Restaurant bag
July 17th, 2008
Tired of the toys wandering around in the Hervé Chapelier shopping bag I tend to use as a nappy bag, a couple of years ago (when I had only one child and thus more time on my hands), I started making little bags out of cute left-over fabric. The purpose of these little bags was to hold a handful of toys to bring to restaurants or on journeys — to keep my toddler entertained and my head cool.
When my girlfriends saw me, being so super organized with my little cloth bags, they fell from their chairs out of admiration for such highly innovative ideas and amazing skill work 
. They all wanted me to sew them little cloth bags for their nappy bags (which I did, of course — sigh). The bags were quickly baptized ‘restaurant bags’, and we all started to bring them to restaurants, or on our travels.
Now, the reason why these little bags work so well is that the content can only be seen or played with in restaurants or on journeys. The kids are always so excited when we pull out our little toy-bags, and it surely keeps them entertained for a long time!
The dimensions of a restaurant bag is about 20 by 25 cm (8″x10″), and it closes with a zipper. Making your own little bag is really quite simple, because honestly, I’m not such a talented sewer at all: if you look closely at my creations nothing is really straight, and I still don’t know how to properly put the zipper in! But it’s hand-work, girls! The imperfection makes it truly unique!
Suggestions of items to put into your restaurant bag are:
- a selection of small Schleich animals
- crayons, small pad of paper
- mini container of play-dough
- finger puppets
- some small cars
- big rubber dice
- playmobil puppets
- unbreakable mirror
- mini books
Now keep yourself and your kids to the rule: ONLY for in restaurants or for on the plane!
xxx Esther
Entry Filed under: Baby, Entertain your Kids!, For Kids, On the Go / Travel, Playing, Theme weeks, Toys and Games, Traveling with Kids
9 Comments Add your own
1. Courtney | July 17th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I LOVE these restaurant bags! We used it last night at a restaurant, and we always take it with us on flights!
Esther has kindly made me a few of them… one is for toys, and the others are for nappies/wipes. I have one in each buggy!
And John Lewis sells cute, good-quality fabrics that are perfect for these sorts of things!!!
2. Maraka | July 17th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I have one of these for my daughter and it works a treat. She too gets excited to the sees the bag when we are out.
3. Michela | July 17th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Yes!
I’m the proud owner of one restaurant bag and a nappy/wipes one. We also take the restaurant bag with us all the time and my son eagerly awaits its apperance whenever we’re eating out!
4. Molly Elmer | July 18th, 2008 at 3:16 am
love this idea! Looks like I need to learn how to sew!
5. peggy | July 18th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
cute!!!
I always use shoe/ handbag bags- either from my shopping or from hotels or… very handy as well
6. Alyaa | July 18th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Fantastic.
I have come up with a similar genius idea to use those net-bags that we use for washing delicate fabrics to store the toys. They come with a zipper and you can easily see the content. Oh and they are a dime a dozen!
7. Esther | July 18th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Hi Alyaa – I like the thought of those net bags – clever!
8. Babyccino » Farm on a string | August 12th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
[...] this little-farm-on-a-string toy, was bought 2 years ago and has lived in our restaurant bag ever since. When my first son was a bit over a year old he was learning animal names so the game [...]
9. Nana Fran | September 25th, 2008 at 4:13 am
We had those 30 years ago and called them “busy bags” – as in keep busy!
Had a lovely half hour trolling thorugh your blog, will now send URL to daughter-in-law
hugz,
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