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.

Some Commissions

I've had some people ask me to make them bags lately - which I love love love doing! They give me the basics of what they want (a bag they already have or a bag they've seen) and then I get to go with it. And these two were especially fun because I got to try some new things.

This bag was made for the lovely Ms. Mary

She had a black leather bag and she wanted a brown fabric bag about the same size and with a long strap and everything. Luckily I got the size right - which is great since I pretty much just laid her purse on a piece of paper and drew some lines around the sides and that's what I based it on.

And! I did a zipper in the back! Like a zipper IN the fabric in the back! I thought it would be a little rough, but I used this tutorial from the wonderful U-Handblog. It was way easier than I thought it would be! I'm going to be doing more zippers that way - for sure!

And then I made this lovely bag for the cool Keri:

There's pockets pockets everywhere! A zipper pocket in the front, one on each side, and some inside too! I think it was the first backpack I've made. And once I got the pattern together, it was pretty fun to put together.

She picked out the outer fabric and I picked out the inner fabric! I picked it mostly because it matched the outer fabric, but I thought it fit her seeing as how she's a pretty seasoned traveler. Here's a close up (I got it at Joann's).

I don't know if you can quite tell, but it's got postcard type things for Italy, Washington DC, Japan, Egypt, and some other famous places.

I LOVE making special order bags!

A Tiger Cottage

Apparently a good tool to have when entertaining my favorite 4 year old (aka Munchkin) is the Ikea catalog. The munchkin was playing with this little toy tiger (called Tigey, just like his stuffed cow is called Cowy) and we had to do something with it - so first there was a sleeping bag, with a handle to make it easy to carry around.

Well where is a Tigey in a sleeping bag going to sleep? He needs his own house, of course!
Luckily I had saved a shoe box (you never know when they're going to come in handy) and construction quickly started - mainly just a door being cut in the side.
Then there was the decorating. First, a tv and pot and rug and other random objects were cut out of an ikea catalog. Then the stickers were put on. Tons and tons of stickers. But I have to say, it turned out pretty nice. I wouldn't live there, but Tigey doesn't seem too picky.

Ring Bearer Pillow

Two people people I knew from high school, Fernando and Amelia, are getting married! I remember when we were in spanish together, we had a potluck lunch one time and Fernando was bringing in mangos, but I'm allergic. So he brought me a banana! (I always remember the weird things.)

Anyway - I was facebook snooping one day and Amelia had a link to their wedding website. On that website, she had a picture of a ringbearer pillow that she said she wanted but might have to try making or something. I knew I could make, but I was worried she would think I was crazy if I just randomly sent her a message saying I could make it for her. But I decided not to worry about what she thought. And I'm so glad I did. She said she had just given up on getting it or trying to make it!

We met and she picked out the ribbon and material and then I made it and just delivered it to her last week. I think she liked it and I was more than happy to put it together.

I was able to embroider their names and wedding date too! And we decided she could snip off the ribbon that the rings will be tied to and they can just keep the pillow as a reminder of the day.

I'm going to be way more forward from now on - good things happen when I go ahead and offer to do stuff!