Wipe container letters and numbers? Ta da!

Lavender sachets? Ta da!

Crocheted slippers? . . . pass for now.

Up next this cute little phone pouch pattern available from Nap Kitten. I assure you this pattern is much easier than her wallet, which kicked off this Create Along adventure.

I ordered 2 sets, one for Nana and one for Grandma & Grandpa. I didn’t order one for me, I was really torn about it but I figured they’re my kids, I see them everyday. I regret that choice now. These things are awesome!

Maybe I can do something with the little picture that’s on the ‘hey here are your Stickygrams’ note. Like stick them on the back of some ugly fridge magnet or something.

Taking photos of my kids is challenging. They *never* stop moving. Well one might, but good luck getting them both still! Here’s some shots of Wesley’s costume, complete with sequin covered ‘hose’ and Nate’s Old Navy knock off costume.

I made Nate’s entire costume out of things on hand. A fact that is both impressive and kinda hoarder-like. It was ridiculously simple. I just cut a big rectangle, took a hole out of it, cut 2 hoodie pieces, assembled them and then stitched them to the hole. It was like a big poncho type things. Then I decorated the belly and added the elastic to gather up the bottom. I’m pretty impressed with myself (you’d figure I’d be over that shocking “Wow I’m pretty craft!” phase by now)

Hope you had a great Halloween!

Now that it’s back to school time things are a little busier in our house. I’m a teacher and with 1 in SK and having to get the kids out the door and over to the sitter I can use some help. This year I work in the mornings and not being a morning person doesn’t help when I have to get 3 people ready and out the door.

I usually lay out all of our clothes the night before and now I’ve come up with a handy little DIY that can help us all do it for the whole school week!

You will need:
Fabric for the tote bodies (you will be cutting 10 8×8 pieces)
Contrasting fabric for cutting the letters (I used a charm pack I had lying around)
Ribbon for the handles
Heat and Bond (really helpful but not necessary)

The first step is to cut your letters. I was planning on getting all fancy and cutting mine with my Cricut but I decided to just give it a go and do it by hand. Once I saw the size of my letters I decided that 8×8 would be a good size for the tote bags. I have 2 little boys so I’m only tossing some socks and underwear in there. If you have girls and might be including hair accessories or tights you may want to make your totes a tad bigger.

Cut your 8×8 tote pieces, set aside. Cut Heat and Bond as backing for your letters. This product saves a lot of time and allows you to just iron on your letters rather than having to sew them all around. If you like the look of stitching on top you can still do that of course, the Heat and Bond just makes extra sure those letters aren’t fraying or budging!
Iron the letters onto the bag tote front pieces. So 5 will get letters, 5 will stay blank.

Now you’ve got 10 squares of tote worthy fabric. We need to hem the top edge. So turn the fabric down to make a little hem, I did about 1/2 inch, press and sew.

At this point you could make yourself handles using coordinating fabric but I looked up and my ribbon collection was staring back at me so I choose to go to the easy route. Attach the ribbon slightly off center on the tote pieces. So sew it left of the center line on one piece and right of the center line on the other. If you lay it all out it will look like mine.

So you’ve created a loop to hang over the hanger.

Place the tote pieces right sides together and stitch around the 3 raw edges. And you are done!
If you happen to have some of those hangers from the store lying around you can use those to hang a top and bottom and then slip a handy little tote with the right day of the week on it over the hanger, fill with needed accessories, in my case socks, underwear and a diaper.

Hang in a handy spot (like on my linen closet door) and you’re ready to go!

Oh and keep the empty ones in a safe place. This picture is moments after Nate saying ‘Thanks Mom’ and wandering off with the Tuesday-Friday totes.

It’s pretty funny. Wesley, “in his stripped shirt”, me, Nate “he’s litteler” and Daddy “with his fuzzy face”

Other than my hair and Wesley’s height it’s pretty accurate.

Totally awesome.

Have a great weekend everyone. I’ll be wrapping up the first week of school and riding out the last 2 days holding down the fort while my hubby is away.

I don’t have those particular fabrics but I do have other things that are equally as cute!

I’m also hoping to whip one up for Wesley. He turned a blank white pie box into his lunch box (or so he thinks) by drawing police cars all over it. I decided to make him one with some plain cotton fabric and give him my pile of Sharpies to draw all over it. He only goes to school 1/2 days and so only carries his water bottle and a snack so I hadn’t made him one last year but I think I’ll go with this design and I’ll use this tutorial as a guide.

I’ll post when they’re all done.

Have a great labour day and for all your back to schoolers have a great first day tomorrow!

I can’t remember the first time I stumbled onto Mollie’s site but I’ve been going back ever since. She’s so great with colours, stitches and designs not to mention can throw a cute little face on almost any object. We’ve worked together on a game, a planner and somehow keep wandering back to each other with more ideas.

Here’s the latest idea I’d love to share with you, her Little Snackers designs. These sweet little things are for use one your very own reusable snack bags. With back to school time approaching for most of us I thought reusuable snack bags would be a great tutorial idea and asked Mollie to help out with some of her signature embroidery patterns.

Little Snackers Download

Pattern is for personal use only.

These work perfectly with my snack pouch tutorial from yesterday. If you want a different pouch design, fold over or buttons or something you can find a ton of ideas with a quick Google search. Happy pouch making!

We’ve been making the switch to glass and stainless steel lunch containers. Both my school and my son’s school push for the whole literless/boomerang lunch thing. Bomerang lunch basically means if you send it in packaging or it creates some sort of garbage they’re going to send it back home to you. Strangely we teacher folk are free to load up the garbages at school with our lunch litter but I’m trying desperatly to avoid that. Hence my binge to create some snack pouches!

Now I created a few for my son and I’m going to show you how to make some yourself. I was really hardcore with his and used parts from one of my hubby’s practically new shirts. Somehow he got a weird big circle stain on it right in the front and tossed it into the donate pile. I rescued it.  Oh, lookie a Mabel’s Label.

I also tried to use fabrics I had on hand and chose some of the bright colourful kid prints I have to jazz the pouches up a bit. There some debate online about materials to use for the inside and what is and isn’t food safe. To just avoid having to buy something or find out later what I chose was wrong I’m sticking with cotton fabrics. If you plan on carrying something that could get things wet I suggest adding a layer between the inner and outer cotton pieces to help prevent everything else in your bag getting soaked. Cutting up a freezer bag would work great for this and you could probably get a few out of just one.

You will need:

- lining fabric 4 1/2 x 6ish

- printed fabric for outside about 4 1/2 x 3 1/2

- plain fabric for outside 4 1/2 x 3 1/2

- 4 inch length of velcro, hook & loop piece

- strip of fabric to make tabs

Pin the 2 outside fabric pieces right side together and sew together. I use 1/4 inch seam, or slightly less.

Unfold the pieces and press the seams flat.

Stich on the rightside of the fabric to each side of the seam.  This will help reinforce where the fabrics are joined and adds a nice little decorative stitch.

Because I repurposed an existing garment I didn’t have to make my own little tabs but if you do it’s really simple.  Take 2 pieces of fabric shaped like rectangles and fold it in half so it’s a long piece and then sew down the edge. Turn it right-side out and you should have a nice long thin rectangle.  If you want the little decorative top stitch mine has you can just do a straight stitch down one side.  Trim one tab so it’s slightly shorter than the other.  I’ve found it’s easier to separate them when opening the pouch.

Fold your tab piece in half and sandwich it between your lining and outside piece, placed right sides together.  Sew through all 3 pieces.

You should now have this sort of looking thing, with your tab sticking up.  Now position the velcro about 1/4 – 1/2 inch from what will be the top of your pouch.  Stitch along at least the top and bottom of the velcro, you can do the sides too if you like.  Secure the velcro on the opposite side of the pouch, measuring them against each other to get the positioning correct.

Fold the pouch over completely so the outside is outside and you’re looking at the lining.  Press to get a nice clean edge and then topstitch along near the edge of the pouch.  This will create a nice finish stitch on the inside and outside and reinforce the tab.

Once you’ve completed all these steps for both sides you should be left with something that looks like this.

Place the 2 pieces with the outsides together and stitch all the way around 3 unfinished sides.  This would be a great place to use a serger if you have one.  I don’t so I just went back and did a zig zag stitch just beside the straight stitch and then trimmed the fabric really close to the stitching.

These are really fun and easy to make.  It’s a great way to use up some scraps.  I’m thinking of making them to use as loot bags for my son’s birthday party this year, then the kids leave with some goodies and a fun little reusable snack pouch.  Since things will only be in there a few hours I’m not worried about them getting stale but if you were, or plan to put wet-ish snacks in there, then you can put a water resistant lining between the fabrics.

Also, I’m going to tease you with a little fun embellishment you could add to these.  You’ll have to come back tomorrow for the full explanation.  All I can say now is it involves a guest post and it will kill you with cuteness.

Speaking of the day 3 winner is . . . . thanks to random.org this time is Laura!  Congrats!

Ok back to the partners . . .

SewTara & Elizabeth
Oh Leela & Sarah
Hazel & SewTara
Lauren & Sara
Marysza & Nerina

Please get in touch with your partner, I’m sending out emails today, find out mailing info and start destashing!

And I am off to a cottage for a week! For the first time in a few years I’m heading out to a cottage. It’s going to be great, right on the water, sandy area for the kids, a dock . . . oh the list goes on. I’m not sure what the internet situation is up there, and if our phones have a signal my hubby is going to be tethering and using most of our data plan so I thought I’d go easy on it and take time to read and be offline a bit.

But fear not! I’ve worked on some of my blog land friends and I’ve got a few guest posts lined up so it’s going to be a good week at SewTara even without me.

This has been so much fun and I’d like to thank the lovely people at Mabel’s Labels for working with me to ship the items straight to the winners, honestly, this company/product is awesome!

Please head over to Mabel’s Labels and leave me a message letting me know the names of your 2 little people and what colours/designs you would like!

Once again, the giveaway closes at midnight when I pick the lucky winner!