DIY Pool Totes

Thank you to Michaels Stores for sponsoring today’s post! Gearing up for summer? Give the kids something to do that will be useful too, create these adorable DIY Pool Totes with supplies from Michaels Stores!

Hi friends! Are your kiddos home for summer yet, or will be right around the corner? Mine are! And we’re already trying to come up with ways to keep their little bodies busy – playing, creating and having fun! Whether you’re looking for fun décor, activities for your kids or cute party supplies, Michaels has everything you need to MAKE summer fun!

We’re in sunny Phoenix, so summers around here mean fun in and around water. And last time I was packing up for time at our local splash pad I thought, why am I carrying all their stuff? So the solution? Have the kids make these adorable DIY Pool Totes! Not only did it give them a couple afternoons of crafting fun, but now they get to use their finished, personalized product to take all their goodies to the pool or splash pad!

I got everything I needed from our local Michaels Stores AND even some fun pool toys for the boys!

What You’ll Need:

• Canvas Totes (I grabbed a handy 3-pack)
• One-Step Tulip Tie-Dye Kit
• Felt alphabet letters
• Felt stickers
• Liquid Stitch

First I threw the canvas totes in the washer on a quick wash, not necessary but we were doing the wet process of tie dye. Once they were done in the wash, I took them out for us to tie dye! I love the Tulip One-Step kit because everything you need for tie dying is right there! We used a few methods of folding (in the instructions), used the handy rubber bands and got to work!

A couple notes: since I had the boys do their own tie dyeing, we took the project outside, used towels down on our patio table AND did the dyeing in easily washable plastic tubs. This made the whole process much easier and less stressful because it CAN get messy! Once the bags were dyed, we let them set for 6 hours in plastic wrap.

Then I unwrapped them, rinsed them out really well in our laundry sink (note: you’ll want to use your plastic gloves for this step as well, take it from me), then tossed them in the washer on hot for a final wash. Once dry, the beautiful creations were revealed!

The boys were ecstatic at the results. We picked the Moody Blues pack since we wanted to keep with a blue ocean/pool theme, but you could really do any tie dye colors your kids are into! Now this was the next day and the boys were ready to decorate! I grabbed felt alphabet and ocean stickers for the kids to use. Our little one even got in on the fun…

Once the boys added what they wanted to their bags, I went back through and used Liquid Stitch to make a more permanent bond. The felt stickers are sticky, but as we noticed right away, they weren’t going to stay on long term. Just a little Liquid Stitch and they were good to go!

The boys had so much fun packing up their new personalized DIY Pool Totes! We headed down with full totes to our local splash pad for some fun in the sun!

Aren’t they the cutest! We also packed up some new pool toys and bubbles we found at Michaels Stores…

We had a blast, both making the DIY Pool Totes AND using them! It’s a great project for the summer and useful too! Looking for more inspiration? Make sure you visit Michaels’ blog, The Glue String, to see the rest of the Michaels Makers’ summer fun project ideas.