My kids all moved to a new school this year, which has been a big transition for us and left all the kids very nervous and excited. Birdie particularly was feeling a bit anxious about moving schools and making new friends and being in a new environment. I don’t think I’ve blogged about it before, but I love making my kids special pencil cases for school and this year I decided to use her pencil case to give her a little dose of daily encouragement using some Kylie and the Machine labels that I got in the KATM advent calendar last year.
I had previously made Birdie a big pencil case at the beginning of last year which she has absolutely been loving, and lasted pretty well for the whole year. It was made from mauve linen, lined with adorable forest creature cotton print, and with a front zip pocket for smaller things made from the forest creature fabric. She has loved this pencil case, and when it came home from school covered in mess from felt tip pens and highlighters i gave it a few rounds of scrubbing, and it was back to good as new. The one thing that didn’t come out was the marker pen she had used to write her name and draw a love heart on the front with. So I decided to embrace it and embroidered over the top with matching embroidery floss. It’s now a design feature ;)
This year at her new school like the kids to also have a smaller pencil case within their big pencil case that they can put the most used items and carry around with them. Thankfully I still had some of the mauve linen left in my stash, though I did have to line it with a different fabric as I couldn’t find anymore of the forest creatures. It was feeling a bit plain as I was cutting it all out, and that’s when i remembered all the adorable labels that I had gotten in the Kylie and the Machine advent calendar last year! Birdie helped me choose some of her favourites and we haphazardly sewed them across the front of her mini pencil case.
We decided to call it her encouragement pencil case, and she was so excited to take it to school with her on her first day! Sewing pencil cases is such an enjoyable activity, and it makes me so happy knowing that my kids have something with them at school every day that I poured my love and caring into. I know it’s cheesy, but I really hope that little tokens like these keep them encouraged and feeling loved throughout the day.
