Road trip pencil pouches plus!

It's time for the grandkids to travel again this summer.  So Grandma put on her thinking cap and came up with this idea:  three-ring binders.  The first thing I made was pencil cases.  They are kind of oversized because I knew I would have lots of bits and pieces to put inside.

 Then I loaded the notebook with activites that fit each grandchild like patterns,

sudoku,

mazes,

 alphabet practice,

 color by number,

 fill-ins,

 mad libs,

 and hangman.

I put some of the sheets inside plastic sleeves so they could be used over and over.  The black felt works great for an eraser for the dry erase marker on the plastic sleeves.  

I love to do things with magnets for road trips and a Dollar Store cookie sheet works great for this.

Book bag

The idea for this bag came from this site. 

I thought it was perfect for my media specialist daughter.

 Front...

and back.

Feed sack pillows

These pillows will soon be on their way to an auction which will benefit a children's home.  They are made of old feed sacks (which I am in love with).

 The first one is appliqued and pieced with a vintage-looking blue solid background.

 On the back there is a red accent band with three covered buttons to hold it closed...

 and the same red for the piping around the edge.  I love piping, but don't like sewing it on so much.

The other pillow is made up entirely of little feed sack squares.  They finish off at 1 1/2 inches.  The back of this pillow has a red zipper closure.

14 Days of Valentine Love

I got inspired to  do something special for the grandkids for Valentines Day this year.  Maybe it will become a tradition.  Who knows.  So I started with some chair-back envelopes.  I got the idea here, but I decided to make them out of fabric instead of felt.

Each day the kids will get one little gift from Grandpa and Grandma in their valentine envelope, including foaming hearts,

 marbled playdough with cookie cutters,

 shaving cream valentines they can swirl around with a Q-tip,

 shark  clothespins with magnets from Family Fun magazine,

 a printed Valentine I Spy sheet,

 a Valentine matching page,

 crayons and a "Math" sheet of counting, measuring, and graphing using candy hearts,

 "dachshund" pencil puppies,

 chocolate mint chex mix with valentines sprinkles,

 Valentine slime with glitter,

 Valentine bookmarks with fabric hearts,

 heart bracelets (with hearts drawn on sideways--oops),

 bags of S'more mix--teddy grahams, mini marshmallows, and Valentine M&Ms,

 and pop-up Valentine cards.

 This is what the pile of goodies looked like

and then into the box it went

 along with directions for the parents.

Oh, and there was one more present...an Ohio State Championship shirt for everyone!!!

New twist on crayon rolls

Needed to make some crayon rolls for a benefit.  I've never been satisfied with the closure on my crayon rolls.  These elastic hair ties don't last.  They get thin and lose their stretch.

The ribbon ties are too difficult for kids to use.

So I came up with this idea.  I used a few inches of 1/2 - 3/4 inch elastic and a strip of fabric twice as long.  I sewed the fabric into a tube, inserted the elastic, and sewed it in place.  I think it's a good improvement, but I'll need to hear the final say from some kid-testers!

Hope they work because I made a bunch!

Christmas Pillows

A friend asked if I could make some new pillow covers for her for Christmas.  Of course! 

For the first pillow I used wool felt, cut different sizes of circles, and added different kinds of embroidery stitches for fun.  I hand-sewed the circles on the background. I got the idea here.

My friend had some scraps left from some Christmas stockings she had made.  Because the pieces were so small, I had to do a pieced design.  I decided to make four wonky Christmas trees for this pillow.  I machine quilted around each tree and quilted some random stars.

And another felt design...found here.  This was definitely the quickest one to make.  I used fusible web and machine sewed around the edges.

After making the other scrap pillow, I was left with only tiny pieces. So I decided to make nine small blocks.  I cut different widths from the scraps.  After cutting squares of quilt batting a little larger than I needed, I sewed the scraps on, using a quilt-as-you-go method.  After each square was covered with fabric, I trimmed them to the right size and stitched them all together.

I REALLY wanted to keep each one of these pillows when it was finished, but it sure is fun to make them for a friend...and she loved them, too!

Little purses

 Two cute little purses for a friend's granddaughters.  They are reversible.

You can find a tutorial here.