby is with me so I can crochet and sew and listen to an audio book while he drives :P
Well to prepare for the trip, I made a few fun goodies for the kids - I started out by making these (click on the image to go to her blog for instructions) The kids LOVED these - they love to color and draw and can spend hours happily entertained with colored pencils and paper. The roughest part was cutting out the dvd holder part - get a couple extra cases if you are going to do it to practice on - you can find the cases pretty cheap and the cutting takes some practice (at least it did for me.) I also went to Hobby Lobby for some matching fabric for the inside and paper for the outside.
I also made these - i love how they came out and the kids loved having them - i stuffed them with their coloring cases, and books and other goodies and they loved it. I mostly used left over fabric from the big quilt we made for my sister-in-law and her family for Christmas. I also used a sheet of plastic canvas to give it stability, and some batting that I used spray adhesive to attach to the plastic canvas. The pockets were just pieces of fabric folded in half, seamed and stitched in place. The handles were using the plastic-y canvas type handle stuff (I got it at hobby lobby in the fabric area) and melted the ends with a lighter to seal them. Then i sewed one end into the seam at the top and added snaps to the other end. I started writing up an actual pattern for this - and left it back home :) I will include it with all the dimensions and stuff when i get back.
