Crafting 101

My girls had a birthday party a few weeks ago to go to and I decided to try a new pattern that I got from Oh Sew Easy Life Style: 20 Projects to Make Your Home Your Own which I got from the library. It’s for a backpack and it took me about two hours to make, but I was using a pair of jeans so that took a few extra minutes. Here’s a photo of the backpack. I think it turned out cute! I lined it in pink and the straps are pink and there’s a pink ribbon to close it up. Next time, I’d make the ribbon longer just for added length. But it’s cute I think! She loved it!

I have more projects that I’ve been working on to post here. Check back to see them in a few days!

So we checked the mail today, I realized we hadn’t checked it in a few days and it was a good thing we did! Deanna had an invitation to a birthday party! So what did I do this afternoon? I made another purse! I asked Deanna what her friend would like, she’s a tomboy, but girly at the same time. So I decided to recycle some jeans, do a little crocheting and a little bit of sewing and boom! Purse is made!

I cut off a pair of size 7  or 8 jeans that were messed up in the legs and such so they were in my basket to recycle. So I cut the legs off, sewed up the bottom, made the lining and crocheted a strap for it. Pieced it together (had to do some hand sewing since I didn’t want to break my needle) and there it is!

I have a few more photos here for you to look at.  I think it turned out cute! I closed it with some elastic over the button for the jeans. It’s very unique and fun! TTFN!

It’s always hard to figure out what to get or make for your child’s teacher especially when they’ve been teaching a long time and even when they’ve just started teaching. It hit me a few days before school was out that I needed to figure out what to make them! I had two days to do this in. I had to act quick! I decided to make them a flag!

You’ve seen the flags I’m talking about. You usually see them in gardens or hanging outside people’s houses. I made these out of cotton, not meant for hanging outside, but maybe they’ll put it on their door or hang them in their room. It’ll be interesting to see next year!

These took awhile overall to make. I’m not sure how long, I worked on them for hours, but mainly because their letters were rounded. They aren’t the same dimensions either. I didn’t really measure, I just worked with what I had. I did use a coffee can lid and the coffee can to make the circle in the ‘Q” and freehanded the “D”. I layered the “D” for effect since the background was busy. I didn’t layer the “Q.”Also, the “Q” is on a fat block.

I do have a contrasting fabric sewn onto the back of each flag, I just forgot to take a photo of the back! I sewed a dowel rod into the tops of each one and sewed ribbon to one for a handle and cord to the other.

I think they turned out cute, what do you think?

I needed a small makeup bag for my purse and decided to make one. I found some green and purple fabric and a white zipper and there it was!

I got the basic instructions from one of those books from the library, the Bend the Rules book. I adpated it for what I wanted, but the instructions were roughly the same. It didn’t take long to make at all. I think it turned out cute and it makes finding my makeup so much easier!

I have more projects to share with you, I made some end of the year gifts for the teachers and other things that I’m going to be putting on my etsy store so look for those posts really soon!

So if you saw yesterday’s post about making the bag out of recycled jeans, check out what I put inside the bag! This bag was for my four year old friend Wyatt’s birthday. Being a boy, I had to be creative!

I decided to use old baby food jar lids to create a memory game. I took twenty jar lids and spray painted them yellow. It took a couple of coats. So when making this, the bag took me about an hour or so to make, the lids took several hours with all the drying so be prepared. You can start spraying the lids before making the bag if you want!

Anyways, while the paint dried, I went into my word processing program and made two circles, two triangles, two squares, two stars and two diamonds and then wrote out the numbers 1 - 5 putting each number twice. I colored them in and made them pretty, well, pretty for a boy! Make sure the objects are smaller than the jar lids inside, I measured the circle part that pops up when you open the jar. I then printed them out and usd my circle cutter to cut them out.

I used craft glue to glue the paper into each lid, but I think hot glue would work better. At least it would dry faster. I just couldn’t find my glue gun of course when I needed it! So you glue them in after the paint is all dry and once the glue is dry, you need to spray a clear coat on them. You can find this in the glue aisle of your craft store in a spray can. DO THIS OUTSIDE!!! You’ll regret the smell if you don’t! The clear coat is to keep the paint from chipping and it’ll seal the paper to the lid around the edges. The key is to spray not too close when doing the insides so it doesn’t ruin the paper. The clear coat needs to have three to four coats on each side so this will take a couple of hours.

Once everything is dry, I did all this in one day and let it dry overnight and it was fine for the next day, but adding an extra day would help it even more. But once it’s all dry, put the lids in the bag and voila! You have a cool and unique memory game! Good luck!

One of my four year old’s friends had a birthday the same week as she did. I’m always trying to find things to make for birthday’s and since this was a boy, well, that made it a challenge! I decided to make him a homemade Memory game.

It took several hours total, but that included waiting on spray paint to dry and a few coats of clear coat to dry. But the actually sewing took about an hour since I was working with jeans and doing this on the fly.

I took an old pair of jeans and cut the leg off a little under the knee. The key to this bag is to make sure you have a denim sewing needle and don’t sew on the hems or seams of the jeans. Your needle will break!

I turned it outside out and sewed a seam above the hem of the pants. Then I cut off the hem. You’re going to have a drawstring to the bag so you’ll need to turn the top over to create the hem at the top, but also to create the casing for your drawstring to go through. The trick with the casing is you end up having to cut a slit on the outside for the drawstring to go through. Since this is suppose to look like an old pair of jeans, you don’t have to worry about the slit where the drawstring is looking ragged.

Turn it right-side out and I ended up taking rope and hand stitching his initial to the front of the bag.  For the drawstring, I used the rope, I put it through it once, then took one end and ran it through again. That makes it draw up. To keep the ends from going back into the casing, I put buttons on the end. Gave it some class.

Tune in tomorrow to see how I did the rest…It’s fun and easy!

One of Deanna’s friends had a birthday party on Saturday and what girl doesn’t like a purse! (Sorry the picture isn’t the greatest, I couldn’t find the camera and had to use my phone!)

This is a messenger bag pattern, I adapted it just a tad, making my own strap out of pink material and I opened it up so you could see what I did on the inside for variety. I did take a close up of it closed, I really like how this turned out! I have another bag cut out and ready to sew up as well.

So the problem I’ve been having is making the bags a bit stiffer. I’ve tried thick, vinyl tablecloths for lining, but it’s not doing what I want. So it hit me yesterday - quilting batting! I have a bunch left over so with a purse I’m going to make today, I’m going to try and use that as the lining. I hope it works! I will post how it goes!

Like I’ve posted before, we’ve had a few parties to go to and we’ve been invited to some more, so I’ll be sewing more things it looks like! This bag was for one of Megan’s friends and instead of making a typical rectangular shape, I made it a different shape, not sure what shape this is, but it’s different. I think it turned out cute and Megan was happy and the girl she gave it to liked it so I guess it worked!

Remember those books I checked out from the library about a month ago? Well, unfortunately I had to turn them back in, but not before I figured out how to make a few things from there and get the patterns copied and figure out how they made the bags. I have made three bags and one wallet so far, I’ll be posting about those later in the week. They did turn out really cute so I can’t wait to get some pictures taken and get them online to show you!

Hope you have a great week, check out the site in a couple of days for more bags and other items!

Today I want to share with you a few of the towel bags that I have made recently. These can be super easy to make, depends on how simple you want to get or how creative you want to be. I like being creative! I made three bags one Saturday morning, so I’m thinking it took me roughly three hours to make all three. But I got creative so it took me longer, but you could make one bag in less then thirty minutes.

The first bag I did for a girl who loves super heroes. I used a red hand towel, blue ribbon for the handles and made her initial “M” with the blue ribbon on the front. The “M” was tough, but I got it done!  The other side I ironed on the Justice League for fun!I used iron fabric for that.

Next, I made two pink hand towels for two other little girls. I used white ribbon and yellow ribbon for the handles. The key with the handles if using ribbon is to get the ribbon that’s either 1.5 inches wide or two inches wide. Plus, be sure to stitch it on there good so it won’t come off. I sew a square then put an ‘x’ in the square for support.

For these two bags, I used some ribbon I had bought in a pack to make flowers and then covered a button with a yellow ribbon and hot glued that in the middle. One of the bags I ironed on a ribbon across the top with iron on tape.

You can see them all up close by checking out my Flickr photostream . I have pictures of all my bags in there. I’ve made over 25 bags not including the ones I made today, one will be for sale, the other is for me. I’ll show you those another day. TTFN!

I was looking at one of my friends blogs and she made a neat crochet hook holder in some pretty colors. You can get the pattern here.  I put a picture of what she made here. I really like the colors. I would have to make the pattern and then triple it because I have way too many hooks and needles!

Now, I have two holders myself, one I sewed for myself for my knitting needles and the other my friend Allena sewed for me for one of my birthdays (tried to find a picture of it, but can’t). I found a neat site that has lots of sewing directions for sewing one. It’s called Cut Out and Keep and it’s another one of those sites where you can post different projects you do for everyone to see. But you can click here and see some sewed crochet hook/knitting needle holders. This photo is one that popped up that I really like the colors of. I want to remake mine for my knitting needles since I have lots more now that I need to put in there, but I want to make some pockets larger for my circuler needles and some scissors. This is the one I want to make, but it’s because I love the colors! LOL!

Anyways, just wanted to post something today and share what I’ve found online. I’ve been sewing, you’ll have to check back to see what I’ve made. Also, I went surfing the other day I have loads of things to show you!