Old DVD Case Turned Traveling Coloring Case... Genius!!

We are going on a road trip in one week.  When I say road trip, I mean 12 hours in the car with a four year old who is famous for being bored and a one year old that we can't even manage to keep strapped into a shopping cart or high chair... so in other words, we're screwed!  And it is totally karma... one of my good firends just took her boys 1,300 miles on a trip to a family cabin and as she messaged me the beautiful pictures along the drive I kept telling her how nuts she was taking a two year old and four year old that far in a confined vehicle... why it didnt occur to me at that time that we would be doing something similar just a month later, I don't know... but I do know that WE ARE SCREWED!

So, what is one to do?  Go to Pinterest!!!  I even started a 'Play Time {On the Go}' board to add everything I found to!  But within 10 minutes of searching for 'road trip with kids' I found this genius little idea that I am adding to my arsenal of activities for the trip.  A DVD case turned into a small and very portable AND contained coloring case.  I was instantly in love (so much I dont know if I even pinned it yet!) and began throwing one together ASAP because, as the hubby reminded me before he left for work today, we have seven days to go and we need a list and a packing plan NOW.  I figured this was even better, secretly doing what I love while also preparing for the trip, lol!

Anyway- check out how cute this is!  I am not going to give you step by step directions because Stacy at {handmade by stacy vaughn} did an excellent job in her tutorial on her site.  The only thing I changed was using hot glue to hold everything together and adding a piece of ribbon along the inside.  It took just over a half hour to complete start to finish and the only hard part was cutting out the center DVD part (see Stacy's page to see what I mean!!).  And one thing I would have changed in the future... pay attention to the color of the DVD case... I just grabbed one that seemed sturdy, but now that it is done, I wish I would have grabbed the white case right next to it (really- why I didn't catch that??)!

And big sis is so in love with it... I only got about half way through making it before she knew something was up, mom was making something WITHOUT her help- yikes!  So she helped with all the final touches and put all the colored pencils into the pouch :)

So... with this one little idea added to my bag of tricks... I still need more, lol!!!  If you have any great on the go type of activities for toddlers and preschool, please share the link or idea below... I sure could use them :)