4th Week

All images and text copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

09.09.10

The girls rode into town, Sara bumping along on the bouncing beanbag and Maura trotting next to her chatting away.

“We should try the general store!” She said over the sound of the hooves and flopping bag. “There is always some good licorice that they sometime give you samples.  If your page isn’t in there we could try the main stables I guess, but the library is closed today so it wouldn’t be in there.”  She looked over at Sara who was holding on with both hands as the beanbag skipped from one side of the trial to the other like it was sniffing the flowers that grew along the edges. Maura’s little pony snorted as the red chair scooted across his path.

“W..w…well, m..m..maybe w..w..we s..s..should s..s..see w..w..where t..t..the w..w..wind i..i..is b..b..blowing!” Stammered Sara.

“That might be a good idea.” Maura allowed, “but the licorice is really good.”

They entered the edge of the little town and Sara looked to see all of the people walking up and down the street and the old timey buildings. “Cool.” Said Sara, she pointed to the building next to the General Store. “What is that?”

“The Boarding house? Why would you want to go there?”

“It is the tallest building in town, if we could get on the roof we can see all around.”

“It’s the tallest building, but not the tallest thing!” Maura pointed to a water tower that was peeking over the buildings on the other side of the street. “We could climb that and see, why, we could see forever!”  They headed over to the water tower, hitched the pony to the posts and Sara told the beanbag to stay in place before they started climbing to the top.

“Look!” Maura pointed to the landing around the edge of the water tower. “Is that a piece of paper?” There was a flicker of white at the edge of the railing, “Hurry!” They scurried up the wooden structure, Sara was a very good climber, and Maura was right behind her.  They climbed over the edge of the walkway as the wind picked up again, lifting the page off of the platform and out over the edge.

“I’ve got it!” Sara shouted and jumped over the railing and reaching out for the sheet, she could see the page, it looked it was a drawing of Ms. Robinson and her class, but the page was just out of her reach!

“Be Careful Sara!” But it was too late Sara had reached too far and her hand slipped from the railing and she fell from the top of the tower, the page underneath her as she plummeted toward the ground!  Before she could even make a sound she saw the beanbag dash to where she was falling!  The bag jumped the last few feet and Sara crashed into it, but it felt like she was falling all the way through it, but it was slowing her down!  Through the darkness she kept falling until she bumped into a hard cold floor.

“Great! Now where in the world am I?” She looked up and down the dark hallway, Maura was nowhere to be seen!

Third Week

All text and images copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

09.02.10

Sara stared at the little girl in front of her and down at the yellow book she had been reading about the family that lived in the little house.  “Are you sure your name is Maura?”

            “Yep.” Said the girl with a confident nod of her head, “and that is my Maw, and Paw, and my sister Kerry. We live in that medium house in the field.” She pointed to the house in the distance that Sara had seen earlier. “What’s your name and where did you come from?”

“Well...my name is Sara, and I am from...”Sara thought for a moment. “I came from far away.” She said finally.  “I have some of my stuff,” and the beanbag shook on the ground behind her.”but I really need that page that just flew away. It will help me to get back home.”

“I can help you find your page!” Maura offered brightly, “Maw, Paw! I am going to go with Sara to look for her page!”

“Sure thing Half Gallon!” Maura’s Paw called back.

“We need to get a horse and a wagon! C’mon!” The two girls went over to the barn and started collecting the tack and saddle for the horses.  They had just pulled down the second blanket when Sara noticed a red shadow at the door of the barn.  That silly beanbag had made its way to the barn and was peeking in on them.

“Is that yours?” Maura pointed at the beanbag that had rolled into the barn.

“Yesss.” Sara sighed. “That thing is why I am here.”  She told Maura all about reading in class and then falling through the bag.

“Well, we really need to find that page for you!” The girls got the saddle on one horse and had started the second when the beanbag started hopping up and down around Sara excitedly.  “It looks like it wants to help!” Exclaimed Maura, but Sara, who had experienced the silly beanbag once already wasn’t sure she trusted it quite yet.

“I don’t know....” But Maura was already getting the little wagon out and hooking it up to the beanbag.

“You can put all of your books in the wagon and I will ride alongside of you two into town.” The girls had decided to look in town for the page first, since that was the direction the wind was blowing.  Hurrying to finish they buckled the last strap down and Sara jumped onto the wagon while Maura scrambled up onto a little pony. “Come on!” They walked the pony out of the barn and the beanbag followed with the brown wagon with Sara and her books.  Everything was going just fine until they got to the edge of the property.  Sara looked at the wooden fence go by when she felt a sudden jerk on the reins.

“Whoa!” She cried and she was pulled suddenly from wagon and all of her books too! And she flew into the air, pulled by the reins still gripped tightly in her hands!

New Website

Below is our new website:

www.doodle-bags.com

I will still post new things to this blog, but will start to populate the website with more enduring stuff!

Bookmarks

All images copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

As a request from the original Sara I did a few bookmarks for her and her brother as well as a friend at school, these were the finals.

Text and images copyright - Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

Week 2

08.27.10

            Sara picked herself up from the ground and dusted off her knees, “Where in the world am I?” Looking around she could see a great big field full of grass and rolling hills in the distance, “and how the heck did I get here?”  The beanbag was slumped on the ground next to a dirt road that was swinging its way back to a log house in the distance with a great big chimney.  The sun was high in the sky and the wind was blowing the grass happily along the edge of the little path.

            “Well, this stuff isn’t going to clean itself.” Sara began to gather her books that had been scattered around, finding the book about the boy wizard in the roots of a nearby tree, and a grabbing book about a wardrobe that was hanging from the limbs above, it had her straw stuck into its spine.  She had just reached for another book that had landed wide open when she heard her name in the distance.  The noise scared her so much that she tossed everything high in the air and spun around looking for who called her.

            “Sara!” Came the quiet call again, but she couldn’t see anyone nearby.

            “Who’s there!?” But no one could be seen!

            “Sara!” There it was again! She looked around and the book that had been perched on her head flopped over and landed next to the one she had been reading before she was sucked down into the beanbag.  It was still open to her favorite page, and she reached for the open book when she realized that the page didn’t have the pictures anymore!  Instead of horses she was looking at Ms. Robinson and all of her class staring back up at her!

            “That is really strange! What are you guys doing in that book?” Ms. Robinson waved for Sara to pick up the book.

            “Sara, you have to cli…” Sara was reaching for the book but she could barely hear Ms. Robinson, the wind was picking up now and blowing even harder making the pages of the book flap back and forth!  Suddenly the page that Ms. Robinson was on ripped from the book and floated on the breeze high into the air and off into the distance.

            “Come back!” Sara called

            “Who are you talking to?” A new voice questioned from behind her and Sara turned to see a little girl about her age wearing a plaid dress and brown buckle boots, behind the girl a family was climbing down from a wagon.

            “You’re Laura Ingalls!” Sara exclaimed and the little girl in front of her looked confused.

            “Nope, I’m Maura, Maura Shingles, and who are you?

For the second post...an Introduction

Character's from Sara's World
All images and text copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

Doodle Bag Productions

The artifacts from Doodle Bag Productions are limited edition, fully functional story bags.  Each lunch bag is uniquely efficient; the artwork having no impact on the size, capacity, or performance of the standard or large sized student lunch bag. 

Created originally as a method for a kindergartener to identify her own lunch on a field trip the custom lunch bag has grown into a weekly serialized story revolving around the adventures of Sara as she goes on a Freaky Field Trip, deals with the trauma of Soggy Stickers, overcomes a Problem Puppet, and fixes a Broken Beanbag with her friends, family, and teachers.

Quite simply, these are Sacks of a Different Flavor.

All images and text copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

Sara and the Broken Beanbag

Week 1

  Sara settled into her favorite beanbag chair, snuggled into the corner of the class and pulled a nice cool drink next to her and reached for the top book on the big stack next to her.  After lunch on a Friday afternoon was the best time of the week!  School was almost done and if you got all of your regular work done Ms. Robinson let you curl up with a good book!

  Sara pushed her head deep into the vinyl of the red reading beanbag and felt the crinkle of the beans popping under her hair.

  “Ahhhh!” She reached over for a sip of water and picked up the book on top of the pile, it was one of her favorite stories about a little girl whose family lived in the old west and had a house at the edge of a big field.  She couldn’t wait to see what surprises Ma and Pa had for the girls.  Quickly Sara flipped to her favorite page with the family in a wagon, she loved to see the drawing of the horses and imagine what it would be like to ride along the bumpy road into town with the family.  She shut her eyes and could almost feel the hot summer wind blowing over the prairie and around the wagon, brushing the smell of the grass past her nose.  She was lost in her daydream of riding with the Ingalls when she felt the beanbag move under her!

  “Whoa!” she called out, pulling back on the book like the reins of a horse and sitting up suddenly, looking around for one of the boys in her class, those guys were always playing some kind of prank.  But to her surprise, no one was around!  Everyone was still busy at work.  Shrugging her shoulders Sara slid back into the beanbag and pulled her book back up and stared at the picture again and read about the family as they headed to town.  Sara was so focused on the book that she didn’t feel the beanbag start to shake again until she was so deep in the bag that the ceiling seemed like it was really far away and the walls of the chair had grown around her, books were falling down next to her.  She couldn’t see her class anymore, but for some reason she could actually hear the sounds of horses clumping down a dirt road in the distance.

  “That’s odd.” She said to herself as she fell deeper into the beanbag and the warm smell of a prairie filled her nose until the beanbag had pulled her down and plopped her out on the underside and she fell down to ground below!  She was suddenly outside in a big field and books were falling around her and the beanbag plopped next to her, wherever she was!