"Gear"ing up for a trip

We are taking a trip very soon that involves air travel. For quite some time I have wanted to sew the boys some new "gear" to take with them. Of course I waited until this weekend to get started. I am pretty happy with how these turned out. I made each boy a drawstring backpack using THIS TUTORIAL from Martha Stewart. These backpacks were SO easy to make. I am pretty sure I made them from start to finish.......both of them........in under an hour. They will be awesome to take on hikes, etc. this summer. I used a contrasting cotton print fabric for the inside instead of nylon recommended in the link. Also........I bought the fabric at Hobby Lobby and they didn't have drawstring cord. So I used really narrow double-fold bias tape. I just had to stitch it together first using a straight seam down the middle. This worked okay but if you have access to cord that would be easier and would eliminate a step. I used Wonder-Under to iron a monogram on each pack.




And I made each boy a drawing pad/crayon holder to match their new backpacks. They both like to draw and write so I knew these would be great for taking on the plane. To make these I used THIS TUTORIAL from Skip to My Lou. I had to adjust it somewhat to make it shorter from top to bottom so it would better fit the drawing pads I bought at Target.





When opened they look like this. I put Crayola Twistable crayons in the pockets. You could also put colored pencils.