Little Packrats

“Mummy, our packbacks” Those are the words my 3 year old twins said as I ran around the house packing for our first summer road trip. Each with their own little friend, they scrambled around the house picking and choosing their favorite toys of the moment. Sophia with her bunny backpack or packback as she calls it, chose three books, her lipstick, pictures, two loveys and a winter scarf. Marco and his doggy friend Milo decided on a book, a photo album, a matchbox car, a lizard and let’s not forget his favorite golf hat. All the STUFF they couldn’t leave home without.  

These fun backpacks are my kids’ little friends and it’s empowering for them to be able to fill them up with whatever they want without Mommy saying “We don’t have room for that.” Thank you CBHstudio for bringing smiles to my kids faces with these fun and loveable creatures.

Little Packrats designer Cathy Berse-Hurley has been hired by the Architect of the Capitol to produce exclusive designs for the gift shops in the new Visitor Center Complex in Washington D.C. Products include children’s t-shirts, toddler rompers and three styles of backpacks and tote bags in various patriotic designs.

Decades in the making, the three-level, underground complex, adjacent to the Capitol’s east front, will be the biggest expansion in the Capitol’s history. Capable of holding 8,000 people, the center includes a Great Hall in which will stand the 19-foot, 150-year-old plaster statue of Freedom that was the model for the bronze atop the Capitol dome. The model has been in the basement rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building since 1993.

The hall, now almost finished, is rimmed by balconies and has a 30-foot ceiling and two mammoth skylights through which the Capitol dome can be seen from the underground space.

From the Great Hall, visitors will be able to enter a 450-seat dining area, two orientation theaters — one each for the House and Senate — a 450-seat congressional auditorium and a historical exhibition hall.

The high-tech exhibition hall, designed by New York museum designer Ralph Applebaum, will feature displays of artifacts and documents, a 12-foot-tall cutaway model of the rotunda and dome and an amber-color glass floor.

The US Capitol Visitor Center is slated to open to the public later this year.

Read more about the project…