I recently discovered a must-have accessory for any Lego-loving kid: the Lego Storage Bag/Playmat – and made one as a gift to two little boys.
If you know any children playing with Legos you have probably had the pleasure of stepping on a piece once or twice. Also, you might have dutifully (and silently cursing?) picked up what seems like a thousand pieces scattered on the floor. This storage bag /playmat solves at least the picking-up problem – provided you can convince your Lego player/builder/architect to actually keep the pieces on the mat.
Once done playing, you just draw on the bag’s drawstring and – there you have it: pieces all contained in a neet storage bag, ready to be put away with no risk of stepping on stray Legos…
This playmat is easy to make – but if you don’t have time, an old sheet works just as nicely for quickly picking up Legos, just not for taking them with you. The easiest way to make the mat would be to cut two rather large circles of fabric for the front and back, sew them together wrong side up and leaving a hole for turning. Once turned, you can add grommets for the drawstring and the drawstring itself.
I had some laminated fabric lying around and used that as the back side – thus this bag could probably double as a picknick bag/blanket. Since I didn’t have enough left of either one kind of fabric, I used both to form a circle:
On the front side, I decided to make up some streets and blue fabric that could work as the sea, and some green and grey for building on. The little landscape looks like this:
I just might have to make one for my own children – I think it’s much nicer than just an old sheet – what do you think?
Katrin