Tinkerbell Purse

Kristel loves Tinkerbell. 

and purses.

I sewed her one for Christmas.

The pattern is from madebyrae.blogspot.com.  It's called Buttercup Bag, and is designated as "for personal, noncommercial use only. Products made from this pattern may not be sold." Just so you know.  Please respect it. The Disney fabric is also labeled as for personal, noncommercial use.  Good thing it's a gift!

Here is the detail of one of the Tinkerbells, and you can see the pleats in it better than the picture above.

This is the original, which is a very cute purse.

I did make some changes, though. I put the button placket on, but I couldn't find buttons I liked in my collection, so I added the flower.

The original pattern called for one pocket inside; I put in two.  I did the whole outer shell with iron-on interfacing to make it a little stiffer and sturdier.

The original has the front and back sewn directly together. I wanted a bit more depth to it, so I added a band around the sides. 

In the original, she overlaps the strap down the outside a little and stitches it on. I decided to sew it into the lining. It is sewn onto the shell before I attached the lining. I then attached the lining with the strap around the bottom of the shell, zigzagged the edges, and after it was turned I topstitched the edges to hold the lining inside and it adds one more layer of stitching to the strap.  Hopefully it's plenty strong. It's a small purse, so it won't have too much weight in it.

I got all ready to sew, and had a short deadline, when I realized I didn't have the magnetic snap, so I used Velcro for the closure.

 As a final touch, I threw in a Dove dark chocolate bar, some eye shadow and lip gloss, and a pill organizer.

Reusable Gift Bags

It's Christmas Eve

and I've got to wrap a few more gifts. 

Inspired by K La's resourceful ideas, I decided to quickly stitch together some simple gift bags.  

I have more fabric in Christmas prints from a never-completed (barely started) stocking project. My kids are grown and starting their own family traditions, and here I am with this pretty cloth.  

During the next year, I want to make more gift bags. I think I will line the next batch, especially if they have light-colored patches in the fabric.  I want to do more with things like buttons and ribbons.  But this is a good start.

Vegetarian Mom's Apron

Holly has a terrific blog with vegetarian recipes.  

 She started it this summer. 

I took one look at her logo and decided on her Christmas gift.

I couldn't find exactly the fabric I wanted, so I settled on blue with white polka-dots.

It looks a little busy, blinding even, in the picture, 

but the detail shows it's really a cute pattern.

I sent it along with a package of hand-made cookie mix and instruction sheet.  I hope she likes it, and she and her family enjoy the cookies! Chocolate cookies baking just smell and taste so good.

 Just in case she wants to make them again, the ingredients and recipes are on the back of the sheet. If you try this recipe and you like them, I'd love to hear about it!

The apron is made with about 3/4 yard of 44" wide fabric.  Cut it to 19" long, hem three sides, and gather the top.   Cut a waistband 1/2 of the waist measurement (+ 1 inch) and 3.5" wide.  Press one side down the width of your seam; attach unpressed side to apron skirt with right sides together. Hand baste first, then stitch after checking that your gathers are even. 

Press in ends to match sides of skirt; fold waistband over seam and press the fold.  Top-stitch or hand-stitch edge. Sew on 1 1/2 yards of wide grosgrain ribbon to make ties.  

If you can follow these directions without pictures, you probably don't need them. You could probably Google other tutorials for better directions. Here's one with pockets and fabric ties. 

The Santa Truck

 Facebook Status Fun 

 |^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
 |   The Santa Truck         |  |”"”;..,___.
 |……_______ . . . , |=| _|__|..., ]\
“(@)’(@)”""*l'  (@)l'   (@)**l'(@)

 Christmas is coming.....

Put this as your status and keep the truck going.

I got this from Facebook. I don't know who designed it. I thought it would be cute to make the truck red and green so I transferred it to this blog just for fun.

 Merry Christmas 

to You and Your Family!

Nursery Christmas Card

We have our Christmas Lesson

today in  the church Nursery.

For our little ones,

it focuses on Jesus being 

the Son of Heavenly Father. 

To simplify the idea, the picture we use is of Mary and the baby only. We can introduce Joseph as step-daddy later. I love this picture, the way it portrays the bond between Mary and her Heavenly child.

It can be found in the manual "Behold Your Little Ones" at LDS.org.  If you are interested in finding out about our beliefs, another good site is mormon.org.

We are letting the children decorate a Christmas card with foam shapes. We will slip the picture in and they can take it home. 

We did some at Thanksgiving with Christi's family, and the little ones loved it. 

The hands of a two year old. I didn't know how he would do with the markers, but he did great.

 Ginger Giraffe was quite interested.

 Even Mommy got into the act. 

Here are the finished cards. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS 

From Our House to Yours

An Apron for the Princess

Missy M. is almost six years old.

She is into Princess stuff.

I used that theme for Christmas.

Using a combination of patterns and ideas I found on other blogs, I made her this cute apron.

I like the idea of a reversible apron. 

So I made it pink on the other side.

Pink seemed a little plain by itself, so I made an applique of the fabric from the other side.

I love the elastic neckline and velcro closure to make it easy for her to put it on and off herself.

Of course, if a princess is going to wear an apron, she needs something to cook. So I made her a Princess Cookie Mix.

The extra little packet of chocolate is for nibbling. That way there is still plenty of chocolate left for the cookies.

I used to snack on chocolate chips, and it was a little treat for the grandchildren when I shared. Most days that Missy came over we made cookies of some sort, so hopefully this will help her feel her Grammy's love.

Here is the finished project, before I gift-wrapped it to send.