Crafting on the Move

We have just flown half way around the world, and are spending our Christmas holidays in New Zealand and Australia.  The journey was a long, long, long one.  London to Hong Kong (11 hours), Hong Kong to Melbourne (10 hours), a night in the airport hotel (11 hours), Melbourne to Christchurch (3 hours).  Yep, that's 35 hours all together from start to finish.  Actually it's about 7 more than that when you add in the commute and time waiting around in airports.

The girls were both really good, considering how long the journey was, and how little they slept.  When we do long journeys I try to plan ahead and stock up on new craft activities that are easy to do, involve little mess and no glue.

As a basic starter, the girls both have a drawstring bag, pencil case, and A4 drawing pad.  I bought the bags from Funky Dory Party Bags, the pencil cases from Simply Colors, and the drawing pads from Cass Art.

I also included a few craft kits.  I recently found a lovely range of Scribble Down Transfer kits, which work just like a Letraset.  The girls found these really easy to use, and they were a nice change from sticker books.

I also discovered a website (Yellow Moon) where you can order really good craft kits.  We used this website to buy foam crowns and stick on foam shapes for Samantha's 5th birthday party.  After a bit of searching I found a few Christmas themed craft kits that were suitable (not too big, and no glue involved) for making on the plane.

Christmas Stocking Sewing Kits

Nativity Foam Wreath Decorations

Nativity 3D Decorations

Even though the description for the foam wreaths said they were self-adhesive, the people and animals needed to be glued to the wreath.  We ended up making all the parts, and then saving them for glueing once we got to New Zealand.  The Christmas Stocking Sewing Kits were my favourite.  It took a bit more time to make them, and kept the kids amused for longer.  The only thing we didn't have onboard the plane were scissors, to trim the ends of the yarn.  I just tucked the ends inside the stocking and trimmed them later.

Craft activities that have worked well in the past have included the Usborne Sticker Dolly books, origami paper, and packs of stickers.