Kids' Travel Activity Pack

I meant to make these last year for our trip to the Lake District, but, well, life got in the way I guess. This summer holiday, I really wanted to make sure I did them for our trip to Cornwall. Almost exactly the same amount of time in the car, but in a different direction...

These travel packs had to be made as cheaply as possible, so I found two cushion covers that I'd never used. They were a set of four from IKEA that we bought years ago. We use the other two, but the colours of these didn't really go with our living room. Perfect!

I folded them in half, so the zip is along the top:

Then I sewed up the sides and the middle, making sure I didn't go too high so the zip will still open. This has made four pockets - 2 with a zip and 2 open.

I cut a bit of material from old T-shirts and sewed some velcro on, which was then stitched to the back in the middle like so:

And the other bit was sewn on the front, along with my kids' initials (I made sure I only sewed through the top layer of the cushion):

The bit I had most trouble with were the inside pockets. I wanted clear page-like pockets. I was thinking clear pencil cases, but they were too thick. I'd thought of ringbinder pencil cases, but they were way too expensive, so I did some research and found people had made similar things using food bags. Off I went to Tesco! These were only £1 something for a pack of 25 I think.

I used six altogether, three on each side. I alternated each side, left, then right, pinned them and then sewed them in place:

And there you have it! I've filled it with various bits and pieces. In the zipped compartments are eye-spy bags (from Etsy), wipe-clean travel cards I bought in a book shop and Michelin eye-spy books.

In the open section are colouring books (now for sale!) and dot-to-dots.

Then in the plastic wallets are:

• Pipecleaners
• Plasticine
• Handmade fuzzy felt
• Handmade magnetic photo boards
• Handmade laminated games like eye-spy, bingo, maps, boxes etc.
• Crayons and whiteboard pens

I'll let you know how successful they are!

Edit - since I wrote this, we've now been and come back from our trip! As something to keep the kids occupied, they were brilliant! Not sure the style was so good for in the car though, as things kept falling out onto the floor. They'd be better for an aeroplane or restaurant I think.