DIY Disney Craft: Kids’ Travel Coloring/Activity Board

We leave on our trip for Disney’s new Cars Land in just a few days and I’m busy get­ting every­thing prepped. A cou­ple of days ago I shared a whole roundup of Disney-themed crafts, but I, of course, couldn’t resist mak­ing some of my own. Since we’ll be road-tripping there (about a 5–6 hour drive), we’re sur­pris­ing the boys with spe­cial Cars car bags filled with some things to do. We have some Disney-themed paper activ­i­ties and col­or­ing books. But some­times it’s hard for them to write/color in the car–plus, you need stor­age for the crayons, pens, pen­cils, etc. So, what’s the obvi­ous solu­tion?! Make a Dis­ney travel activ­ity board of course, with the help of some great prod­ucts from Plaid!

Recently, I was sent a box of full of crafty good­ness from Plaid and was given the task of mak­ing any­thing I wanted with it! There were paints, sten­cils, brushes, Mod Podge, and a gift card to go shop­ping at Wal­mart to get some­thing to decorate/makeover.

What’s awe­some is that Wal­mart has really expanded its craft depart­ment and you can find TONS of awe­some things there! Like, all the Plaid prod­ucts I was sent to try out–you can find at Wal­mart! So, I headed off to the store to browse through the craft sec­tion & decide what to get! Orig­i­nally I had some sort of pen­cil box con­trap­tion in mind. But, I couldn’t find what I wanted and while brows­ing through the office sec­tion, the idea for the clip­board hap­pened! Plus, with all the themed-birthday party good­ies, it was REALLY easy to find some great Dis­ney stick­ers! So, armed with clip­boards, binder pen­cil pouches, some stick­ers, and Plaid craft prod­ucts, I got to work!

First step–paint the clip­boards. I decided on this red to go with the whole Cars theme. It was SO quick & easy to paint on using the rolling brushes that attach right to the paint bottle!

In the mid­dle of each clip­board, I wanted a Mickey head. Since I don’t have an elec­tronic cut­ter that I can pro­gram my own designs into, I just decided paint the Mickey head on (once the red paint was dry). I printed out a basic Mickey head tem­plate & cut it out to make a sten­cil. I was really ner­vous that it wouldn’t turn out, but it worked great! As the Mickey head dried, I dec­o­rated the front of each board with var­i­ous stick­ers & cut out the boys’ first let­ter ini­tials to put on the Mickey head. Then, once the Mickey head was dry & I had every­thing dec­o­rated, I decided to put a coat of Mod Podge over every­thing to help it all stay put!

While the fronts dried, I got to work on the pen­cil pouches for the back! I decided to attach them to the clip­boards with some seri­ous “indus­trial strength” vel­cro. I wor­ried that if I glued the pouches on, they would just get dam­aged & ripped off over time. Plus, those pen­cil pouches aren’t exactly the high­est qual­ity & wear down over time. So, by attach­ing with vel­cro, I can always replace the pouch if I need to–or even replace it with some­thing else. I started by dec­o­rat­ing the front of the pen­cil pouch with some strate­gi­cally placed Cars stick­ers. Then, I was able to put the vel­cro on the back of the pouch (behind those stick­ers), so the vel­cro doesn’t show through.

Once all the vel­cro was in place, I stuck it down where I wanted it on the back of the clip­board. This vel­cro is crazy strong (I actu­ally used it in one of my old class­rooms to hang posters on the wall & they were HARD to remove 3 years later!!), so make sure you have it exactly where you want it! After that, I dec­o­rated the bot­tom with more Cars stick­ers (& put a coat of Mod Podge over that too), then filled the pouch with some col­or­ing goodies!

I absolutely love the way they turned out & can’t wait to give them to the boys! Hope­fully they will be the per­fect travel activ­ity boards for all their coloring/writing needs!

And, if you’d like to see more crafty ideas, here’s what oth­ers have been mak­ing!



To learn more about Plaid & get more awe­some ideas, check out these site! Plaid Crafts on Pin­ter­est, Plaid on Face­book, Plaid on Twit­ter, and Wal-mart Crafts on Pinterest

Dis­clo­sure: I wrote this post as part of a paid cam­paign with Plaid Crafts and Blue­print Social.  How­ever, all pho­tographs, ideas, and opin­ions are all my own!

Linked to: *Skip to My Lou, *Today’s Cre­ative Blog, *Show and Tell