Daphne got invited to her first non-family birthday party. Her little friend, who I talked about a few posts back, is turning 3. And yeah, Daphne still talks about him all the time. I admit, I have no idea what to buy little boys. Little boys just aren’t on my radar for crafting and gift purchases. I have a lot of catching up to do, especially since I’ll need to start collecting great ideas for my little nephew Oliver.

Knowing that the birthday boy’s mom is very creative and likes crafty things (and would probably appreciate a handmade gift), I decided to make him a car caddy from Homemade by Jill’s tutorial. I’d fill it with Hot Wheels and tuck a few car stickers and Hot Wheels coloring books into the gift bag too. 3 year olds like Hot Wheels, right? Gosh, I hope so.

Here’s the interior:

And the exterior, all folded up and ready to go:

Here’s what I did differently than Jill, and a few things I wouldn’t do again. First, I didn’t use duck cloth for the interior. I had duck cloth, bright red, staring me in the face on the table. I just didn’t want the super blue denim, the red, black, yellow and white to look like it came from an early 90’s Gymboree outfit. If you know what I mean. So I used some Heather Ross cotton. I like the look, but it was way too light and flimsy. So I decided to fix that problem by using a thin fusible fleece on the back. Nice idea, but the fusible fleece puckers where I’ve folded the caddy. Crapola. I notice it, but I don’t think it will be a big deal to the gift recipient. So, don’t do what I did.. just use a thicker fabric to begin with.

Also, I only have 12″ squares of black felt, not long enough to span the 17″ cozy. I guess I could have pieced it together, but I didn’t want to do that. So I made a grassy area and a bridge (yes, that’s a bridge not a butterfly bandage or a squared off maxi pad). I stitched the green felt about a 1/2″ from the edge and fringed the edges with my scissors to give it a grass look. I think I like it.

On the exterior- I was trying to answer a question from my husband while I was cutting out the main denim piece and being distracted, cut it an inch too short. Crap. I solved that problem by stitching a little extra to the end to make up the difference, and tried to give it that “I meant to do it” look by just going ahead and stitching the ribbon into the seam. The ribbon was from the handle of a Cars gift bag, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to do something different with the front.

The ribbon strap wraps all the way around to the back and is secured by Velcro. Since it looked like a road, I thought it would be cute to have two little cars “driving” on the front. The cars are from Jill’s original tutorial, just reduced by 50%. And I just used super strength Heat and Bond and didn’t bother stitching down the edges. I think it will hold.

And I suck at topstitching. I so want my topstitching to be perfect, and it never is. I have to remind myself that the imperfections add to the homemade charm. Yeah, that’s the ticket. I thought I was going to have a problem sewing through all the layers of denim, but my machine didn’t hesitate. I don’t even think I put in a jeans needle. And I was not sure what color to use on the topstitching. I like my topstitching to match my fabric, so I just used a denim color, but now I wish I would have used a tan or something on the interior. I know it would have shown up more on the road and denim caddy area, but it wouldn’t have been so distracting in the center. Oh well. I’m not upset enough about it to rip it all out and do it again.

Anyway, it was a great tutorial and I hope the birthday boy enjoys his gift.