Pink Girly Bags for Twin 5 year old girls

I was asked by a friend of mine to make cute girly pink bags for her twin year old girls. They were both turning 5 (of course, or else they wouldn't be twins) and they both have names that start with M, which she also wanted on the bags. So as long as they were pink and had the letter M she was going to be happy. Which made me happy.

I decided to have some fun and make them each different. But I wanted to use applique, which was fun!

On the first one I just did some patchwork and then put a big M on the front. The pink fabric was some I got at Target - it was a twin sheet set and I've been able to get a lot of fabric from it.

And the second one has an applique flower and a green ribbon as the stem.

I didn't get to go to their party, but their mom liked them - so hopefully they did too!

Earth Day! Or what it's aka - My Birthday!

I had a good birthday! It was a nice day overall. No great highlight (other than maybe the Munchkin running out of school, seeing me in the car, and yelling, "Happy Birthday!") - but a great day overall.

I like to think it's easy to remember my birthday since Earthy Day is my birthday! And I usually don't really go all out for earth day, but I've been wanting to applique so I decided to use an earthy type of idea. I made a little tote and appliqued a tree on it!

The back is all green and the inside is yellow with stars. And the tree trunk has some interesting patterns in the applique - I was going for a tree grain type of idea... I think it worked out alright.

I'm really getting into applique. My mom's got an embroidery machine and I had done some on that before, but I've started doing it on my regular sewing machine. It's fun!

And the whole bag was made entirely from material in my stash or scraps.

Let the Sunshine in! Or Not.

A girly girl I know wanted something to put her sunglasses in. She traced around her glasses onto a sheet of paper to figure out the right size. And I found some cute Prints Charming fabric in my stash and a little batting... and voila!

After working on it, I started thinking of all the possibilities! Buttons to close, quilted fabric, zippers to close, patchwork fabric, drawstring to close... so many options!

H's Bag

So there's a girl in the youth group I volunteer with who really really wanted to make a bag - so we set up a day and decided to do it! H's grandma was a seamstress so she had some sewing knowledge already and it showed. She did great!

So here's some of the awesome parts of the bag:

1. The button/applique H

We decided the bag would just be rather plain, so she decided it needed a little embellishment and I offered the button initial applique idea. I don't really like buttons all that much. Well I like them, but I wouldn't do something with tons of them. But she was a master buttonier. Buttonist. Buttonista. Button-sewer-on-er. She did them all in a flash.

2. The fabric - she got it all at hobby lobby for less than $5!

3. The zipper pocket in the bag lining

Yes - that green thing is a zipper - in the bag lining. That can be a pretty complicated thing. (made easier by the great tutorial here.) But she aced it!

Of course after we finished the 5 hours or so working on it, I said, "so are you going to switch all your stuff over to your new bag!?!" to which she replied, "I'll wait till I get tired of the one I'm using now." But by the next time I saw her she had switched over - so I was pretty excited. As you can tell, she was too!

Long time no post

Alright... I haven't posted in a while. I'm definitely going to try and post more. I promise! I've been super busy making stuff - commissioned bags, crochet bunnies, skirts, towel rolls things... Lots of stuff.

To start with - here's a marker holder for a 6 year old's birthday:

He's a super creative little guy ("the chicken nugget" as I refer to him as). A ladies man too.

I thought it was a fun little gift. The notebook was on sale and had all blank pages. The book (Make a World by Ed Emberley - of the fingerprint fame) has very easy to draw pictures. And who doesn't love markers? Washable markers of course. The marker holder had Velcro on the back so it was easy to take on and off with little kid hands.

He was excited to get it! Hopefully he'll have fun with it.