Tag Archives: Travel

Big families need to supersize everything and that includes mums bag, so its review time!  A long over due post about nappy bags and lots of them.

Those of you who know me, will know I love bags.  Especially bags with lots of pockets, and great patterns and colours and my nappy bag has to be multi purpose.  My ideal bag (are you listening out there nappy bag makers?) would have three separate sections.  A mum section, baby section and a work section.  Three compartments each separated from each other, with lots of pockets.  To keep the crumbs off my toys.

My love of textures and patterns drew me to the Petunia Pickle Bottom range, which is a little hard to find in Australia, but when has that sort of problem stopped me shopping?

It began with the Sashay Satchel, a very tall bag that comes with a lot organisational pockets.  Noticeably absent is a wet stuff pocket or bag, but what it does do well is double as a work bag and nappy bag.  It has a pocket on the front I can fit A4 sized documents, a small laptop or an iPad in.  Six interior pockets plus a nappy change mat and a wipes case.

It can also be converted to a back pack that sits very comfortably on your back, however the front pocket has a tendency to hang open a bit when being used this way. I found I had to stuff the handles in the main pocket and zip it up around them to sort this problem out.  The other little annoyance with this bag is that because it is tall, you have to stack your gear on top of each other.  A due to its capacity, it becomes a lot of stuff to pull out when you are looking for something that has end up at the bottom, but the light coloured interior lining makes it easier to see your things.  I still have this bag on rotation and I keep coming back to it for big days out.

Then there was the gorgeous cut velvet CAKE Society Satchel.  Another big bag, you can keep everything in this beautiful and super expensive bag.

Rather depressingly I’ve only used it a handful of times.  It too converts to a backpack, I was worried about using it this way because I didn’t want friction to damage the beautiful fabric, but I did try it out.  It felt weird, because the bag has an open top, no zip to secure your things from pick pockets.   It has a separate compartment at the bottom where the change mat and nappies live, again a wipes case and lots of pockets.  A total of ten pockets. Dimension wise its a little wider than the Sashay, but still you are stacking your stuff on top of itself.  The opening at the top is awkward, especially using the small carry handle.  It comes with nifty stroller clips for attaching it to the pram, best thing ever and usable with my other bags.  And a dust cover as designer bags should.  Sadly I found this bag annoying, so depressing given its price tag and its obvious quality.  Listing it on eBay is imminent.

Prior to the Sashay bag I was using a LIFE Brand nappy bag, which was brilliant but is no longer available so no point in me telling you about it really.  But seriously it rocked, and it died from overuse.  I also killed a couple of Kapoochi bags, but they’re no longer on the market either.  When I think about it, wow I’ve been through a lot of bags.

Recently I found myself in a spot of bother in Randwick and in dire need of an extra bag, and in a baby shop I found the Annabel Trends shoulder bag.  It has many uses, a nappy bag being one of them.  It has five huge pockets and a little zip up one on the front there to hide your keys and phone in.  The main compartment does up with a press stud, which unfortunately pulled out of the fabric in a week, but I didn’t really use it much anyway.  This is a tote bag.  I’ve found it great for packing lunch and drinks in for trips to the park etc and the polyester fabric is ok with being wet.  Good to grab and go, and slightly nicer to look at than a green shopping bag, especially if you are going somewhere that may mess up your other (pretty) bags like swimming class.  The shoulder strap is adjustable, and the whole thing can be folded up and stuffed inside your handbag for shopping later.   Overall a practical bag, just don’t look too close at it for quality

In my quest for the perfect bag, I turned to the AVENT back pack.  It is a very stylish looking back pack, that is very comfortable to wear.

You can fit everything in it, and it has, wait for it… three separate compartments! Lots places for everything and an insulated bottle pocket, which incidentally doubles as a nicely padded camera pocket.  I wore this to the Zoo on the weekend and could fit, six nappies four drink bottles, wipes and about half the medicine cabinet, and my camera in it, and the Husbands stuff.  While I’m on about the Husband, he isn’t embarrassed to carry this bag.  The only problem is that back packs don’t look great in a meeting and I don’t want people to think I’ve completely given up on style, just because I look like my children have sucked out my soul.  But I digress…

With all these kids I have to carry a lot of crap, including my own crap, the husbands crap and my gadgets.  So I decided it was time to stop faffing about and just get a big arse bag.  And here it is.

As the name would suggest, the Wistful Weekender is the kind of bag you may pack to go away with.  Yep its that big.  I love it.  I’d be awesome for mums of multiples onwards. I can carry absolutely everything we need in this, and with half a dozen kids that is a lot.  It is very pretty, and comes with the signature PPB wipes case and change mat.  Again the PPB quality is there.  The pockets are generously sized, I can fit my Kindle in the interior ones, there are seven pockets inside and two outside. Bottle/drinks pockets at each end and the whole thing closes with a zip.  I love it, I think I’ve found THE bag.  Sure I’m walking around with a massive bag, but hey I’ve got everything I need in there!  One day there come a time that I will be able to carry a small handbag, and not a piece of luggage, one glorious day… in around ten years…