A new design

Have you seen all the tutorials out there for crayon rolls?  Basically a little fabric roll up for holding crayons.  It's been on my to-do list for ages, and now that my son is starting to take more of an interest in drawing (or eating the crayons more like!) I thought it'd be a great idea to make him a portable art case.  Most of the tutorials only hold the crayons, but I really wanted something that would hold a notebook as well.  I did loads of searching and couldn't find anything suitable so I came up with my own design.

Here's how the inside of the case looks -

I took some inspiration from the sewing roll that I made a few months ago - I liked the idea of a zipped pocket to hold pencils, so I turned the pocket vertically and placed it at the top -

 
I also wanted a large open pocket to hold a notebook -

The front of this large pocket also has some little pockets - I used some of the elephant 'Little Menagerie' fabric and trimmed with with red binding.  These little pockets will be great for holding stickers,stencils, more paper etc.

And of course there's the crayon holder at the bottom, this holds 11 regular sized crayons -

I had originally planned to attach binding around the outside of the whole case, a bit like my sewing tool wrap, but then I would have had to choose which fabric to use for that and then make the binding etc etc. I just sewed the front and back together, right sides facing then turned it out and topstitched around the edge. This also allowed me to attach a hairband to use as a loop closure.

The outer jacket of the case is padded and quilted with diamonds.  I also added some appliqued stars which I think came out pretty good!

I'm really pleased with how this turned out, and I truly haven't seen anything else like it at all.  I'm not sure whether to give this one to my son or put it in my Folksy shop to see if anyone's interested in buying something like this. I have listed this item for sale in my Folksy shop.  I think it'll be great for keeping children entertained in restaurants, long journeys etc.  I'd have loved something like this when I was a child - I loved lots of little pockets and zippy closures etc to hold all of my little collections - shells, gemstones, coins, erasers etc!! (I have always been a hoarder lol.)

Oh, and I FINALLY got round to sewing the 3 self-cover buttons onto my pink love heart cushion.  I always find that I put off jobs like sewing on buttons - even though they literally take minutes to do.