Little Artist Portfolio

My 5 year old has two birthday parties to go to next weekend and I had the bright idea to make their gifts. I didn't want to make clothes, because I don't know their sizes or tastes, so I did some looking through various tutorials online for something. I let Miss O help me. I narrowed it down to a crayon roll, a tote bag with crayon pockets, and a notebook/crayon holder. I had hoped she'd go with the tote bag, but she liked the notebook/crayon holder. The main problem with the tutorial was that it was for a small notebook. So I borrowed some ideas from that and mainly used this pencil roll tutorial. This is what I came up with:



Unfortunately, I didn't pay close enough attention to the binding tute she links to, and my binding is atrocious. It was my first time trying binding and you can definitely tell. This one might not make it to the party. Hopefully the next one will look better and we might keep this one and just buy fabric to redo this.

Instead of a full blown tutorial on what I did, I'll just tell you the measurements and changes I made. Maybe I'll take pictures when I make the next one and post a full tutorial, but this will have to suffice for now.

Inner & outer fabrics and interfacing are 21" x 14" (I actually think I ended up trimming an inch off and it was actually 20" but it's better to be safe than sorry)
Pocket fabric was 25" x 14", which is folded in half to be 7" tall
Binding fabric was 2" wide.

I made pockets for 12 colored pencils, and left an inch between those and the notebook pocket. To be honest, I didn't measure that one, just stuck the notebook in there and pinned. After making the pencil pockets, I sewed about 2 inches up from the bottom all the way across because the pockets were too deep, but I didn't want to shorten the notebook pocket.

I think eventually I might make one to hold crayons for my younger kiddos. I could fit two rows of crayon pockets on there to hold 24 crayons since they're shorter than colored pencils.

Aside from the pocket fabric, you could make this from fat quarters, which I love. I don't know why I love fat quarters so much. I guess because it cuts out the cutting table at the fabric store. =)

Speaking of fat quarters, I bought a coordinating bundle of 4 last time I was at Joann's. Hideous fabric that will probably make an adorable dress. And I picked up over half a yard of another fabric I liked in the remnant bin. I'm glad my kids are small enough that half a yard is more than enough to make something with. I don't know what I'll do when they get bigger. Buy bigger cuts of fabric, huh?