Very high on my list of things I hate are those bags that you put your produce in at the grocery store. By the way, my husband and I have an ongoing fight over whether or not to put bananas into one of those bags. Um, dude, bananas have peels. A year or so ago I went super Earth Mama and made some bags for produce out of an old pair of pants, but as many many many things in my home, they went missing. And so I returned to those icky bags.
But not for long! This week the busy bees and I did a little bit for the Earth and made ourselves some new produce bags, and made them even more awesome by using fruits and veggies to decorate them. It definitely was a fun (but slightly messy) project. I’m not gonna lie, fabric paint is not easy to get out of your favorite, perfectly worn in grey tee shirt. Boooo.
To make these bags, you will need
1. 1 – 2 yards of lightweight but sturdy fabric. I got mine at Joanns in the utility fabric section.
2. Fabric paint
3. Meat trays for the paint (yay recycling!)
4. Various fruit and veggies. We used apples, pears, oranges, broccoli, celery, cucumber and carrot.
For a little educational value, I labeled two pieces of fabric “fruit” and two “veggie” so we had a little conversation about sorting and categorizing, and even talked a little nutrition.
like the blue splatters? Heres a tip – put the lid on the paint BEFORE you shake it.
How awesome does that celery stamp look? That might have to make an appearance in a later project…
After drying overnight, I whipped up some drawstring bags (there are 400 bazillion tutorials online, so I will forgo the laborious instructions) that will be perfect for produce, and will spare me from those horrid grocery store bags! And my store gives me a $.05 discount for every bag I bring myself so cha ching! I figure these will pay for themselves in, like, a year or two. Ha ha.
What baby steps have you made to make the earth a little happier this month? It doesn’t take much! Every little bit helps.
Happy Earth, um, Month!
Category Archives: Sewing
April
2013
Stamped Produce Bags – a belated Earth Day craft.
March
2013
An Easter Dinner Table
Let me just say, you really lucked out today…you get three posts in one! I was going to title this Three Posts in One – Easy Cloth Napkins, Easter Eggs, Vintage China and my Children’s Shenanigans with the Garden Hose, but, um that was too long. So without further ado, here are three posts (+my childrens’ shenanigans with the garden hose) in one.
First of all – easy cloth napkins. These are…well…easy! I used a thrifted vintage pillowcase, which made four napkins. They turned out just a tad smaller than a regular napkins, so for Easter dinner, I will be giving these to the delicate ladies in my family, such as the lovely Auntie, and Cousin Anna Margaret. Uncle Bob and (ahem) my dad will be getting a roll of paper towels. Just kidding. That’s only when we are eating ribs. And ham. And burgers. And macaroni and cheese. But I digress.
It has been so beautiful here, so I decided to set my little workstation up outside. This was convenient, because it was close to the large patch of dirt in my back yard which can be easily turned into mud. Nothing entertains my beautiful little girls quite as well or as long as a good patch ‘o mud. More on that later. I used my rotary cutter to cut the hem off the pillowcase, then folded it in half, finger pressed it in the middle (this is the technical term for “push really hard with your finger to make a mark where you want to cut”) and then cut it in half.
Then I trimmed all the edges to make 4 rectangles. Really easy! Hem up the edges and you’re done. I used a 1/4 inch narrow hem. To get a narrow hem, use your seam gauge to measure a 1/2 inch hem, press/iron, then go back and fold the raw edge to the fold, and press again. Stitch as close to the folded or inner edge as you can. If you want that nice mitered corner, fold the point down into a triangle before making the final press.
These are so darn easy! Last time I made cloth napkins it was NOT a good experience, but these were so simple. Who is getting cloth napkins for Christmas? EV.RY.ONE.
Now on to Easter eggs! If you have read any of my kid posts, you know that I like to keep art projects fairly open ended – translate that Mommy doesn’t like to do all the work while the kiddos watch – and I felt like the Bees are still too little for “traditional” egg dying. I figured out a system that worked beautifully for us this year. We blew the eggs out of the shell, then put a chopstick through the holes and stuck the chopstick into a shoebox to paint. I could not believe how much time the Baby Bee spent painting these! She was concentrating so hard, her lil’ tongue was sticking out!
I was pleasantly surprised at how cute these turned out!
And last but not least, the vintage goodies! I host Easter at my house most years, and it’s so beautiful out this time of year that I usually set everything up outside. This year, I even talked my mom into loaning me her Grandmother’s china to serve dinner on!
Um, did anyone see that episode of friends where Chandler smashed all of Monica’s wedding china after he spent the whole day convincing her that it was okay to take it out of the box? Yeah, that was playing in my head all day long.
Anyway, I set it all up yesterday to see how it looked, and I took a few shots to show off how pretty it all looked together. I used the Resurrection Garden as a centerpiece, and the eggs the girls painted on the place settings, and I love how it all turned out! Of course, on Easter afternoon, it will be jammed with food, but I can still enjoy how pretty it all looks now.
My mom let me use her silver flatware too. When I opened the box, I got a sweet sentimental surprise – the little Christmas tag my Grandpa wrote to his parents was still in it. I feel so lucky to have this in my family!
All right, since I know you want it, here are the previously mentioned shenanigans. Since my kiddos got pretty dirty playing in the mud while I worked on the napkins, I let them turn the hose on – on each other apparently. Here is what happens when you spray a hose through a flyswatter at your little sister…
But then Mama gets these sweet snuggles…
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter, spending time celebrating the ultimate sacrifice the Christ made for us!
HE IS RISEN, INDEED!
February
2013
a simple DIY Notebook
Raise your hand if you were at REVIE this weekend. Is your hand in the air? Are you waving it like you just don’t care?
Today I am going to show you how to make a simple notebook – just like the ones that were in you swag bag at Revive. It’s a really fun really quick really easy project. If you have a sewing machine, chances are you have everything on hand to whip one up.
You will need a piece of card stock. The one I have today is 8 1/2 by 11, but the Revive notebooks used 12 by 12. Then you will need 8-15 pieces of copy/printer paper. I prefer also to use a corner rounder to give it a nice finishing touch, but it is not necessary.
First step (optional) round off all of the corners. Make sure you don’t try to cut too many pages at once – you may break your paper punch (I may or may not be speaking from experience).
Next you will want to fold everything in half. Make sure you crease the paper REALLY well.
Now all that’s left to do is place the white pages inside the card stock and stitch it. Stack them neatly making sure to match the creases. Then sew as close to the crease as possible, on what will be the back of the notebook. I usually use a longer stitch – and prefer to sew down through the card stock, it gives a nicer finish than if you sew from the inside.
The best part about this project is that it is completely costomizable. You can use any card stock you like, your favorite color or pattern. I was even thinking it would be a fun thing to give for a mother’s or father’s day gift if you had your children draw or color a picture then you could use that as the cover. Break out the markers and paint make it what you want. On this one I used some small alphabet stamps to write something fun on the cover.
I’m all about personalizing gifts for people, and I am looking forward to making some of these bad boys for my friends upcoming birthdays. I’m thinking a little bundle of three of these with some fun pens or pencils would be a perfect birthday treat.
Linking up at Tuesday’s the Scoop.
February
2013
I heart scarves. I reeeeeeealy heart cashmere ruffle scarves.
Yes, I am well aware that I am like two years behind in my love of scarves. In fact, two years ago, when EVERYONE else was wearing scarves, I thought they were kind of dumb. Fast forward to yesterday, and my boss asked me if I own like a million scarves because I am always wearing one. And then he proceeded to prance around in my leopard print scarf for a half an hour. It’s okay. He has pre-teen daughters. I hear that makes you a little wacky…
Anyway, on to the fun stuff – new scarves! I started making these cashmere ruffle scarves for the November market, and they were definitely my biggest sellers. Maybe it was because the day of the market was a record low temp, but I choose to believe it was because they are friggin’ awesome. And now I will reveal my most cautiously guarded secret to you…
I don’t know how to ride a bike.
Okay, maybe my second most cautiously guarded secret – how to make a cashmere ruffle scarf for yourself!
You will need
A sweater (you might recognize this as the one who contributed its sleeves to hold up my boots)
a rotary cutter if you have one, but scissors are fine
sewing maching
matching thread
First, cut the body of your sweater into strips. These are 4.5 inches, but you can obviously adjust it to the width you want.
Next, find the seam on one side of the strip and cut it off completely. Only cut the seam off on ONE side though. You should end up with three long strips instead of three loops.
Pin the strips “right” side together at the point where you cut off the seam. Notice that on sweaters, there is
a subtle difference between the “right” side and the “wrong side. On the “right” side, the stitches look like clean straight lines. On the “wrong” side, they are kinda zigzaggy. Yes, I made that word up. I’m cool like that. Stitch the strips together. Don’t forget to backstitch at the beginning and the end.
When the strips are all stitched together, turn them so that the raw edges are facing you. Separate them as if you were going to press them open like you normally would for any sewing project. (Um, I totally never press my seams open. Don’t tell my Aunt Pat.) Stitch the raw edge down with as small a seam allowance as you can. In other words, stitch it down, really close to your original seam.
When you come to the end, turn the scarf and go back down the other raw edge, again as close as you can. You are just tacking down the raw edges so they look a little less sloppy.
When you get back to where you started, backstitch across your original seam. You should have sewn a really long rectangle. Trim off the excess.
Yay! Now you have a really long strip of cashmere! How exciting!
Here is where my method differs a little from the expected. If you have been sewing for a while, you know that to make a ruffle or gather, you sew a long running stitch and then pull the thread to create the ruffle. Well, I did that, and the result was Beth yelling at strips of cashmere and thread. (Don’t judge. My chemistry prof told me that it helps to talk to your experiments.) The thread broke, or got bunched up in weird places, etc. So I tried gathering/ruffling another way – by hand. Yes. It is more tedious, but I think you get a more fun random and unique look because the gathers are not uniform. And there’s less yelling at inanimate objects. To hand gather, you simply pinch the fabric into little bunches and run it through the machine. This takes a little practice, but it’s worth it.
Just so ya know, I’m holding my camera with my chin for this picture. It was awesomely awkward
Anyway, continue to gather little bunches and run them through your machine until you reach the end.
When you are totally done ruffling, simply sew another line of stitches over the original ones. This isn’t strictly necessary, but I think it makes the ruffles more secure and also gives you the opportunity to fix any gaps or weird stuff that happened during the hand ruffling.
Don’t stitch it with a twist in it!!! Why the heck did I take the picture like that? Sorry peeps.
Now put on your scarf! It’s supposed to be “cold” here again this week again – 60′s brrrrrrr – so you have an excuse to wear your new cozy, warmy, ruffly scarf!
Just don’t let my boss get it. He’s a little off, you know.
November
2012
great expectations
Do you guys ever have just wonderful thoughts of projects and craftiness that don’t work out? It happens to me all the time. Projects end up being way more difficult that they looked online…….or I am super slow so they take longer than I thoug
ht……or they just plain don’t look good. Such is the life I guess.
Two weekends ago I didn’t really have any plans so I thought to myself “Mandy what should you do with all this free time?” You know what I decided to do? Make a quilt. Yup that’s right. Not the least bit ambitious. So after work Friday night I headed off to the fabric store to pick up these gems. 
When I got home I didn’t dilly dally. I made some dinner, pulled up Alias on Netflix and got to cutting. 2.5 episodes later I had it all cut and ready to go. WOWSA! At this point I was feeling pretty darn good about myself and my quilting skills.
When Saturday rolled around a I ended up being out most of the day – BUT have no fear I got all the pieces laied out, exactly how I wanted it. And I even got the bias tape made up for the edging. I knew really I should have gotten more done but hey I still had all day Sunday right?
Oh silly silly me. I worked and worked and worked on Sunday and still she was not finished. I guess making a full sized quilt takes a heck of a lot more time than I had origianlly anticipated. There were some minor complications like the fact that my sewing machine stopped working, or that whole work + etsy store + church + social life = busy came into play a little bit too. But you know going from expecting something to be a one weekend project to 2.5 weeks later and still not finished is a bit rough.
My expectations were a tad bit unrealistic I realize now. But here I am with my post – becuase you know last week I planned to do a post about the quilt , of course at that time I still thought it would be finished by now and this would have been a hey look what cool crafty thing I made, instead of the hey look how lame I am that I thought I could do this WAY faster than my skill level – oh right I am SO not as cool as I thought. Thank you quilt for the reality check haha. So I shall leave you with this – a photo of her in her current non finished state.
Over half of the quilting stiches are finished, which is good, but yeah then we have that whole binding thing to do. Have no fear I will get you a finished product photo when that day comes. But let’s just say don’t hold your breath it may be a few more weeks.
October
2012
Souvenir Pillow
Sadly this project has been about three years in the making. Not that is was at all difficult, it probably took me 30 min to complete. So I guess pretty much it is something I had been planning to do but just never got
around to. I’m sure NONE of you guys ever do anything like that.
Many moons (aprox. 3 years) ago my dear friend Rachel went to New York. She brought back for me a cute NYC map handkerchief. Now seeing as I am not Kathleen Kelly I didn’t intend to use it as an actual handkerchief, but I knew I wanted to do something fun with it. I decided it would make a fun pillow, and it was the right color scheme to match my apartment. Perfect.
I used the measurements and basic steps from this post. But instead of having one piece of fabric I had three. I just cut two additional strips of fabric that would be the back. After hemming the edges I just sewed them up the sides, only really adding one additional step to the instructions I was following. I used a bright turquoise on the back to add a pop of color, and because that is what I had on hand. It would have also been fun with a colored print.
A simple way to not only update my couch, but also put to good use a great souvenir!
Linked up on the Southern Institute
April
2012
Paint Chip Garland
Over here the Junk in the Trunk Trio, along with our husbands and families, have been very VERY busy preparing for the quickly approaching Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market.
So today I have a quick and easy project for you, one that I have been working on for the market. If you are looking a great way to decorate on a budget, I have a fun garland for you to make. Supplies you need are paint chips from your local hardware store (or I discovered this week you can also find that at Walmart! They really are the one stop shop), a paper cutter if you have one (or a pair of scissors work, just a little more time consuming), and a sewing machine. Are you ready?
All you have to do is cut the paint chips into different sized strips, the randomness of the different sizes adds to the garland.
Then you take your strips of paint chips and sew straight through the middle (across the short side) of each chips creating one long string of paint chips. One long paint chip garland.
And that’s it! Quick and easy. I don’t know about you, but I love that kind of project.
March
2012
DIY Felt Garland
After taking down all of my Valentine’s Day decor I felt like my apartment was looking a bit sad. Defiantly lacking in some color. That was all the motivation I needed to hit up the closet full off sewing stuff and get to crackalackin. A half hour, one episode of The Big Bang theory and a bunch of felt later this is what I came up with.
Step 1: Gather your supplies, felt, scisors a marker and a circle to trace. I used three different shades of green felt, because I had them all, but you could use any color and make a more versitile garland. I tested out a couple different objects before I found the right size circle, and eneded up tracing a spice jar.
Step 2 & 3: Trace your circles and then cut them out. By far the most tedious of the steps. And mine are not perfect circles by any means, but thankfully it doesn’t really matter.
Step 4: Fold the circles in half.
Step 5: Sew them together, hang it up and enjoy!!
January
2012
Ruffled Towel Tutorial
I bought a towel at the dollar store and chose three fabrics I had that had similiar colors but weren’t matchy matchy.
First cut your fabric into strips. Mine were about 4 inches top to bottom, and for the width you just double the width of the towel. You could sew the edges of your fabrics under, but I like the rough edge look so I didn’t.
Sew about about 1/2 inch from the edge – do not use your reverse at all, just sew straight across your strip. Set your machine to it’s maximum stitch length.
Keep adjusting your ruffle until it looks even and is the same width as your towel. Then tie your threads on each side in a knot.
Pin on your second ruffle so you can’t see the top of your first one, and sew it on. Do the same with your final ruffle.
November
2011
DIY Pottery Barn Advent Calendar
So what do we do in that situation…
