Dinosaur carry bag with play mat

Here's the dinosaur carry bag with play mat I made. I think the pictures mostly speak for themselves.

Portable Dolls House

Home made board game

What to do with somewhat sick kids on a chilly windy day? How about making your own board game?

We started with an A3 piece of heavy paper. I drew a track and Miss 3 coloured it in to match the activities for each square:

Pink - Go forward x spaces
Light blue - Take a "Spot What" card

Travel With Kids

So we finally went on our much anticipated long haul flights with Mr 5 and Miss 3. The kids used their travel trays once in an airplane (at my request) and once in the airport to keep beads contained, but really they would have been happy without them. Travel with a 5 and 3 year old is definitely different to a few years younger.

But on the upside... The trays fitted well, and worked well. If the kids hadn't had so much great video-on-demand they probably would have got a better work out.

We ended up buying a couple of tablets, and really between them, the in flight entertainment and the free flight activity book handouts, we could have flown with one other activity book per child, and had enough to do. Still the kids enjoyed the goody bags full of sticker books small beads and chenille sticks. 

So my top tips for flying with a 3 and 5 y/o:

1. Expect no sleep. Any sleep you do get is a fantastic bonus.

2. Take a couple of slices of plain bread (or something similar that your child likes) in case the meals are just not enticing enough.

3. Take a small bag of gummy bears for the whole family to use in moments of impending meltdowns (they take a little longer to chew, but are still small).

4. Take spare clothes for kids and parents for any orange juice accidents or similar.

5. Take a tablet loaded with as many apps as you can find.

6. Bring a book for yourself. You can be sure if there is one in-flight TV screen not working, you'll be persuaded to swap so that you're the one without a screen.

7. Bring headphones for the kids that fit them and stay on. We used ones we had originally bought for their leapsters.

8. Empty the kids' water bottles out before you reach the x-ray point so you're not encouraged to skull the whole bottle.

Top android apps for 3 y/o girl:

1. Anything from Dr Panda

2. Fairy dress ups

3. Angry birds

4. Cut the rope

5. Cooking games

Top Apps for 5 y/o boy:

1. Cannon bash

2. Cut the rope

3. Bad Piggies

4. Flow free

5. Unblock car

Top Apps to play together:

6. Tap play

7. Doors

Airplane Activity Tray, Take 2

So I thought I'd have a second go at the airplane activity tray to go on the tray table of the plane. This should help the kids keep occupied on our upcoming long haul flights, and help to stop toys, pens, pages, forks etc. making a dash for the floor.

I had been eying off the vinyl table cloth in the shop with roads on it, but it was so expensive, and I already had perfectly good plastic at home... so I decided to turn the trays over and draw my own road. My own? Well, a bit of a co-operative effort with the kids.

Here's how I did it:

A piece of vinyl (I used an old kids splash mat) 32cm x 50cm.

4 pieces of something more firm (I used some laminated paper). 2 need to be 3cm x 24.8cm, and the second 2 are 3cm x 21cm.

Some elastic and some velcro.

Measure 2 cm from the corners, draw a triangle and cut it off. This makes the corner less bulky when folded.

Turn the plastic over, measure half way along the long edge. Place the two shorter strips of laminated paper 1cm from the edge and close to the centre line (but not overlapping so you can fold the tray in half to store/carry). Use sticky tape to hold it in place.

Sew it down, folding over the plastic as you go.

Position the longer laminated paper strips on the short side of the plastic. They should be about 1cm from the edge, but take care that they are corner to corner with the strips you've already sewed on, without overlapping. See the fine read lines in the picture above for my attempt to show this. If they overlap, you won't be able to neatly fold up the sides of the tray.

To make the front edge of the tray, take a small left over strip of plastic (about 3cm x 21cm) and roll it into a small roll (or something else soft, on my first version I used wadding, but it was a bit messy). Tape it in place on the front edge, again leaving a gap at the centre line for folding. Fold over the front edge about 1.5cm and sew it down.

Cut small strip of elastic about 5cm long. Sew one end on the inside of the tray, close to the end of laminated paper strip. I did it on the side wall, but it would also work on the back wall. Sew the other end to the back of the tray at the other edge of the laminated paper strip.

When you assemble the tray, pinch the corner into a triangle and tuck it under the elastic. 

On the front side of the tray, fold over the corner and sew down (it would have been slightly better to sew right down to the corner like I did first time). Sew a 3cm strip of elastic across the end of the laminated paper strip.

When you fold this corner it, it makes a little triangle that can be slipped under the elastic.

To attach the tray to the plane tray table, I sewed on 4 strips of elastic to the back side. I sewed them slightly inside the laminated paper strips. This makes them on slightly inside the edge of the bottom area of the tray when assembled. (This means if the plane tray table is slightly smaller than expected the activity tray should still sit nicely.) Sew the elastic strips so they are pointing outwards. Sew a rectangle of velcro (hook and loop) to the other end of each piece of elastic.

I decided this would be best because:

1. it seemed simple to do, 

2. it gave me two ends so I could adjust the length of the straps a bit to cater for different sized tables, 

3. I can open them up and twist them around the back arms to the tray table if needed and 

4. I can open them up and push them to the side if I want to use the activity tray on a train or table.

Finished the sewing, now to decorate.

First I roughed out the outline using lead pencil. I only had a black and a red permanent marker in house, so I used them (Mr 5 insisted the roads should be red on his). I then used an eraser to remove any unwanted pencil lines.

We then found (after trying all the felt tipped pens and finding they all rubbed off) that pencil coloured in beautifully, and wouldn't wipe off with a wet cloth (although can mostly be rubbed off with an eraser), and so the kids could add some extra colour to the pictures.

Restaurant Bag/ Travel Activity Bag

We are planning on doing some travelling this year, including a long haul flight or two, and a wedding, and a few more trips of 6+ hours, with a 3 and 5 year old. 

I previously made a tray to go on a plane tray table, and I'd been planning on making a bag that would hang on the back side of the tray. In the end I decided not to go with that for a few reasons: I think that doing a bit of bending and stretching for a bag under a seat every few hours would probably do our circulation some good, I don't think the passenger in the seat in front of us wants a bag full of books banging against the back of their chair, the chair is too far away for kids to easily reach, and I want something a bit more versatile that can be used as a restaurant bag as well.

What I did want:

A zip! So I can be sure that nothing precious is going to escape from the bag while it's under a seat.

A bag big enough to fit a large activity book or colouring book easily.

Potentially a bag that's big enough to quickly stuff every loose animal, car, and pack of tissues into it at the end of a flight.

A shoulder strap which can also be used to hook the bag over the corner of a restaurant chair.

I'm not an amazing sewer, in fact I'm very new to zips and they tend to scare me a bit. But here's what I did. If you've got a suggestion for how it can be done better, just add a comment. :)

1. Cut a piece of material a couple of inches bigger on all sides than the book or folder you want to fit in there. The zip in the picture is 30cm. Cut a strip about 10cm x 70cm for the shoulder strap.

2. Fold over the top seam and iron in place.

3. Fold over the side seam (both front and back fabric together) and iron.

 4. Fold the two sides in for the shoulder strap, and then fold it in half along the length. Iron.

5. Pin the zip to one side of the top and sew in place. Make sure the outside of the zip faces the outside of your fabric. 

6. Sew only up to where you earlier ironed in the side seam crease (mark this spot with a pin if it's a bit tricky to see)

7. Sew the other side of the zip on.

8. Sew up the side seams to the top

9. Sew the handle together on the open side, and then sew the handle onto the back side of the bag.

10. Admire your work!

In the end I couldn't resist adding a little pocket. It's just big enough for a little pencil box, but mostly I just did it for looks.

Magnetic Tangrams

I've been wanting to make a magnetic shapes game, and we got another large magnetic in with the junk mail recently. So, inspired by Delia Creates, I had a go at making my own. Actually making 2 of my own, I thought that would be more fun and peaceful.

I decided to paint the pieces, as the last time I made the triangular dominoes using magnets and paper stuck on top, I found they really needed to be covered in plastic contact paper to stay nice. I was hoping to skip this step (which I found I really couldn't... more on that later).

I used stick glue to stick the pattern on, and then once I'd cut the pieces out, I removed the paper. I painted the magnets in white first and then in a colour.

Done. Or so I thought.

I printed out some simple shapes, only to realise that the original game expects the parallelogram piece (the only one that isn't symmetrical) to be turned over when necessary. That doesn't work so well with magnetic pieces, and the kids were not up to making a mirror image of the whole design. So I had two choices, either print out only the designs with the parallelogram in the right orientation, or make a mirror image parallelogram. I decided the second choice was FAR easier. There's a bucket load of designs out there, and it's so much easier to know anything you print can easily be attempted.

So back to the making, I made two more mirror image parallelograms (one for each of the two sets), painted them, and then seeing as the original pieces were starting to loose their paint already, I covered them all in contact (which makes them a bit easier to pick up and they feel a bit nicer to handle too.

Done. Again. This time for real.

And the kids love it. Miss 3 likes to have help to do it. Mr 5 is fine with a pattern, but I haven't tried him on the shadow outlines yet.

Now I'm dreaming of making a nice little magnetic folder for them to be stored in and travel in.

Plane Trip Bingo 3, 4 and 5

Here are a few slightly trickier plane trip bingo sheets I've made and thought I'd share. They're free to download, although I do appreciate comments :). 

Here's a plane scavenger hunt of moderate difficulty I've made. Download it from here.

And a second hunt of moderate difficulty. Download the free printable from here.

Here's another slightly more difficult one. Download a free printable from here.


Or go to the other Plane Trip Bingo games. 

Plane Trip Bingo 2

Here's another Plane Trip Bingo that's perfect for those weary times after a meal, but before your tray is cleared. Download the pdf Here.

Or go to the other Plane Trip Bingo games.

Plane Trip Bingo

I noticed that there are plenty of scavenger hunts out there for road trips, but not so much for in a plane. So here's a scavenger hunt I made for in a plane and thought I'd share. It should be relatively easy. Download the Plane Trip Bingo here (for free, although I always appreciate a comment!)

Or see one of my other plane scavenger hunts:
Meal Time Plane Bingo
3 Somewhat Tricky Plane Bingos

Travel Cars Mat

These travel cars mats are something I made for a long haul flight a few years back. They were great on the plane; the little cars tucked securely inside when they were folded up, and they fitted easily on a little table or into a handbag. They were also great for other waiting times; at the doctors, at friends' houses etc. 

To make them I used some old curtains that had the white lining on the back. I hemmed them with bias binding, although the material doesn't fray, so hemming was just for looks. The bridges I made using fabric scraps sewed over some thin plastic (cut from whatever packaging rubbish we had in house). They're not super sturdy, but they do the job of getting the imaginations rumbling. 

I have a snap machine to put snaps on (which I bought way back when I was first pregnant and thought I'd be using in all my endless "free time" as a new mum making cloth nappies. Ha ha!). So I used snaps for the bridges, where I'm sure velcro would probably do the job. I put a couple of different configurations in, so that the bridges can be moved around.

The road I drew on with a permanent marker, and coloured in using water colour paints. I have seen some mums making beautifully sewn on roads. I like the quick and dirty option when available.

I finished with a loop of elastic sewn on at one edge, ready to keep it all together while it's travelling.

Sticker Book

My kids are always getting stickers, as rewards, or from the fruit shop, or from the school banking, or dentist. What ever they are, the kids love them. But the great question is what to do with them all that keeps the walls and furniture sticker free.

Miss 3 and I decided to make a sticker book. We took 4 pages of different coloured paper, and made them into a book in much the same way as the fairy book we made a few days ago; stapling to the outside from the centre of the book, folding over the staple ends, and covering the staple ends with sticky tape to stop them from catching on anything.

And then Miss 3 could happily stick stickers to her hearts content.

After a while I decided to get a bit educational on her, and add a counting activity. I drew some boxes and wrote a number under each box. She loved sticking the right number of stickers in each box and then she drew her own boxes with numbers on another page.