A Place for All Her Stuff

For my first trip to Florida this year I bought Sophia an inexpensive vinyl pencil case to hold her crayons and some new stamps that I bought her. By the end of the trip Sophia had crammed everything that was important to her into her pencil case. There was a watch, crayons, stamps, bracelets, chapstick...and I could go on, all together in this pencil case that was not very large. Sophia also carried around a little colouring book with her and had to have this book and her pencil case everywhere that we went.

For my second trip to Florida I decided to make Sophia something that she could carry her colouring books in and a pencil case that could be a catch-all for all the little treasures she came upon during our trip. I let Sophia choose the fabric that she wanted out of my constantly growing stash. I still wasn't exactly sure what I was going to make for her but I started anyway. Sophia asked for a tinkerbell pencil case, an embroidery file that I already had, so I started with the pencil case.

And then she decided on a butterfly book holder. I wanted something that she could put on her lap and was strong enough for her to colour on, I lined the back of the colouring/activity book holder with fairly rigid interfacing. I added mesh at the front of the book holder so that she can slide her pencil case inside and we can stay fairly organized, rushing around at the airport and on the plane.

I lined both the book part of the carrying case and the pencil case with PUL fabric, for all those marker and stamp accidents so they wouldn't soak through the beautiful fabric and added a zipper to keep everything from falling out.


Sophia uses her book/pencil case regularly and she can slip in her books and zip it closed by herself, and anyone that knows Sophia already knows that regardless of whether she can or can't do something she refuses all offers of assistance, so the more child friendly my projects are the better for all of us.