My Craftily Ever After

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Road Trip Survival Kit for Kids!

I shared this post over at Brassy Apple last month, but I wanted to share it with all of you here as well!  If you want to read my newest kid craft post (before it hits my blog next month) head to her site right now!  I promise it’s worth the trip 😉Learn how to make a road trip survival kit with My Craftily Ever After

If you have ever traveled in a car with kids you know that almost as soon as you pull out of the driveway the trouble begins.  The “are we there yet’s” and the “I’m bored’s” just start flowing and you begin to question why you ever decided to leave the house at all.  I found myself in this situation during a trip to Seattle with my kids.  We went up to pick up some major Craigslist finds and somehow during the 5+ hours in the car I realized that  I was failing as a crafty parent.  And then I remembered that forever ago I had picked up this tray at our local thrift store.  I wasn’t completely sure what I was going to do with it, but I loved the sleek and modern style of it and knew that eventually I would find the perfect use for it.  And with my last little bits of sanity on the drive home I realized that this tray was going to be my secret weapon.

Supplies (may contain affiliate links):

I started off by painting the whole tray with chalkboard paint.  I figured this would make the tray itself a fun activity for tic-tac-toe or hangman games.  I gave it two coats of the chalkboard paint, one horizontally and the other vertically, to make sure I covered the whole thing.

chalkboard tray painting

Once it was dry I seasoned the whole tray by rubbing chalk all over it and then washing it off.  I packed up a travel soap container with chalk and grabbed a travel pack of baby wipes for washing it off.  Then I realized that this chalkboard tray along wasn’t going to solve all my problems.  Nope, I needed to beef up this little road trip kit.   So I tossed a couple of coloring books and crayons into a seldom used food storage container and BAM! the survival kit was born.

what to pack in a road trip survival kit

I’m sure that as my kids grow what I’ll keep in there will change, and even as we take more and more trips I’ll have to change it up to keep them interested, but for now…perfection!  The best part is that the whole thing cost me less than $5 (since I had everything but the tray already floating around my house) and I am pretty sure my kids are going to be begging to go on long car rides after they see this kit!

chalkboard tray for a road trip survival kit use a tray for coloring in the car

Do you keep a road trip survival kit in your car?  What do you stock in it?

Check out the rest of the Campers for this Summer Craft Camp!
Chalkboard Placemats by Sowdering About
Chalk Car Track by Messes to Memories
Outdoor Chalk Board by Spaceships and Laser beams
Chalkboard Frisbee by Hoyby Crafts
Chalkboard Tray by My Craftily Ever After

If you like this post you might also like my post of eleven ways to have fun with kids!

11 ways to have fun with kids | My Craftily Ever After

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Comments

  9. Randi Sowders says

    These are great ideas! I will say, however, that twistable colored pencils are better than crayons and I’ll tell you why…last summer my kids dropped some crayons behind their car seats and they melted into the fabric in my car on our roadtrip. Fortunately, that car died and I bought a new one and didn’t have to deal with blue stained seats anymore 😉

    • Ashley Emmett says

      That is a great point! My car has been destroyed by crayons already (my middle grafitti’ed her whole window), and I never even thought about them melting into my carpet. Twist offs for sure!