Quieting the beast within...

My kids are great. They are fun, sweet, usually polite and full of energy. BUT. I can safely say they are, perhaps, the loudest children in the world. There is never a moment of quiet. Particularly my little Elio. Elio is 2. For those of you with kids, I need not explain what that means. But even for a two year old, this kid is loud. His pipes might serve him well in the future, should he select a career in Wagnerian opera. But for the time being, it is tricky to go anywhere that requires, say, quiet.

A month or so ago, a mum on a Facebook mom's group that I belong to posted in search of "Look and See Bags". I had no idea what these were, so I did what any self respecting woman of the 21st century would do- googled it. One site of a crafter who made these swore they kept her kids quiet for an hour at a time. Enough said. I'm sold. Looking at the things made me realize this was a very doable project, and in fact, I just happened to have all the fixings in my house already.

The concept is super simple. Picture a bean bag with a window. Inside, hidden amongst the pellets are a myriad of what my son Matteo calls "smalls". I don't know about you, but in our house, we are inundated with "smalls"- those teeny tiny toys that seem to get lost, until you step on them, shooting pain straight through your foot. In fact, Matteo has so many smalls (an embarrassing testament to the number of Kinder Surprises that he has consumed in his 5 year existence), that we bought him a tackle box to store the things. The thought of a craft that made use of some of these was naturally very appealing. The idea is that attached to the bean bag is a list of all the things to find within. Kids manipulate the pellets to move the objects around, trying to find all the treasures. Brilliant!

These were a fairly quick project- two completed in a couple hours, even with my basic sewing skills. I played with various ways of putting it together. I really wanted a finished edge around the window, which seemed to be difficult. In the end I made the front of mine by finishing the edge of four strips of fabric. I then sewed them together in such a way that the finished edges created a rectangular shaped hole. I then took a piece of clear tablecloth vinyl and sewed it over the hole to create the window. All that was left to do was to sew on a solid back leaving a hole for stuffing. I then filled the bag with pellets (available at fabric or craft stores) and knick knack paddywhacks. Before I put in the knick knacks though, I made sure to take a photo of what was going in to each bag. I then had greeting cards (nice and small, not to mention cheap and cheerful) made with the photos. I sewed the cards inside two pieces of table cloth vinyl so that they are protected from getting grungy. All that was left to do was close up the stuffing hole, and attach a ribbon (in my case ric-rac) so the inventory cards could be attached. I found old key rings to use to accomplish this. If you ever do this, I recommend keeping your stitch length short so as to discourage any "leakage".

Tonight was the first time my kids got to play with them. SUCCESS! So gratifying- it is so deflating when you spend time on something that is met with mediocre response. In the words of Matteo, "I love my I-Spy Game!"

Here's the finished product. Kind of fun.