MORE Felt "Busy Bags"

So if you followed my previous post on felt busy bags (link here) you might have been asking, "I got 7 sheets of felt left...what do I do now?" I personally do not like having extra supplies of anything laying around, it makes me feel lazy and like I need to do something with them. 

1. Fish Game: My mom (like I said in the previous post) already did several busy bags for me. Had she not I would definitely do the fish game cut up fish with the felt, glue a paperclip in between, find magnet for rope and pencil - got yourself a pond with fish in it.

2. Build-able Racetrack: Another felt idea is to make roads that the kids can build. I had black felt and yellow felt so I took the black and cut up for curve pieces and several straight pieces so they can make a track Then I cut out tiny yellow pieces to put in the middle of the road pieces and hot glued them together (careful it's super hot and tricky because the yellow pieces are tiny!) I picked through the hundreds of Hot wheels my boys have for some flat race cars for them to race (plus the flatter the car, the easier they stay in the bag). And that bag is done!

3. Shape/Color Matching: I could not figure out what other projects I wanted to do. You can cut little pieces and have it make a picture but I thought that would be too many little pieces for the airplane and my youngest . I also wanted something both my 2 year old and my 5 year old could benefit from. So I decided to trace the same 5 shapes (triangle, rectangle, square, circle & star) on each leftover felt square. I cut them out and now I can teach both boys different things...For my youngest: same color & same shape. For my oldest: same as my youngest & same or different (put like a square and circle together and ask him are they the same color, are they the same shape, which one is bigger, which one is smaller, which one is taller, which one is shorter, etc= basic opposites). Both my boys enjoyed these felt pieces. They sorted them and stacked them. Perfect!

That project used up most of my extra felt! I kept the yellow so I could make more street pieces for that busy bag. So for under 15$ you have yourself 4 or 5 "Busy Bags" completed!

1. Felt Shapes

2. Felt Fishing Game

3. Felt Crazy Straw Beading

4. Felt Race Car Track

5. Felt Button Snake (I did not do this, below is the one my mom made me but I cut up more than enough felt for the Crazy Straws that I could have done this as well)

Happy Mommy-ing! 

To See The Mother Load of all the Busy Bags I have, Check out this post here

The Mother Load of "Busy Bags"

Wow! I was looking through all the "Busy Bags" my mom had made me a few years ago and I had NO IDEA I had so many wonderful bags at my fingertips! I even re-created some because I had not checked my stock pile:

Not a "Busy Bag" but a really cool book with a manga doodle attached

Coloring: Mini White Board and Dry Erase Markers

My Mom found this at a Craft Fair: Left side holds six cars in pockets and the street is sewn on

Building: Beads and cut up straws with yarn and shoelaces

Matching: Paint swatches (FREE) and Poms Poms 

Matching Game: Felt sewn together to create a pocket and popsicle sticks with felt glued on

Lacing Cards

Puppets: Paint swatches as puppets and finger puppets

Cards: Dollar Store Flash Cards

Coloring: Coloring, Stickers and Paper

Building: Colored Popsicle sticks and printed, laminated pattern cards

Building: Wiffle balls and pile cleaners

Button Snake: Ribbon with button sewn on & cut out felt with slit in the middle

I Spy: colored rice and small items to hide (inside a Ziploc, in the pencil pouch, glued zipper and safety pinned!)

Building: Colored Popsicle sticks with Velcro circles on them

Matching Game: Felt Hands with matching paper clips

Matching: Cardboard Alphabet puzzles 

Building: Felt pieces with snaps to make rings

Activity: Felt Fishing Game (magnets sewn in-between felt, yarn on pencil with washer on the end and felt pond)

I Spy: Magnifying glass and small animals

Building: Cut up sponges as quiet blocks

Matching: More Puzzles (Letters and Numbers) 

WOW is all I can say! That was what my mom blessed me with years ago and I have added to it so here are those: 

Building: Crazy Straws and cut out felt pieces with slits in the middle

Coloring: Grab and Go coloring pack and Crayons

Matching: Five cut out felt shapes in five colors

Cards: Huge deck of playing cards 

Activity: Build-able street pieces and car

  I have 27 "Busy Bags" at my disposal! Holy Cow!!!! You would think I have the most quiet kids when we go out to eat or while waiting at places but honestly there are a few bags that I need to help my kids with and there are some that they do not care for. Only a handful hold their attention for longer than a few minutes. It's not reasonable to take this entire box and all 27 bags with me everywhere I go! I always have some sort of coloring for my kids, some sort of cards (playing cards or flash cards) and cars with me at all times: both in the car and the diaper bag. But these little bags are AMAZING! I cannot stress enough that every mom, no matter how much money you can spend, no matter how much time you have, no matter how old you child/children are: "Busy Bags" are a must for moms!

DIY Felt Toddler Busy Bag Crafts

"Busy Bags" are so hot right now! There are endless Pins on Pinterest and numerous videos on YouTube detailing how easy and cheap it is to make yourself some "Busy Bags". Every mom should have "Busy Bags" in her arsenal of mommy hacks. They're meant to keep your kids busy and most of the time, quiet. You use them anywhere: grocery store, doctor's office, Pharmacy, DMV, airplane, road trip, anywhere that you need your little one to be occupied these are supposed to work like a charm. When my mom visited after our youngest was born she brought an entire small suitcase filled with items to make about 15 different "Busy Bags" for my oldest. There are some he liked and some he didn't but we still use them to this day on and off. He can entertain himself with a car and a coloring book with color crayons now. He's pretty easy, it's our youngest that goes through everything super fast, nothing really holds his attention longer than 5 minutes. Our youngest will be 2 in about a week and a half and we are embarking on a 6 plus hour flight to California from Tennessee at the end of November of this year to go see family and go to Disneyland. I am flying with a 5 year old and a 2 year old all by myself... I think I have gone crazy! So I have been looking at videos and pins to find different ideas for what to take with us and decided to post a few blogs about the different "Busy Bags" I will be taking with me on the plane and use while we are there visiting family. 

Project #1: This felt project you take those weird crazy straws we all loved in the 90s, take some felt & cut up some squares or rectangles..whatever shape, fold over and make a little slit in the middle. That's it! They're supposed to thread the felt on the straws, that helps with dexterity and motor skills and it's supposed to keep them entertained for hours. My five-year-old wanted to do it; he wanted to match the colors with the colored straws.

Project #2: I took an ordinary $0.98 pill box, the felt I had already purchased and a dollar bag of colored pom poms. I cut some felt out per color of pom-pom, glued it on top of the pill box lid to cover up the days of the week and separated out the colored pom poms into their designated box. Simple for him to learn how to match colors and he loves running around with it. Of course he tried to eat the pom-poms at first! I had to tell him that they weren't food and after he figured that out he has so much fun! I dumped it out and he puts the colors in the boxes, I have to help him by putting one pom pom per color and then he follows.

Two great and inexpensive "Busy Bag" ideas! The straws were a dollar, the pencil pouches were a dollar each, the felt was $0.23 per sheet (I got 7 of them) and the pom-poms were $0.98... so for $6, because you have to factor in taxes, I have two "Busy Bags" complete! It took maybe 30 minutes to cut all the felt, glue and separate. There's also another one where you cut bigger pieces of felt and sew a button on some ribbon - it's called feed the snake that you just put the felt on the ribbon. I haven't found the right ribbon yet and don't know if I'll do that but it's a good idea. I think the straws might just be enough, for right now.

Surviving When the In-Laws Come to Town

Everyone has heard of or experienced it for themselves, the In-Laws. Those people you married into, the ones you always need to be on top of your game for. The ones that are not your laid back parents. I'm fortunate to have wonderful In-Laws so there's no issue really when they visit. But I have heard from others lots of horrific stories and Hollywood is always showing how the Mother-in-law hates the Daughter-in-law.... Monster In Law ring a bell for anyone?

So how do you make sure you make it through family visiting without having them spoil your kids rotten, or lose your mind? I have a few tips to help when family visits (yours or your spouse's):

1. Have the house clean. I've always felt better about everything once my house is clean. Not deep clean like cleaning out the cabinets & fridge, but a little better clean than just picking up.

2. Let the kids' behavior slide a bit. I'm very strict when it comes to my kids. They don't run around the house, no pushing, no biting, they are to pick up after they are done playing, etc. But when family is here they get so excited - they forget some rules. It's very tough but I try to not get mad at them, after all they don't see family everyday. 

3. But there is a limit to that generosity. The family, be it mine or my husband's, always bring goodies for everyone. Tons of toys! I can't be too mad, I enjoy getting stuff too (who doesn't!?). But if they get too forgetful of the rules, like hitting each other or refusing to share their new toys with each other, I step in and correct them.

4. Don't be afraid to disciple or correct your kids. I hate yelling at my kids! If you've ever hung out with me you'd think the opposite. I really don't enjoy it but someone has to. Fortunately for me, my In-laws understood and agreed with me in those few moments I had to stop my kid's bad behavior.

5. Try to be on the same page with your spouse. When they're not your parents, or even when your family is in town, it helps to be on the same page as your spouse. Nothing is worse than 2 different plans for the same day. We live 2200 miles away from family so it's wonderful to have family visit but with our normal routine all messed up and the kids running wild to "perform" in-front of my In-laws or my parents for that matter, the best partner to help me not go crazy alone is my husband. 

6. Have fun! Like I've said many times, our family doesn't visit us often because of the distance. It is a real treat to have family, his or mine, visit us and I try not to spoil it with a bad mood or yelling or over planning. We just do whatever the group is feeling that day. We have our favorite places to eat with family, favorite places to shop or site see but we also enjoy just hanging with them at our house too.

Family should not be stressful, although no one tends to stress you out more than family. Enjoy them while you have them. There are people out there with no family. I miss me family everyday and I do envy those people that have them close by. This Thanksgiving/Christmas season I will be flying to see my family and I am counting the days until that happens.