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I don’t know about you, but I can’t go to the library without a bag to hold all my books. It’s crucial, especially when you like to check out piles of books!
We some fun personalized bags inspired by a new favorite children’s book. Read along to find out how we made our crayon transfer library totes.
*This post is written in partnership with Penguin Kids in celebration of the book The Day the Crayons Quit. They provided us with copies of the books for inspiration. This post contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details.
Have you ever read The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers?
It’s a delightful book that consists of letters from all of Duncan’s crayons who are ready to do something different. We love it!
Penguin Kids invited us to join them in their month-long celebration of this book. The crayons have gone on strike! And, we’ve given them reason to come back and have fun with our crayon transfer library totes.
Fine sandpaper
Tote bag
Crayons (use your broken pieces for this project)
Newspaper
Iron
Before beginning the process, decide what you wanted to draw.
We made drawings inspired by all the things the crayons wanted to draw in the book, such as black rainbows and pink dinosaurs and horses.
Use your crayons to draw your picture on your sandpaper. I tested a couple of different types of sandpaper and found that the fine grit worked the best for this project. The coarse grit did not transfer our designs onto the tote bag well at all, so pick up the finest grit you can find.
Color your pictures as heavy as possible.
This is a great project to use up some of your broken pieces of crayon. The sandpaper will eat away at the crayons, so you won’t want to use your brand new box.
Also, note that because of the iron-on transfer process, if you want to write any words, you will need to write everything backwards!
Once you’re finished with your drawing, slide a piece of cardboard inside of your tote bag.
Then turn your sandpaper upside down and center it onto your tote bag.
Place a sheet of newspaper over top. We had scattered bits of crayon on the back of our sandpaper and I did not want that on my iron. The newspaper will protect your iron.
Heat your iron to it’s highest setting and start ironing over the newspaper. Move back and forth over your newspaper to transfer your drawing. You’ll need to iron for a good five minutes.
If you lift up your newspaper, you’ll see wax coming through to the back. This is a good way to see if you’re close. Avoid lifting the sandpaper until your design is transferred.
Beware, the sand paper is very hot after ironing and will need to cool a bit before you can safely lift it. My girls helped with this process, but it does require close adult supervision.
After your design is transferred, throw your crayon transfer tote bag in the dryer for about 20 minutes to set your design.
Do you want to join in the fun? There are two things you can do.
First, Penguin Kids is sponsoring a Pinterest sweepstakes where you can win a $100 AmEx gift card. You can find the details here at this link. The sweepstakes runs through Sept. 30, 2014. You can also click on the blue crayon below to go to the official Pinterest board for the contest.
School Spirit Washer Necklaces
Hole-Punched Bookmark Craft for Kids
You know what’s great about the Olympics, besides all the awesome sports events?
It’s a wonderful introduction to world geography.
I took advantage of my girls’ natural curiosity about the athletes to show them the countries each one represents with this simple Olympic Mapping Activity.
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.
I began with a simple map of the world, which I pinned on a cork board.
We printed ours out at Maps of World. I was looking for one with the countries labeled, but didn’t have the busyness of latitude and longitude lines.
We then settled in with the computer and tiny flag making supplies.
We used the official Sochi 2014 Website, teams section to find the different countries participating in the Olympics along with a picture of that nation’s flag.
Another bonus to using the Sochi Website was that we were also able to see pictures of the athletes and could place them with their country.
Special Note: You can find the PyeongChang 2018 website here if you want to do an updated version of this activity for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
We began with some of the top medal winners (Norway and Canada), our country (the United States), and the host country (Russia).
We then moved on to other countries that the girls found fascinating.
To make our flags, we used pins and tiny pieces of paper. Each piece of paper was 1-inch wide by 3/4-inch tall. We used markers to create our flags.
It was a bit of a challenge creating some of those tiny flags (hello, Canadian maple leaf), but we worked at it.
We left the stars off the US flag cause we didn’t have room, but we did the best we could do on them all.
Once each flag was made, I taped it on a sewing pin (see the example in the above photo).
Once each flag was finished, we placed it on our map.
We took note of the size of the country and where it was located. My girls could already find a few countries (US, Canada, Mexico, China, Australia), and were fascinated to see where other countries were located.
They took note of just how tiny some countries are when compared to a huge country like Russia.
We’ve been gradually adding flags every day now. In fact, we’re still not finished with this Olympic mapping project. Quite frankly, I hope it continues for quite awhile.
Have you been taking advantage of the Olympic Games for learning opportunities?
Create flags of the world puzzles. You can find the instructions at Inspiration Laboratories.
Work the atlas puzzles at National Geographic. So much fun for puzzle lovers!
This fascinating infographic at Colour Lovers show the colors most commonly used in flags around the world. You have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the full infographic. It’s so interesting!
10 Ways to Play and Learn About the Olympics