art caddy

I sewed something!  One of Oscar's buddies had a birthday party this weekend, and making a gift was just the motivation I needed to dust off the sewing machine. I made a little take-along art caddy in hopes that it will be useful in keeping a 3-year-old busy and happy.

There are lots of variations of this project floating around the internet, and I used bits and pieces of many of them.  I've referenced my favorite versions at the bottom of this post.  I didn't follow a specific tutorial partially because I wanted to create something unique, but mostly because I am feeling too tired to try and follow written directions.  :)

Is it silly that I am proud of myself for including a zipper pocket?  I have known how to sew zippers for a long time now, but for some reason I tend to shy away from them.   Zippers are not scary!  I need to remember that.

When you open the caddy, you find crayons and markers on the left, and a paper pad and an extra pocket for goodies like stickers on the right.

The fabrics for this project came from Riley Blake's Wheels line.  For inspiration or instructions on a similar project, check out the following blogs:

Spledorfalls: composition caddy
Simply Modern Mom:  kaye's sketchbook caddy
Sutton Gract: art notebook
{lbg studio}:  art journal

And now, for a gratuitous cute baby photo:

Can you believe it has already been 7 weeks since Cora was born?  Time really flies.  While I can't say it has been super fun so far, I sure do love her.