My Activity Placemats - An Inside Look & Why I Created Them
They are finally here!! I have been working on these placemats for about a year and half now and they are finally here for me to share with you all! Excuse me if I seem a little whacky about it all, but when I am genuinely excited I get a little nutty. (and loud) I'm passionate, what can I say?! Per usual the inspiration for these placemats came from both my children and their wild desire to get antsy minutes before meal times. We've all been dealt the iconic kids menu with three crayons at restaurants. Even at our favorite pizza place in San Francisco they offer kids pizza dough to play with like play-dough while we wait for our pizza. It seems everyone knows that the children need to be entertained while waiting for food. Now, before anyone calls me out I have fallen back on letting Mila watch a Mickey show on my phone at a restaurant. Of course!! I wanted to enjoy my glass of wine and meal. Typically, its when we travel though that Mila gets the reigns on the ipad. When out at meals I try and keep table activities the only source of entertainment. (Key word try) Truly though, as parents we are all doing our best and thats all that matters.
However, I had been itching to create something that would be fun for parents to offer their children while awaiting meals. Something even the parents could do with their children or siblings could do together to stay out of the way prior to dinner! ;) I knew I wanted it to include stickers or some sort of funky design. I was loving the idea of my kids coloring at the table and working on a follow the dot or playing a tic-tac-toe game with them. What a fun idea it would be to create a placemat that kids could use for fun to keep them busy before meals, but also could be taken on the go? I started putting together my favorite activities I liked to do when I was a kid. I knew I had to include sticker pages because both my kids are obsessed with stickers. From there things started to take off and within a year I had put together my activity placemat pad!
I decided to make this pad out of high quality paper that can be recycled when finished or even saved! I love the idea of having things be reusable, but paper can be recycled and what if your children creates something great on the pages and wants to save it? Or spells their name out for the first time? I know a few masterpieces are must saves and even snag a coveted spot on the refrigerator! My activity placemat pad included 36 placemats that can be take out and placed on the table or even with you for a dinner out! There are ice cream stickers and food stickers that be used any which way your child wants. My personal favorite pages are the mad-lib style ones which the whole family could get involved with. I also included a few tic-tac-toe pages where siblings could play against each other. Of course, we want to make any type of learning fun. So I set out to supply this pad with a great assortment of games that will get your children to use their minds in a fun creative way. You guys .... I AM OBSESSED WITH THESE PLACEMATS!
To see my vision come to life is incredible and I'll never tire of the feeling. That feeling of working so hard, pouring your heart and memories into something to create a product for families to enjoy ... it is everything! Bringing families together is my joy! I am so grateful for you all and hope you love these placemats as much as I do.
My hope is that these placemats get used, colored on and spilled on while children eat on them. You can use them at home of course, but also parents can pull a few pages out and keep them stashed for when they are out somewhere and need quick kid-friendly entertainment. Really though, these are so much fun I truly hope parents get the chance to sit down with their kids a few minutes before meal times to have some fun together!
Take a quick look below, but if you'd like to see more check them out here!
