Roadtrip Ready: Make Roadtrip T-shirts

Today's Roadtrip idea is one that is SUPER fun and really easy to personalized for your trip: Roadtrip T-shirts! I've made vacation shirts for my boys before, and we always get so many complements on their shirts. Plus having a cute personalized shirt for the trip makes it that much more fun for the kiddos, and saves you a little money because you won't have to buy those expensive and not very cute touristy t-shirts!

You can really make almost anything into a cute shirt for almost any kind of roadtrip:

Mickey {here's my version} or Minnie {here's Amanda's cute version} for a trip to Disney

a silhouette of the Statue of Liberty for a visit to New York City

a surfboard with waves for a trip to the beach

your kid's favorite animal for a trip to the zoo

******

I decided to make camper {aka Airstream} shirts for my boys since that is going to be our mode of transportation for this roadtrip, and I think they turned out SUPER cute. I especially love the silhouette of the Airstream on the tie dye shirts...kind of has a hippie feel:) You can also make a girly version of this shirt, but since I don't have any girls to make shirts for you'll have to check out my friend Liz's cute camper shirt.

I didn't do a step by step for this shirt {mostly because I have a million things on my to do list and I didn't have time to stop and take pictures at every step} so you can check out my other crafty T-SHIRT tutorials to get more detail on how to make cute Roadtrip T-shirts for your next trip!

Roadtrip Ready: 10 Tips to Survive Disney with Small Kids

Hi!  I'm Jill, the Mom from over at the Barnes Yard and I am so excited to be here today at RTSM!

My friend, Kelli, is going to have so much fun road trippin' with her family this summer!  I'm totally in love with her Airstream!

So the Barnes Yard doesn't do road trips.  I know!  We are super wimps!  I've got two kids that get barf-a-rama the minute we leave our town! 

Last month we went to Disneyland via plane.

I do have some great tips for staying (somewhat) sane while doing Disney with small children!

1.  Make lists 

Making lists is actually one of my favorite pastimes...Anyway, each day before we headed to the park, I made a list of things I would like to accomplish, i.e. picture of kids with Mickey ears on, ride on It's a Small World, meet Rapunzel, etc.  That way I could stay focused whilst being pulled in a million directions by over-excited children.

2.  Bring Grandparents

Honestly, there is no way we could have pulled off this trip without the Grandparents in tow.  They were there to push strollers, wait with the "too shorts" while the bigger kids went on rides, and take anyone in the middle of a meltdown back to the hotel for a nap.  We LOVE them! 

3.  $$ saving tip: Buy your Mouse gear before you get to the park.

I knew I wanted to dress my kids Disney every day so I stocked up months before our trip at Target, Old Navy, WalMart, and disneystore.com

 I also swiped Kelli's idea of making our own autograph books!

4.  Wear bright colors

This is what my daughter was wearing the day we lost her.  Yep, we totally lost her for about ten minutes.  Luckily my eagle eyes spotted her bright skirt from a mile away!

5.  Bring your own stroller and rent one

We brought our own strollers for the babies but, let me tell you, it was nice to have something to push around all of our drinks, snacks, cameras, purses, and purchases in, plus have a place for the big kids to sit when they got really whiny.  

6.  Don't eat too many Oreos the first night.

My husband made fun of me for leaving a note, but seriously, I would have felt really bad if the maid had put her hand in that black mess.

7.  If they love Princesses, give them Princesses!

You better believe that I rode on that Ariel ride 50 times too!

8.  Eat at IHOP

Kids eat free with purchase of adult meal.  We had 6 adults and 6 kids so this totally worked in our favor.

9.  Get a special souvenir  

The days were long and super exhausting (we estimated that we walked 10-12 miles each day), but every time I look at this I will remember how magical it was for my kiddos (well, at least the two older ones)!

10.  Act like a kid and HAVE FUN!

Roadtrip Ready: Roadtrip Countdown

A few weeks ago, I started looking for some fun roadtrip games to play with the boys while we are driving. I stumbled upon this really amazing post by The Dating Divas that is full of great roadtrip ideas and even includes a ton of free printables. My favorite idea from that post is their Roadtrip Countdown...as soon as I saw the idea I knew I had to make one for our trip this summer. The Dating Divas have a really cute roadtrip countdown printable that you can write in your different stops on, but I wanted to make something a little different. So with the help of these cute state printables from The Vintage Lemon, I made my own Roadtrip Countdown!

 This was honestly the easiest project, and it is one that I know my boys are going to be SUPER excited about! I started out by printing out all of the states that we are going to visit on our roadtrip. You could easily customize yours by making it with different cities you are driving through, different attractions you are visiting, or even include pictures of family members you may be visiting on the way. I decided to do the states because we are working on visiting all 50 states while the boys are still little:) I also printed out some Airstream clip art to help track our progress on the countdown.

 I punched two holes in the top of each of my states and then strung them onto some curling ribbon in the order that we are going to be visiting them. 

 Then I simple tied the two ends of the ribbon on opposite sides of the car in the backseat. {Make sure that it doesn't hang down too low and block the drivers view...that could be dangerous!} I spaced out the states so they reached evenly across the car and then I used a small clothespin to attach the Airstream clip art to the states. As we move from state to state the boys can simply move the Airstream to the state we are in...from Mississippi all the way to California!

Fun and easy...plus the boys will be getting a pretty great geography lesson too!

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Roadtrip Ready: Kid Sized Travel Neck Pillow

One thing that is great about kids and roadtrips is that for the most part kids can sleep anywhere! Seriously, I wish I was like that sometimes...it would make a long boring drive go by much faster. Even though my kiddos can sleep in almost any position possible when we are in the car, they never look very comfortable. They are always slumped over or their neck is bent so much it looks like it might break in half. So I decided that before we head out for our big trip, that all three of my boys {and I may get one too} needed travel neck pillows. But if you've ever shopped for one of those pillows, you know that they are usually pretty plain and kind of expensive. So I decided to try my hand at making some...and they ended up being really easy and really cheap!

I started by drawing out a pattern on a piece of paper. I searched online for a printable pattern, but I couldn't find one that I like...so I kind of just winged it.

{That ended up being a little bit of a problem because my first attempt was a major fail! But then I tweaked my pattern a little and the second one came out perfectly!}

Once you have your pattern, lay it on your material at the fold. This will ensure that both sides of the pillow are symmetrical. You can pin and cut like a normal pattern, but I was being lazy and just used a piece of chalk to trace the outline of my pattern.

Cut out two pieces {both on the fold} and then lay them on top of each other right sides together.

Sew around the edges of the pillow with a straight stitch.

Leave a hole in the pillow on one side. You will use this hole to turn and stuff the pillow.

Turn the pillow right side out and then add in a much stuffing as you would like. I filled mine pretty tight so it would be extra supportive for my boys' big noggins:) Then sew up the hole to finish the pillow.

Now when Eli decides to take a nap in the car he will be much more comfortable...and maybe he will sleep longer too!

Do your kids sleep in the car when you are on a roadtrip?

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Tatertots and Jello

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Roadtrip Ready: I Spy Book

Hey y'all! My name is Kate and I am so excited to be sharing with you all today here at Random Thoughts of a Supermom!

When you get a minute be sure to check out my blog; Embracing Life's Journey. I blog about life after the loss of a child - our 14 month old son Charlie, life with our new son Cannon, DIY crafts, recipes and so much more!

Today I am going to share with you all an amazingly easy project that I first learned about in my moms club in Florida. These are some of the most creative and awesome ladies ever, and I am so excited to share this I Spy Book with you.

Okay, so here we go...

There are 6 very simple steps to the process and depending on how old your kiddo is you can get pretty creative and complex.

Step 1: Gather and lay out on a poster board random toys.

Step 2: Snap a picture of them and don't worry about zooming in perfectly.

Step 3: Remove most of the items leaving only a few for the key side of the page.

Now upload the pictures into your photo editing software. If you don't have one do not fret, there are plenty of free editing websites that do not require registration, like picmonkey.

Step 4: Edit the photos. All I did to mine was use auto adjust and crop since I wasn't trying to accomplish anything fancy. I also just shot them on auto but with no flash...I really don't like flash.

Step 5: Either print out the photos or upload them to a site to have them printed. I did mine through Walgreen's and they were ready in 1 hour. Be careful to remove the auto adjust option otherwise they might cut off your items and change the exposure.

You will repeat these steps for as many pages as you would like to do.

Step 6: Assemble your book.

Of course I had to do a University of Michigan one...

That's it, easy huh? I think some nature ones would be pretty fun too! And if your kids are a little older they can even help you pick out what to use.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and thank you so much to Kelli for having me as a guest blogger today!

embracinglifesjourney.com

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Roadtrip Ready: Roadtrip Behavior Clips

When we first started planning our big roadtrip, I immediately got on Pinterest to look for ideas. One of the first things I came across was this great idea from Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss for what she called Kid Clips. I knew this was something I had to make for my boys. Being in a car for 10 straight hours is going to require some kind of reward for good behavior, and this was just right for a roadtrip. The concept behind these clips is that you put them up at the beginning of your trip. If one of the kiddos misbehaves, whines, fights, or makes a bad choice then their clip comes down. At every stop on your trip, whichever kids still have their Roadtrip Behavior Clip up gets a treat. Genius idea right?!?

I started with a couple of sheets of cardstock and scrapbook paper and a clothespin for each kid. As you can tell I kept with my color coding system: blue for Henry, green for Grant, and orange for Eli.

I used my Silhouette and a circle punch to cut out a few different sized circles. My biggest circle is 3 inches in diameter and it was the perfect size to cover the entire clothespin. I layered two papers to add a little interest and attached them to each other with a glue dot roller.

Then I added each of the boys' initial to their clip.

I added a coat of Mod Podge to make them a little more sturdy and to protect the paper.

The last you do is add a little bit of hot glue to one side of your clothespin....

...and then stick your paper circle on.

After the hot glue cools, you are ready to hang them on your sun visors and hit the road!

I can't wait to use these Roadtrip Behavior Clips in a few weeks! I have a feeling the boys may test the system a little bit to begin with, but after they see someone else get a treat at a stop I have a feeling they will take it more seriously:)

How do you get your kids to behave on a long roadtrip?

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Roadtrip Ready: Let the Kids Research

Planning is half the fun of a vacation...at least it is for me anyway! But planning a roadtrip can be SUPER stressful! There are a lot of things to consider: what route to take, where to stay, where to eat, what attractions to visit, what to pack, and a million more decisions that have to be made before you leave and during your roadtrip. So why not let the kids help out with some of the research and planning. They will learn a little about your destination, and they may even stumble upon something really cool that you had passed over! 

I picked up all three of these books at my boys' school book fair this year. They are full of information from the names of all the state capitals to crazy facts like it's illegal to steal an alligator in Louisiana:) These books also have information on lots of fun and interesting places that my boys have asked to visit on our roadtrip. They are helping the boys get a better grasp on US geography and understanding where we live in relation to where we are going this summer. One of the best things about these books is that after the kiddos research and help plan, they can bring the books along in the car and play the games and work the puzzles! I'm sure you could find these books {or similar ones} at a book store or even at Target.

Another great {and inexpensive} book to pick up is an atlas. The kids will love following along on the roadtrip and you could even get them to "help out" by telling you which city is next on your route or which road is your next turn. For younger kids you can start out with your route marked on the map for them, and for older kids you can give them a marker and let them mark the route as you travel. I'm sure your kids' future geography teachers will appreciate the fact that your kids will know how to read a map:)

Another great way to let your kiddos do a little roadtrip research is to pick up some books at the library. Since we are going to be camping, I found a couple of camp themed books along with a few family vacation books too. You can let the kids read the books before your trip to get a feel for how family vacations/roadtrips work, or you can save them for the car during the trip {as long as you won't be gone longer than the loan period for your library!}.

The best thing about letting the kids help with the planning and research is that they will be even more excited about your trip when you finally head out!

Linking up here..

Tatertots and Jello

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