Allison: Tutu's and Superheros

Hello, again and Happy Halloween! I've been having so much fun preparing my kids' costumes this year. For Isla's first two Halloweens, Old Navy did all the work. But I really wanted to make something special for my girls this year. I grew up with an amazing mother that always made our costumes, and I'd love to carry on that tradition.

My older daughter has been completely obsessed with Tinker Bell for awhile now, so this costume was a given. I'd seen multiple tutu tutorials on Pinterest, and thought I'd give it a try.  I love the tutu that Sara shared on this post.  I followed the tutorial found here and only made a couple of adjustments. I used my ruler and mat to make the cutting of the strips a little easier. Tulle can be hard to work with, but this method made it more manageable.

I also alternated colors to add more dimension. I definitely recommend putting the elastic or ribbon on the back of a chair while you tie the tulle. This was very helpful and made the work go pretty quick.  Just be careful not to stretch the elastic too much, or you'll end up having to cut it down.  Overall, I love how it turned out!

To finish off her costume, I made two small tulle puffs to tie to her shoes, and bought a pair of white wings. The hardest part of the project was finding a green shirt to match. After looking at multiple stores, I decided I'd have to dye a shirt myself. I had never used RIT dye, but figured it wouldn't be too hard to figure out.  Once I discovered this site, it was a piece of cake, and came out the perfect color.

She looks a little dazed, but you get the idea.  :)

For Norah's costume, I kind of cheated.  I saw something about Wonder Woman on Pinterest, and sifted through a bin of baby clothes a friend of mine had given to us.  After finding something that would work, it only took a few sewed lines, and some felt to turn my baby into a superhero.  I am in love with the final result and had a lot of fun putting it together.  She was pretty much a hit at our church Halloween party.  :)

Wonder Norah!

I realize that today is Halloween, and these "ideas" don't really help you now.  But I figured tutu's and costumes are fun to play in all year round.  I hope you all have a safe and fun Halloween!

Allison

Sara Jane: Felt Pumpkin Bags

***Giveaway is now closed***

Have I told you how amazing my/our mother is?  Well, she is.  She always has been, too.  She was the mom who was always volunteering in the classroom.  She would give demonstrations at school on how to make bread or sew an apron.  She made (back when you could take homemade treats) birthday treats for the class when our birthdays came around (keep in mind she had 7 children).  She was very involved in PTA (her fundraisers funded the new playground when I was in elementary school).  She was/is amazing!

One of the fun things I remember her doing for at least a few of my school classes were pumpkin bags for Halloween.  She would spend hours cutting and sewing the bags and then stuff the cute bags with little treats and plastic spiders.  

A few years ago, I came across one of my pumpkin bags from my childhood.  At this time, Penelope was just beginning to understand how fun Halloween and other holidays were.  I made a pattern off of the bag, made 10 bags, and then Penelope and I took them to her favorite people (I think one actually made it back to my mom).  We had so much fun doing it that it has now become a tradition in my family and I hope to someday get to take a tray of them to my children's classes.

With special permission from my mother, I am going to share these bags with you.  Here we go...

First, you will need black and orange felt and ribbon for the handle.  My mom always used green ribbon so that is what I have used. First, cut out a pumpkin, a mouth, a nose and two eyes.  For the nose and eyes, I just cut random triangles so each pumpkin was different.  If you would like a copy of the template I used for the pumpkin and the mouth, either leave your email in a comment or email me at fivecraftysisters@gmail.com and I would be happy to send one to you.  I could not get the template uploaded.  Next, using your hot glue gun, glue on the eyes, nose and mouth making sure to leave enough room for a seam.

Next, you sew the pumpkin together, making a bag.  A few things to remember: (1) be sure to add the ribbon into the first few stitches, (2) make sure to back stitch the beginning and end and (3) make sure to keep the top open - You may be thinking "duh"...I've sewed the top shut before :)

I had quite a difficult time sewing these little guys this time around.  My thread kept breaking, my needle broke....needless to say, these bags are in no way perfect but I am sure the children who receive them will still love them.  I tried hot gluing the pumpkin pieces together and it worked really well.  I just like the look of the black thread on the orange felt :)

When you are finished sewing, this is what your bag should look like.

We like to fill ours with our favorite candy and I always add, just like my mom did, a plastic spider ring.  This year, we are also adding Dracula teeth.  

Penelope can't wait to hand out her favorite little goody bags.  

Now for the giveaway that I promised back here...

I will be giving away TEN pumpkin bags to one lucky reader (treats not included). 

All you have to do to be in the running to receive these is leave a comment on what your favorite holiday tradition is in your family.  This giveaway will close at 12:00 AM on Saturday morning.  That way I can mail the bags to you in time for Halloween.

 I hope you guys enjoy these bags as much as we do around here.

Sara Jane

Sara Jane: DIY Gifts

I am one of those annoying people who has 99% of their Christmassing (yes, that is a word in my home) done December 1st EVERY year.  I do if for two reasons: (1)  I LOVE the entire process of buying/making gifts and then giving them to others and (2) So I can really enjoy the entire month of December and focus on the family traditions that we have created within our own little family.

During the year, when I am out shopping, I am constantly thinking of who would like what.  Two years ago, I had my children's entire Christmas done in January (there was a fantastic sale I could not pass up).  This year, however, I have been slacking soooooo, I thought I would share with you some of the projects I have recently started working on for Christmas.  I love doing homemade gifts, especially for my children, so I can personalize the gift for the person who will be receiving.  Here are a few that I've started....

1.  Car Caddy
2.  Doll with carrying case
3.  Mini Coloring Tote
4.  Magnetic Scrabble Board
5.  Little man ties
6. Sticky Grams (such a cute idea for grandparents!)

I just finished one super simple gift this weekend and wanted to share it with you.

I went to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore this weekend looking for materials that would inspire me to do something crafty.  This store is one of my favorites!  Not only do they serve a pretty incredible purpose but they have random parts and pieces that you can't find anywhere else.  We got our beautiful claw foot bathtub at our ReStore for a steal!

Anyway....while there, I discovered their tile section.  After holding a tile for probably 3 or 4 minutes, I remembered seeing a coaster somewhere that a person had made from a tile and some modge podge.  Perfect!  I grabbed a few tiles (only $0.10 each!) and headed home.

For this coaster project, you will need, tiles (however many you want to make), mod podge (mine is homemade - Just a 50/50 mixture of Elmer's glue and water), decorative paper, felt, a clear high-gloss spray paint (not pictured), and a hot glue gun.

First, cut your paper so that the paper squares are just slightly smaller than your tile.  Next, paint your tile with a thin layer of mod podge.  Place your decorative paper on top of the tile/mod podge.  Paint another layer of mod podge over the decorative paper.  Allow to completely dry (I had them dry over night) .  Finally, spray a coat of clear high-gloss spray paint on top.  To finish off the coaster, cut out felt squares to line the entire bottom of the tile (I simply traced the tile onto the felt) and glue them on with the hot glue gun.  So simple and they turned out really cute.

There are so many ways that you could personalize these coasters.  I will be making some for a certain family member that will have pictures on top of the decorative paper.  Another fun thing you could do is to first paint the tile and then add paper/pictures.  Or, how about adding stickers to say something fun.  The possibilities really are endless.

Until next week...

Sara Jane

Allison: Hidden Potential

Hello, again!  I'm just going to come right out with it: this post is going to be lame.  I know!  I'm not supposed to admit that, but it's almost noon and I haven't even started it yet.  That's not a good sign for me.  I usually try to have mine mostly done the night before I post.  But this has been a very pregnant week.  I'm SO SICK of the heat, and I'm feeling HUGE and my motivation has been a little low to be overly creative.  I've also been rushing to finish Norah's quilt, so there hasn't been a lot of free time for other crafting.  With that intro, I don't really expect you to stick with me for the rest of this post, but I'll assume a few of you will.  :)

One reason I really like Pinterest, is because it gives me "access" to countless creative people.  Through all their projects and pins, my perspective has begun to change a little when I look at ordinary objects.  I've started to be able to see their "hidden potential".  I've already shared a couple of projects that illustrate this point, like my revamping of an ordinary Wal Mart frame in this post.  The project I'm going to share today has been years in the making.  I originally bought this little shelf from Big Lots at least ten years ago when I was living in Utah.  Since then, it has moved many times with me, and spent a lot of time in storage or in the garage.  I never took it out of the box, but just knew that I'd use it someday.  This is a problem of mine; just ask my husband.  I always think I'll be able to use something eventually.  But in this case, it actually turned out to be true!

I kind of forgot to take a picture of the shelf before I painted it.  :)

When I decided that Isla's room needed a little sprucing up, I instantly thought of this little shelf.  Mostly because I could hang it out of reach of her curious hands.  But her room doesn't have much black in it, so I knew the color needed to change.  I'm a big fan of spray paint because it's relatively easy to use and gets the job done quickly.  So I sprayed it white, and added a little scrapbook paper as backing for the pictures, and presto... a completely different looking frame that matched my little one's room.  I love it now!  Isla also loves to look up at the pictures and I've enjoyed having a little shelf to display decor that Isla can't get to.  Did you miss my tutorial on the flowers?  Find it here.  I wish I could take credit for the adorable wooden blocks, but my friend, Lindsay, made those.  I love them!

So here's your creative challenge of the week:  Look around your house for things that you love, but aren't currently using.  Is there something you could do to tweak it enough to make it functional or more appealing as a decoration you'd display?  I know we all have stuff like this in our houses, we just need to see the hidden potential.  Thanks for letting me share this week, and taking a break from a more detailed post.  :)  Until next week, keep on crafting!

Allison

Sara Jane: Nutella Wednesday

Would you believe me if I told you I once had an unopened jar of Nutella in my cupboard for a year and a half?!?  

True story. 

I had never had (or even heard of) Nutella before when a friend gave my hubby a jar of it for Christmas.  Having no idea what it was, I stuck it in the cupboard and completely forgot about it (tells you how much I actually clean my cupboards).  When the day came for me to finally clean out the cupboards (moving, I assume), I threw the jar away with out even thinking twice.  

That was nearly 4 years ago.   Now, I would never EVER throw a jar of that heavenly treat out.  We don't just buy Nutella to snack on.  No.  It is a part of our pantry staples.  We eat it on tortillas, on sandwiches, on crackers...heck, sometimes I eat it by the spoonfuls by itself.

The other day while pinning, I came across this recipe for Nutella cookies, by Tasty Kitchen.  I decided to try it out today to give to my father-in-law for his Cookie of the Month.  While they are not my absolute favorite cookie in the entire world (which would be oatmeal chocolate chip, by the way), they are pretty tasty and I think Eric will enjoy them.  The recipe at Tasty Kitchen uses sugar.  I omitted the sugar, as per the Pinterest recommendation.

Nutella Cookies

Ingredients:

* 1 cup Nutella

*1  cup flour

*1  egg

Directions:

Combined all the ingredients.  I then used my cookie scoop to scoop out the dough, rolled it in my hands, and then flattened the dough to about 1/4 inch.  Bake for 8 minutes at 350*.

Something that we have decided to do with our Cookie of the Month is to put it in a creative container.  For this month, I grabbed the following items...a glue gun, fabric, and a Pringles container.

Next, I cut out enough fabric to cover my canister.  To ensure you don't waste fabric, measure around the canister, just like you would if you were wrapping a present.  Then, I started gluing on the fabric.  I started at the top (make sure you don't glue the top fabric over where the lid will fit) and then glued down where the two pieces met creating a seam.

To finish off the bottom, I folded and glued, folded and glued and folded and glued until all the fabric was securely glued down.  

Here's how it should look when it is finished.

Pretty cute, if you ask me.

Is your mouth watering yet???

Happy Wednesday!

Sara Jane

Allison: Party Ideas & A Giveaway!!

**Giveaway is now closed**

Hello again!  I can not believe how fast the weeks are flying!  I feel like I just posted my weekly post, and here we are again.  As I enter my 30th week of my pregnancy, and another week of temperatures over 100 degrees here in Arizona, I'm not too sad that time seems to be flying.  :)

This is a special week in the history of our blog.  If you all continue to view our posts, we should hit our 5000th view sometime this week!  I can not believe that!  It has been so fun to stretch myself creatively and to have an excuse to stay better connected with my sisters.  So to celebrate this milestone, I'm going to have a giveaway that will start today and end tonight!  It's a quick one.  That's because I think we may see another give away from another crafty sister...

When I had my daughter, it seemed to ignite the crafting gene that lay dormant within me for thirty-one years.  As her first birthday approached, I began to scour the Internet in search of the cutest ideas, most creative favors and most beautiful cakes.  In other words, I totally stressed myself out, trying to make this birthday (that she wouldn't even remember) the best of her life.  Here's some of what I did.

For Isla's birthday, I decided on a princess theme.  The cake was pink, the decor was pink... lots of pink.  Probably my favorite part of Isla's party, was the party favor that I made for each of the kids that attended.  I found this wand online and thought it was adorable!  I considered putting together a tutorial of how it was made, but the one I found here couldn't have been easier to follow.  I LOVED how they turned out, and the kids seemed to enjoy them too.

A month later, I threw a baby shower for my good friend, Chiara.  She and I had talked about different themes, but I was secretly pushing a flower garden theme so that I could share my new favorite craft.  But before I got started on the decor, I had to focus on the invitations!

I had seen this invitation idea before, but wanted to make it my own.  So I came up with a template and started to play with the decorations.  I love how they turned out and was so glad that Chiara liked them too.

The diaper cake... oh, the diaper cake.  This was my first attempt at making this fun center piece, and it actually wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.  My poor husband had to help me hold the diapers a few times, but besides that, it came together pretty easily.  I simply wrapped the diapers around and around each other (with an empty toilet paper roll in the center).  After I had reached the desired size, I stretched a large rubber band to secure the diapers.  To finish it off, I wrapped a folded receiving blanket around each level of diapers and secured each with a cute ribbon.  To add a little extra something, I decorated the cake with my favorite little fabric flowers.  The flowers became my main decoration at the shower.  I thought they looked so girly and cute.  After the shower, I sent at least one flower home with each guest as a favor.  They worked perfectly.  A couple of weeks ago, I shared the tutorial of how to make them here.

Finally, the best part of every party... THE FOOD!  Chiara is Italian, and requested some kind of version of tomato caprese.  I found a fun arrangement of fruit and had to use my good friend Brittany's amazing cheese ball recipe (which I think I'll save and share later.  So mean, huh?).  It was fun to plan and prepare for this shower, but it was even more amazing to see how much fun Chiara was having.  She was so excited for the arrival of her little Claire, and I was so glad that I got to be a part of the celebration.  Love you, Chiara!!

So there you have it!  Some of my favorite party ideas, mostly "borrowed" from other people.  :)  Those are the best ideas.  So now to the fun part...

**THE GIVEAWAY**

Alright... here's the deal.  You could take home these three adorable little wands for the princesses in your life, if you leave a comment below on the following question:

Why do you like to craft/create?  If you don't like to craft, why?

This is a question I've been thinking about a lot lately, and would love to hear your thoughts.  Comments left before midnight tonight will be entered in a random drawing for the wands.  Don't forget to sign your name to your comment.  Good luck, everyone!

**

Etsy shop grand opening & Saturday's Market

One final announcement before I end this eternal post.  Five Crafty Sisters has officially opened their own Etsy page!  Some of the crafts/projects you see on our posts will now be available to buy (in case you'd rather buy them than make them.)  So far, Sara and I are the only sisters selling, but we're hoping to convince the others soon.  Here's the address if you want to take a peek:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/fivecraftysisters

We're excited to be able to share our creations with our blog and Facebook friends.  One advantage our readers have, is that you probably know us.  And if you're local to the buyer, we can most likely just deliver whatever you buy instead of having to pay and wait for the shipping.  Not a bad deal!  :)

We will also be opening a "Saturday's Market" soon.  This will be a post on Saturdays that will either feature items that we're selling on Etsy, or introduce new items that will be available in our shop.  We're excited to take this new step.

Thanks for reading, and I hope your Summer parties are fun and full of great ideas!  Have a great week!!

Allison

Allison: "Gardening" according to Allison

Hello again!  If I can get my drooling under control after seeing Lisa's amazing zucchini bread, I'll start my post.  Okay... I'm good.

As Lisa mentioned, this week we're gardening!!  She also mentioned that my parents have an amazing garden.  I have always loved our backyard, but especially during Spring and Summer.  I have taken many pictures over the years of its beauty, and love the serenity that can be found there.  Since I can remember, we've had a HUGE vegetable garden.  I have many memories of weeding and watching my parents care for this space.  After a few years, they converted a large portion of this area into a flower garden.  I appreciate the time and energy that my parents have put into making their yard a place of beauty.

Courtesy of Melissa Gallo

But like Lisa confessed, I did not get this gardening gene passed on to me either.  I seem to kill everything living that enters my home.  I can look up right now and see a Mother's Day plant that has been struggling for its life near the sink, and fear for the survival of the orchid plant my husband gave me the same day.  It's okay... I accept this flaw about myself.  That being said, I thought my take on this week's theme was a little sneaky, and is probably considered cheating.  So be it.

A few years ago, I found these adorable little fabric flowers online.  I had seen them on multiple sites, but had never seen a tutorial on how to assemble them.  I figured it out, and thought I'd pass that process on to all of you.  The flower pictured is actually from a baby shower I organized last year, and only shows the four-petaled version.  I will be making a flower with five petals.  The process is so easy.  Here is what you'll need:

The basic supplies include: scissors, scrap fabric, marker/pen, yo-yo maker (optional), needle and thread and stuffing (which I forgot in the picture, but is VERY important).

If you'd like to put your flower in a pot (as pictured above), you'll need floral moss, tape and styrofoam (I found all of those at The Dollar Tree), wooden dowels (the size depends on the size flower you make), and a pot (not pictured).

These can be as basic or as complex as you want to make them.  I almost always go for basic.  Here are the steps:

Step #1- Trace 5 circles from one fabric type (for each petal), and 1 circle from a contrasting fabric (for the center of the flower).

Step #2a- If using a yo-yo maker, skip step one and cut around yo-yo maker and begin stitching.  Otherwise, begin a basic basting stitch around the edge of the circle.

Step #2b- This is how your fabric should look after stitching around the edge.

Step #3- Insert enough stuffing to cause a little resistance when thread is pulled tight.  Secure thread by stitching through the center multiple times.  Tie a knot to complete petal.

Step #4- Thread the five petals together by stitching through the middle of each ball.

Step #5- I'm a big fan of the glue gun, so I glued the middle ball to the 5 petals.  It can also be stitched in.  Cover a 1/8" wooden dowel by placing a small amount of glue on the tip, and wrapping floral tape from top to bottom (securing with more hot glue).  Finally, secure the dowel to the flower by gluing the tip and inserting it between two petals.

That's it!  Pretty easy, right?  I've also made larger flowers and used a 1/4" dowel (found these at Joann's).  I love mixing smaller flowers with bigger flowers in the same pot.  So fun!

I hope you've enjoyed my type of gardening.  Can't wait to see what Sara has in store for us tomorrow!  She actually knows how to keep plants alive.  See you next week!!

Allison

Allison: Patriotic Wreath Tutorial and Giveaway

  **Giveaway is now closed**
Wreath is available in our Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/fivecraftysisters

Hello, again!  I hope everyone had a relaxing Mother's Day!

I'm so excited for this week's theme!  I LOVE Memorial Day!  I consider myself a very patriotic person, and relish any opportunity to be reminded how blessed I am to live in this free country and to celebrate all those who protect/have protected that freedom.

For this week's post, I did some "research" on Pinterest and found this cute wreath made of tulle.  There was only one thing wrong with this wreath:  I am WAY too lazy to tie that much tulle!!  But it did remind me of a scrappy fabric wreath I attempted for Halloween last year.  I knew I had most of the fabric I would need, and knew where to get the rest of the supplies for CHEAP.  Here's what you need:

* I found this 9" wreath at the dollar store.  Perfect!  A little small, but that means less work.  :)

* Ribbon for hanging, if you choose (dollar store, again).  I have a wreath hook, so I didn't use mine.

* The stars I found at Joann's for $.29/each!  I only ended up using one.

* Fabric.  This is a great project to use your extra scraps of fabric.  I had all but the blue, which I found at Joann's in the Fat Quarters section.

This project is great, because there's no right or wrong way to do it.  I chose 3 different fabrics of each color.  I cut the pieces 1 1/4" wide and 9-10" long.  Some were thinner or shorter, depending on what scraps I had.  Anything shorter than 9" was a little harder to work with, but still doable.

Next, start tying!  I double tied one piece of each fabric, alternating between red and white.  If you look at the wreath as a clock, tie red and white from 12 o'clock to 9 o'clock (or 3/4 of the wreath).  Then tie your blue pieces the rest of the way.

You can nest the knots together if you don't want as much of the wreath showing through.  Or you can spray paint the wreath white before you start tying fabric.  (I did this with my Halloween wreath and it worked great!)

That decision might be the toughest part of this project.  :)  I liked it both ways, but decided to paint my little star and hot glue it on.  Multiple smaller stars could be cute too.

**THE GIVEAWAY**

Okay... now the fun part!  Leave a comment below answering one (or both) of the following questions:

* What do you like most about our blog?
* What would you like to see more of on our blog?

 If you aren't one of our Facebook friends, I'll also need your email address included in your comment (or you can email it to us at fivecraftysisters@gmail.com).  You have until Sunday night to enter.  Good luck, and Happy Memorial Day!!

Allison

Allison: Banana Bread and More

What a fun week full of Mother's Day ideas!  For this week's theme of "Teacher Appreciation", I'm taking it from a different vantage point.  I taught a fifth-grade class for two years before we started our family.  I've been the teacher being appreciated, and it's so fun!  I'm not going to lie.  Besides motherhood, teaching is one of the hardest things I've ever tackled.  Teachers put so much time, energy and love into every day.  I got completely spoiled by my students and their parents on a regular basis.  Those little (and sometimes big) gestures made my day and often made all the hard work a little easier, knowing someone was aware of my efforts.

That being said, I have a couple of ideas to make your child's teacher feel the appreciation that you feel for them and their daily efforts.  First off, I think it's important to remember that not every gesture of appreciation has to be time-consuming or expensive.  It doesn't even have to be given on a day that every other student will be honoring their teacher.  If your child is having a particularly tough week at school, chances are their teacher is also feeling the strain (times 30).  The times when I felt most special were usually those occasions when I received a little something completely out of the blue, for no reason.  I have multiple memories of a sweet note and little treat left quietly on my desk.  Those always made me smile.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share my favorite banana bread recipe that is sure to add a sweet surprise to any teacher's day.  I originally found the recipe here, on allrecipe.com.  Of course I made changes (which I do to most recipes I find there).  The modified ingredients are in bold print:

• 1/2 cup butter melted
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I don't add walnuts, because they're gross)
• 2 medium bananas, mashed

I found that reducing the sugar didn't change the sweetness too much, and adding sour cream just made them even more moist (my husband HATES that word).  And just as I'm a lazy crafter, I'm also a lazy baker. Who can wait 60 minutes for banana bread to get out of the oven??  I can't.  Instead I make this recipe into muffins, baking them for 23-25 minutes (yielding between 12 and 15 muffins).  I LOVE banana bread, and this recipe makes even me feel like a good baker.  Plus, it's passed the 18-month-old challenge because "I" loves them too.

As a teacher, I loved receiving gifts that could become part of my classroom decor.  I've seen these crayon monograms before, and would have loved to have had one in my classroom.  I found this one here.  I think they're so fun, and don't look too hard to make.

Next, I loved gifts that were not only personal, but useful.  I read everyday to my students and loved when my students would make me bookmarks.  I thought this bookmark from one of my favorite blogs, In Between Laundry, would be fun and easy for your children to make.  Besides, wouldn't we rather that they do the work for THEIR teacher??

This last idea might work better for a birthday, but I still had to include it because it's so stinking cute.  As a teacher, I spent a lot of my own money on things for my classroom.  I love this school supply cake!  It's fun and would be a great way to add to your child's classroom supply.

Well, there you have it.  No crafting from me this week, but I will take a second to show off another project that got finished this weekend.  This blog has really inspired me to finish a few projects that have been sitting in my craft space, collecting dust.  I started this quilt when I was still pregnant with my daughter, and just finished it.  Ridiculous!  It was a lot of work.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and now just need to figure out what to do with it.  Heaven forbid I keep one of my own quilts.  Hope everyone has a great week and don't forget to make sure those teachers in your life feel appreciated!

Allison

Lisa: Teacher Appreciation Week Book Bags!

Hello, everyone!  Welcome to a new week! I am impressed with the many thoughts, ideas and Mother's Day gifts that you've all posted last week.  Fantastic!  Mom's going to love them!  You know, mom use to call me "Mama Lisa" because I took care of all of you just like I was your mom.  Just saying, you know, in case you'd like to show your appreciation.  Ahem....

Anyway, now that we've shared our thoughts on all the moms in our lives, let's talk about the person that we've all accidently called "mom" at one point or another: our teacher!  As a child, I loved school!  I looked forward to it and thought summer was way too long!  My teachers were a big part of that love of learning!  I can name almost every teacher I've had from preschool (mom!) through high school.  They not only helped me to learn what I needed to prepare me for life, but they also set me on my path by opening new possiblities!  Now that I'm a mom myself, I have a new respect for their hard work and the attention they give to my children!  So, in their honor, this week our theme is "Teacher's Appreciation Week"!

My craft for this week is a little book bag that I can't take any credit for becasue my dear sister-in-law, Heather from Quilt Story, taught me how to do it and even supplied some beautiful fabric for it!!  Thanks, Heather!  Anyways, the bag is really not too difficult.  I wanted something that the kids could help out with (mostly).  I've included lots of pictures to help along the way!

First step is pick the fabric. I went with green because I wasn't sure if my son's teacher would like some of the brighter, louder prints and colors!  You'll need a fabric for the outside (we'll call this fabric A) and another for the inside (fabric B) plus more for the straps.  You can make your bags any size you'd like but here are the dimensions I used, if you'd like them:

Body: 15" width x 34" length (Use this measurement only if your fabric has no up or down directional pattern like my green stripe on the left.  If it is a directional print then just cut 2-17" lengths using the same width as before).  You'll need one cut out of fabric A & fabric B.  A half of a yard of each was plenty for my bag.

Straps: 2-3.5" width x 26" length (I used the fabric A for the straps) 

The next step is to straight stitch up the sides and the botttom of both of the body pieces leaving the top unstitched on both.  I had my son help with this step.  You might be able to see the blue painter's tape I put on my machine to mark the 1/2" hem.  It was an idea I got from my mother-in-law and really seems to help.  My kids, that is.  Oh all right.  It helps me, too!

Now that the body for both fabric A&B are sewn, we are going to make a square bottom for our bags.  Start with one of fabric A's bottom corners.  Take the bottom fold and line it up with the side seam next to it.  Pin it in place.  Measure 1.5" (or whatever width you'd like the bottom of the bag to be) in from the corner and mark with a pencil.  Next sew a straight stitch along the line you just marked and then cut off the corner. 

Now for the straps.  Take the fabric you previously cut and fold it in half length wise so that your fabric is inside out.  Straight stitch a seam along the length of the strap.  Turn the strap right side out.  I used another handy tip from my mother-in-law and attached a safety pin to one end of the fabric.  I then sent the pin through the strap and bunched the fabric up as I went along.  I then pulled the fabric through.  Nice and easy!  To finish off the straps, iron it and run another straight stitch up along the length of the fabric again.

On to the assembly of the bag.  Take fabric A and turn it right side out.  Take fabric B and turn it inside out.  Now take fabric A and put it inside fabric B, making sure that the seams line up with each other.  At this point, the right sides of the fabric should be facing each other and the lining should be on the outside.  Next come those pesky straps!  Take on strap and sandwich it between the two layer making sure the end of the straps are sticking out the top of the bag.  Now measure 2.5" (or whatever you'd like just so long as you are consistent so that the straps of the bag will line up with each other) from the side seam and pin the end of the strap to both the fabrics.  Repeat with the rest of the straps and ends.  It should look like the picture above at this point.  Next, sew a straight stitch around the top of the bag but make sure to leave about a 4" hole so that you can turn the bag right side out.   

With the bag right side out, you are almost done!  Just iron the bag and run another straight stitch around the top to lock the seam in place and to close the hole we left.  And now you're finished!!  See, not so hard, right?!

Finished!  I couldn't resist adding an applique of my son's drawing to the bag.  It was quite easy and ended up very cute, if I do say so myself!

Here is the little book worm book bag my daughter is giving to her teacher, as well!  They are very sweet little projects.  Mmm...I might need to make myself one of these babies!

Well, on to you, Allison!  I can't wait to see all the wonderful things you guys post!  Love you!

Lisa