Car Caddies

I love these things. I've seen a few basic tutorials for these, but (me being me) I'm not satisfied with plain, basic anything. No, no--I need everything I make to be a work of art (because I"m anal crazy OCD just that way).

I've made a few of these before, and I generally use whatever fabric I have, because leftover scraps from previous projects are awesome for these things. Plus, it makes each one more individual and unique. I also rarely use a pattern. I just know the size it needs to be and then I make up the design for the road on my own. It's been different every time.

A few months ago my friend Holly asked me to make a personalized one for her son, with his name on the pockets instead of numbers. I was swamped with other projects at the time (and let's be honest, when am I not?) so I planned to have it done and to her by Christmas. Then my cousin Marissa asked me for two as Christmas gifts too.

So I made a pattern this time, because it was easier to cut all the little tiny pieces of fabric out all at the same time, and then do each step on all three at the same time. I also have a feeling I'll be making more of these in the future, and a pattern will help them go quicker.

Here's how these turned out this time around.

Can I brag for a minute here? The numbers/letters are painted on using white acrylic paint. I free-handed these! No stencils used! It did take longer than using a stencil, but I was curious about whether I could do it or not. Survey says... I succeeded.

I did something new on these ones too, and I really like it. I used some fabrics with various textures for different little details in it. The road is a rough polyester, the pond a shiny satin, the tree trunk is suedecloth, and the tree leaves are terry cloth.  I used orange acrylic paint and did some very careful painting to get those fish in the pond.

Isn't that cute and fun?!

I couldn't just use webbing or ribbon for the latch to keep it closed. Of course not. I made a velcro latch for it in the shape of a car.

I'm pretty happy with these results. What do you think?