If you’ve been Pinterest’ing long enough, you’ve seen
this particular DIY, which is a super cute idea for those long car rides, like ours.
10 hours. One way. At least 2 times per year. With an 8 yr old. And a 9 yr old.
This summer Peaches will be road tripping for 5 hours with us, then another 5
with my niece and her hubs and 3 boys… so I made one of these for her and one
for the oldest boy (4 yrs old).
I’d like to introduce you to the DVD Art Kit Lap
Desk! I found the DVD Art Kit on Pinterest. Pinned it. But I felt I could make
it better. How annoying for small hands with small laps to have that small case
slipping all over when it could be the best place to do your doodling!?
I made my DVD Art Kit. You can find instructions on it here:
Instructables
or with
Stacey Vaughn. I chose to use Contact Cement as my adhesive for the entire
project. It was what I had in the house, and it worked fine. In fact the whole
project is from things I already had in the house.
- DVD
Case
- Manila
Folders (as card stock for the art kit portion, and base for the lap desk
portion).
- Contact Cement (well ventilated room, and a disposable sponge brush)
- Scissors
- Scrap
Material
- Rice
- Poly-Fiber
Fill
I then recalled to my poor scattered brain a few tutorials I
found on making
lap desks. I didn’t bother to look them up. I like to just wing
it on this sort of stuff. You can too! Or you can do what I did:
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| It got all bubbly! |
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First, instead of reiterating the whole DVD Case tutorials
for you, I will just tell you what I did different. Where the original DIY
leaves the clear plastic free for the child to decorate front and back, I only needed the front to be decoratable (is that a word?). I put contact cement on one side of a piece of manila folder and the back of the case,
inside the clear plastic (following adhesive directions). Then I opened the
case to invert the clear plastic and put contact cement on the inside of the clear plastic, and the outward facing part
of the manila folder and adhered them. This leaves the back of the case well
secured, but the front and spine free to have a decorated paper or whatever
placed inside. I flipped the DVD Case’s movie slips and used them for both the
cases I made.
Now for the lap desk portion:
I laid the DVD case on my material and cut the material
about 3 inches bigger. I pinched the corners of the material and ‘sewed’ them
into a box like shape with
Liquid
Stitch from Wal-Mart. I’m a Girl Scout Mom… I glue patches on all the time.
The stuff is WONDERFUL! I cut a piece of manila folder the same size as the DVD
case (I cut it on the fold so I had a double layer).
Pour a handful or so of rice into the center of the
material, then a puff of poly-fiber fill over that. On top will go the manila
folder, apply your adhesive to the edges.
Fold the material up over the edge of the folder onto the adhesive. You will probably have to keep pushing the fiber fill under the folder so it stays out of the way.
When the material edges are secure, apply adhesive as directed to the
entire manila folder piece, and materials edge.
Apply adhesive to the back/secured portion of
the DVD case as well.
Put the two together!
You now have your very own DVD Art Kit Lap Desk.
What a mouth full!
Decorate, as you will. Sophia calls hers a doodle box, and I
decorated Marek’s with Cars items from the insert inside the scavenged DVD
case. I will be looking for chubby coloring pencils for Marek, and Sophia
already has quite a collection of colored pencils to use in hers. Hopefully
these will keep them busy, and they will keep each other busy. That would be a
miracle!
