Clipboard with Crayon Holder
Up until now, I was Ladybug’s official crayon holder during church and was frankly sick of the job. So I made her this little clipboard with its own crayon holder. At church, it means she can color while still seating reverently on the bench and it also works great on car rides. The crayon holder folds out and hangs down along the side where she can easily grab crayons. I love that with her new clipboard with crayon holder, she doesn’t have to open and close her clipboard every time she needs a new crayon.
After she is done, all the papers and crayons go neatly back into the clipboard.
For church I am always nervous about using markers because my kids aren’t careful with them and when we use crayons, we always seem to get the little wrappers everywhere. So we use the twistable crayons and I love them.
This clipboard with crayon holder is made to fit the twistable crayons, but the spacing can be altered to fit regular crayons, colored pencils, or markers. I bought the clipboard on Amazon. It comes in a lot of different colors and it is really durable and well-made.
How to make a clipboard with crayon holder
Step 1: Cut out 2 pieces of 9.5 x 10 inch fabric and one piece of 9.5 x 12 inch fabric. Cut out three 9 inch pieces of ribbon.
Step 2: Fold the piece of 12 inch fabric in half and set it on top of one of the smaller pieces of fabric. This folded piece will form the little pocket for the crayons.
Then put in place the ribbons, making sure that they only overlap with the seam where you want them to be sewed in.
Then place the other piece of fabric on top with the two outsides of the fabric facing each other. Pin everything in place.
Step 3: Sew around the outside of the fabric, leaving a small opening so that you can turn it inside out.
Step 4: Turn everything inside out and give it a good ironing. Sewing is about the only time I use an iron!
Then sew close the hole and reinforce the seam where the ribbons are connected.
Step 5: Now it is time to sew the seams in the pocket to hold the crayons in. The size of the seams depends on what kind of writing utensil you will be putting in there. For the twistables, I did a seam every two centimeters.
Some people mark the fabric for the seams, but I prefer to use a post-it note on my sewing machine. I measure out from where the needle hits and place a post-it on my machine where I need to line up my fabric.
I then use the post-it as a guide for where to line up the fabric. It is faster and I don’t have to worry about erasing the line later. Which side I place my post-it on depends on which side of the fabric I am sewing on.
Step 6: Line up the ribbons where you want to attach them to the inside of the clipboard. I used a piece of tape to keep everything in place while I was gluing.
I then used hot glue to glue it all down.
Step 7: To hide where the ribbons were attached, I added a liner made out of contact or shelf paper. Then add the crayons and you are done!
Love this idea!