Tag Archives: totes

Michelle patterns sale!

I know I’ve gone on and on about Michelle Patterns but I just love her stuff so darn much (and she’s an affiliate sponsor on my blog). My iBooks shelf is over flowing with her stuff. I’ve made so many of her great patterns into fun stuff like the bracelet bag, the bucket bag, clutches,scrappy wallets, more scrappy wallets and yes, even more scrappy wallets. Still need to carve out time to finish this one, love the fabric covered button.

Sooooo she’s having a 6 year anniversary sale!

Go take a look!

Putting it out there.

Ok I guess in some wacky way this week seems to be about publically sharing my accomplishments and goals so I might as well carry on.  I’m working on another Etsy shop. I’ve set it up, it’s got a pretty banner, a cute name and now it just awaits creations!

It’s going to feature all the clutches, wallets and purses I make using the wonderful Michelle Patterns and hopefully I’ll start to move into my own designs.

Over the Christmas Holidays I’m going to work away on the Design Your Own Handbag class.  Click the link for 50% off if you’d like to join in the fun. Eventually I want to move into making my own PDF patterns and helping others to create great stuff. First learning graphics is on my list . . . oh and fabric design . . . and stamp carving . . and . .

Blue Calla

I had the pleasure of meeting Celine of Blue Calla a while back at a local event. She makes these beautiful bags and purses so of course I nearly trampled people to get over to her booth. And not surprisingly, I made a purchase.

She uses absolutely fantastic fabrics for her projects and often she uses Keyka Lou patterns *currently on sale*, which I also have a soft spot for. Honestly, she’s after my heart!

Here are some of my favs from her shop. Click images to go to listings.

And in her not a purse or bag category she has some amazing items, like these.

When you’re crafty it’s easy to look at things and think “I can make that” and with many of Blue Calla’s items I actually *can* make it as I have the pattern too, but I still drool over her creations.

DIY with loads of sharing

You will need:

Some fabric scraps
Modge Podge
Knobs (screw pieces if they don’t have them)
Wall anchors

Cut a scrap of fabric and wrap it around the knob to cover it. Pour Modge Podge on the front and smooth it down saturating the fabric and gluing it to the knob.

You can secure it with an elastic to help it dry in place. Once it’s dry trim away the excess fabric.

The knobs I bought didn’t have screws on the end so I had to glue some in.  If you’re repurposing cabinet handles you may not have to do that step.  I choose 3 colours that would compliment my handmade art wall.

Decide on your spacing and drill holes in the wall.  Secure the anchors and make sure they are flush with the wall.  Then simply screw in the knobs.

The next step is the best, hang your accessories!

I used mine to display my growing tote/purse collection. Bags are from (left to right)
Kimmy Kingsbury, Hot Butter, and me!

Glad I bought it!

I certainly don’t need another craft book, but I’m sure glad I picked this one up.

It’s by Sue Kim and I didn’t even connect that she’s the lady behind I Think Sew, and I certainly didn’t know she lives in Toronto just minutes from me!

See all those cute stickies flagging pages? Yeah, I want to make all those. I’ve got a bag problem . . and a sewing problem . . . *sigh*

I also picked up this one to add to my collection of fabric printing books. Hopefully I’ll get to spend some time reading them someday. I’m dying to get into making my own fabrics.

My weekend, in bags and purses.

The ladies at work think I’m some sort of super woman.  I went into work today with 3 purses, hemmed pants, repaired pants and my Little Red Riding Hood bag.  Luckily it was a rainy weekend and the boys did a lot of snuggling on the couch with Daddy watching movies like Ghostbusters and Spiderman.

So here’s the parade of things I finished up this weekend.

I parted with some of my treasured Echino fabric to make the vest bag on the left, mine is on the right.

I made 2 of the vest bags in green for a lady at work who’s giving them to her daughters.   One was already done, but I got this one finished on Saturday.

My friend wanted a bag just like mine from KimmyKingsbury.  She found some fabric she loved and I created her own little copy of my bag.

Funny thing is I just packaged up 2 Kool Aid totes to ship tomorrow.  It’s been a productive last few days!

 

120 juice pouches = 4 totes

I had the great chance to be home alone for a while during the day last week. So I brought my ‘juice pouch sewing machine’ up to the bright sunny kitchen, listened to some music and got some gifts and orders all done.

Fun fabrics from the Creativ Festival

While wandering the festival I happened upon this lady’s lovely booth full of all sorts of fun modern fabrics.  Mad About Patchwork is in Ottawa, a city I love and miss.

On her blog, Pam did a 7 weeks of Christmas challenge and she found a bunch of neat tutorials and projects and then made them using Colorful Christmas by My Mind’s Eye for Riley Blake, with great results.  She whipped up a selvage needlebook coasters, little trees, tiny totes, placemats, a tree skirt, and a table runner.  Check them out over at her blog.

Here are the fat quarters I picked up at her booth, only a few since I was trying to curb myself and slow down before I wouldn’t be able to walk for all the fabric I was carrying.  Plus I wanted some pretty prints that would be easy to match up with other stuff.

What’s your crafty book stash look like?

I’ve slowly been growing my craft and sewing book collection since starting my blog. Right now I’ve got many, some I haven’t even really looked in yet, let alone created something with. But that isn’t stopping me from dreaming about these 2 gems.

I really, really want Amy Butler’s new book to fuel my bag addiction and stick to my promise that I can only have a new bag if i made it myself!

Click the images for a link to read more, or spend your money if you’re in Canada.

Sew spoiled all done!

Finished this earlier in the week after staying up waaaay to late.  I only had to sew the lining to the outer shell and thought, ‘oh just this one more thing’  but then I entered the fuzzy area of sleepy sewing mistakes and was slowed down.  What would have taken about 15 minutes in the morning when I was well rested too about an hour.   BUT I do love it and the end result is super cool.  I’m so proud to wander around with a bag I hand made with fabrics I chose.  Now finally when people ask, ‘oh did you make that?’ I can say ‘yep!’