I spy books, part 2

Thanks for the ideas Kristina! Everyone should check out those taby trays, they look like they'd fit most any car seat. Not having something hard to color on has always been a problem, as well as not having a tray to keep everything from dropping into the indefinite depths of car seat crevices, never to be seen again.

I previously blogged about some I Spy books I made for my boys last year that they loved. So, with this trip looming I decided to take some more pictures to add to it. I made up a few twists this time though. Here are some pictures if anyone tried this out for themselves and needed some ideas.
This one I call "Man, Monster, or Robot." You have to count how many men, how many monsters, and how many robots are in the picture. Clever, I know. If you have only girls, you are most likely out of luck in recreating this one.
This one is "find the food." I placed a number of food items amongst the buttons. There are cheese nips, cheerios, smarties, funyans, apple jacks, crispix, goldfish, and fruit snacks - pretty much any small food item I had in my pantry.
These are just chipboard scrapbook letters I had left over from my scrapbooking days. You have to find the numbers 1-10, as well as 3 hiddens words. If you have boys, you can make them happy and copy the words I hid - POO, FART, and BUM.
This one is find the items that don't belong. Really easy to create, just open your fridge and stuff it full of things that don't belong.
This is one I did for myself I call it "mom's faves." My favorite color, pink, my sunglasses, candy, lip gloss, and some of my crafting materials. There is also a sneaky picture of me included in this one.
This last one is actually one my 7 year old set up for me. He saw me working on this and got excited and created one of his own. He's a seasoned I Spy buff so he knew he had to hide stuff. Can you find the army guy?

special orders

I really shouldn't complain about doing special orders for my shop. It means have I business, right? And any business is good, right? Well it usually doesn't feel that way to me when it comes to special orders.

A special orders means I HAVE to make something. Something of someone else's choosing. I have a deadline. Like an assignment, like homework. You see, the way I work, I make what I feel like making, what I'm inspired to create. If I discover I have the perfect colors to make rainbow goldfish crackers, I don't rest until I make them.
Or if I discover the cutest miniature rolling pins at Joann, I get up at 6 in the morning to make miniature sugar cookie dough to go with them.
Another reason I dislike special orders is that my time is limited (hence the 6 am craft wake up call). I have just enough time to make 2-3 items for my shop per week, and if that time is taken up by a special order, that means no new items for my shop, which means no sales usually (and no crafts to post on this blog). Then I begin to loathe the special order and the person who ordered it. Which brings me to the point of this post, to show off some of my recent special orders that I loathe.
This lady (who I really should not be complaining about, since she really is the nicest, most considerate customer AND orders a ton) wanted a whole pizza, plus all the extras like a personalized box. The box was the biggest pain to find, since it needed to be unprinted and the right size.
Here is the customized box - it came with 4 checkered napkins, as well as 4 order forms that I laminated so that they could be written on with dry erase markers. I had barely recovered from this project when she commissioned me for another special order.
This snack set was just a small part of her newest order - some cookies, some strawberries and a bazillion crackers. So glad it is done!

On a side note, we waited a day too long to buy our plane tickets for a trip we're planning and the price jumped a gazillion dollars. I thought I was off the hook for entertaining my boys during travel since the plane ride is only two hours long, but no. I am back to figuring out what to do with them for 13 hours in the car. So, barring any more special orders, I will be busy making/putting things together for their entertainment. We'll see if any of it ends up here, I'm not making any promises. Anyone have any great craft ideas for travel entertainment?