I happened upon her site when she was blogging about making bags and getting rid of wrapping paper. Unfortunately the thought never entered my mind and I have already wrapped half of my presents, but the other half.......hmmmm...... I could whip something up. So I measured out the size of a DVD, a hardback book, and then made a larger size for clothing, and whipped out a couple bags. I simply put the right sides together, and sewed the three sides together. Then flip the top over a little bit and top stitched around to make it looke hemmed. I cut a 24 inch piece of ribbon, and sewed the middle to a side seam about 4 inches down, and viola...... wrapping bags. I've now made oodles of them.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Bag Bender
I happened upon her site when she was blogging about making bags and getting rid of wrapping paper. Unfortunately the thought never entered my mind and I have already wrapped half of my presents, but the other half.......hmmmm...... I could whip something up. So I measured out the size of a DVD, a hardback book, and then made a larger size for clothing, and whipped out a couple bags. I simply put the right sides together, and sewed the three sides together. Then flip the top over a little bit and top stitched around to make it looke hemmed. I cut a 24 inch piece of ribbon, and sewed the middle to a side seam about 4 inches down, and viola...... wrapping bags. I've now made oodles of them.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
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Sunday, October 17, 2010
Jumpstarting creativity
I think I got a little better at managing the four layers (I doubled the thickness for strength for my large family purchases), but I also think I eventually quit worrying about how straight everything was. I am a math teacher and LOVE straight lines, but I had to let it go for this..... its just for veggies right?
I've also been working on more felt food for the little girls Christmas this year. They also have a bunch of American Girl stuff on their list, so I made some cinnamon rolls for their dolls as well. I followed a tutorial for the muffins here , but just looked at pictures for the cinnamon rolls. I made teeny tiny ones for their doll tea parties too, but Brian didn't take pics of those. The grocery bags I made for them was just 2 rectangles of felt with a 3rd one cut for the same length as the sides of the bag, but a determined width (I think 3 or 4 inches) by me. I'm planning on making some "price tags" because I've noticed they aren't just playing with these in their kitchen, but setting up "stores" in different parts of the house. I keep waiting for them to outgrow this, but it hasn't happened yet... thankfully there are other little folks in my family so I can continue to make these.
Next up for the little girls is at least one knitted doll sweater each, but I"ll try for a couple of them. I do have other things to make that I can't post yet so they'll have to wait until after Christmas.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
UFO
A couple weekends ago I really wanted to make these bags, but I had to keep moving the jeans.... could have thrown them on the bed, but I remembered how excited I was to attack things I had already started. So out came the rotary cutter, a few good movies, and I cut all the jeans up into 6 inch squares, and saved the back pockets off of the jeans. For the 6 inch squares only the kids pockets fit, but I'll save the others (plus a few squares) for another quilt like this --- of course that sounds like another UFO. I backed each square of denim with flannel, and sewed it to the next one, seams out so it will fray. I used every last inch of flannel and bound it with the flannel too. I still have a couple patches to sew on, but I'll be finished by lunch with those.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Rhonda asked...
1.) The garden. We started this several years ag0. The first year I did it because my Dad had been diagnosed with cancer - already stage 4, and one of the contributing factors may have been his diet. My focus at that point was to get off as much processed food as possible. I read Animal,Vegetable, Miracle, and a few others, and was pretty motivated. Last year I also bought a lot of veggies at the farmer's market and learned to can/freeze as much as possible while the prices were so low. I'll definitely be doing this again. I'm still hooked on Cokes, but we tend to make more food from "real f ood" and have a lot less processed foods.
2.) Plastic - I'm still working on this, but I've gotten rid of a lot of containers that are plastic, but still have a few. Most of what I have left is for school lunches, but that is one of my priorities this summer. We also don't use products with aluminum in them.
3.) Recycling - easy, they pick up, and I've found a place nearby for the things not picked up by the bin.
4.) Knitting/Quilting, etc I have started knitting and quilting again. I need to make more time for this.
5.) Buying less- um definitely. Brian was out of work for 8 months, so we are definitely on board with that. We're going to the library, found a lot of free places to hike or put in the canoe. Found out about free sundays at the art museum, etc.
6.) Laundry- I'm still using the washing machine, but not the drier. Hanging clothes to dry either inside, or out on the porch has not been a big deal except I do have to iron more.
My goals - learn to make pasta, three season garden, continue teaching my girls/students about gardening, cut down on trips/gas, more canning/freezing than last year. Someday I need to replace my windows, and add gutters to my house for rain barrels. I'm slowly purging things we don't need, and as we renovate we are going as eco-friendly as possible. Any other ideas would be graciously accepted.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
I love science day.
They then harvested the seeds from the lemons, and planted them, or some of the bean, or corn seeds I also had. All were interested in the idea of how we define food now, and I feel like maybe eventually I can show students, by example, how to make better choices. I wish I could show the student faces, but I just don't feel that is ethical, but I will tell you they were full of smiles.
For Mother's Day today, I received a gorgeous little orange tree, and I'm looking forward to showing that to my students too. My family definitely knows how to make me happy!