Stamp your own personalized ribbon

The other day I wanted a unique way to wrap some gifts in a Sew Can She way and I decided to make personalized ribbon. At this point I must tell you that I am not a scrapbooker, paper crafts person, or stamper. I love the creative stuff that people make, but I admit that...

Fabric is my fiber, not paper.

And stamping is new to me.

So my lettering looks like a really old, over-inked typewriter.

But I love it!

And this isn't really a tutorial, because a tutorial isn't necessary. Just a trip to your local craft store where you'll find adorable alphabets, inexpensive ink, and yards and yards of ribbon.

Then you're probably gonna need three helpers...

One to stamp lots of ribbon.

One to stamp love notes.

And one to stamp herself and the table.

You might stamp a little bit of ribbon too.

Have fun,

See my reusable snack bags 8 months later.

Earlier this year

Fabricworm

sent me some of their delicious organic cotton and I knew just the fun little project for it. 

Jen from New Green Mama had recently come out with

this free snack bag tutorial

. The instructions were perfectly easy to follow and made a nice self-lined bag with a generous velcro closure. 

The cute little bags were a hit!

I loved how I could turn them inside out and throw them into the wash day after day, and because I used such high quality cotton, they still look great. 

Here's a picture I just took today, 8 months later.

And here's one my Sister-in-law Brie made for her little girl. Cute birdie fabric!

So save some plastic from going in the landfill and let your munchkins put their munchies in reusable bags!

Happy Sewing,

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The Spoonful of Sugar team makes Thimbleanna's Purse Thingy

When I asked Lisa and Sarah, the adorable mother-daughter team behind

Spoonful of Sugar

if they would like to guest post for us here, I should have known that whatever they came up with would have that same darling Spoonful of Sugar style. I wish I could mix prints like they do. And check out that teeny-tiny Eiffel tower, swoon! Here you go...

When we were asked to choose one of the fabulous sewing tutorials from

Sew Can She

to make for a guest post, it was an easy decision. We have been intending to sew the 

Little Purse Thingy

 designed by Anna from

Thimbleanna

for a long while and this was just the motivation we needed.

What we love most about this purse is that it has a clear vinyl window pocket on the front which is the perfect place to hold your ID, Drivers License, or Rail Pass. It is sized for just a few essentials so would be ideal when travelling or when you are just popping out for a short while.

It was fun to choose three co-ordinating fabrics from our stash. We followed the tutorial pretty closely - everything is explained clearly and the steps are all photographed. The only variation we made is that we skipped applying the binding on the inside seams, opting instead to overlock (serge) the edges.  We rounded the bottom corners slightly when we were sewing the purse together and used a little Eiffel Tower charm on the zipper in lieu of ribbon.

We are really pleased with the Purse and plan to make some more. We are planning a special Mother/Daughter holiday next year and the purse will be just the right size to hold our Metro tickets. and the gathered pocket on the back is perfect for a small notebook.

*  *  *

Lisa and Sarah are a mother and daughter duo who share their crafty tutorials, inspiring projects, and delicious recipes on their blog,

A Spoonful of Sugar

. You can find more of their pdf sewing and quilt patterns in their

Etsy Store

.

Trying out IC's Wrist Key Chain Tutorial

My boys' school is already taking donations of craft items for a little Holiday 'store' they will be doing in a couple of months. The idea is that sewists and crafters like me will donate lots of handmade stuff that that the kids will buy and all the money goes to the school. Not a bad idea, really, but I've heard that they sell the handmade goodies for cheap, so maybe I can go too???

Anyway, this week I tried a new tutorial and whipped up 17 of these adorable key chain fobs. I've made them from a different tutorial before and I like this one better because the hardware is much cuter and the strap is just big enough to fit your hand through - genius!

So here is the link to the original tutorial by Infarrantly Creative. I pretty much followed the tutorial to the letter (except for one thing - read on). I love how she uses purse hardware for the clip. I knew I would want a lot of them so I ordered bulk from a Hong Kong supplier here.

The only change I made was leaving out the fusible interfacing in between the fabric layers. I got impatient after cutting 34 rectangles from my scraps and I didn't want to cut out 17 more pieces. The interfacing would have made the straps stiffer, but honestly I think they are fine without it. Then I set my ironing board up next to my sewing machine and worked like a maniac ironing two pieces, sewing them together, and ironing two more...

I do have one quick tip. If your machine lets you move your sewing machine needle over to the right, that will help you get more of the strap over the feed dogs, making everything move smoother and your stitching look nicer.

After the straps were done came the fun part deciding which side would be the inside and picking out ribbon and lace scraps to match. I ended up changing my mind lots and being amazed at how some prints I had thought would go on the outside looked more surprising and cute on the inside.

And FYI, making 17 straps took a total of 5 hours (including cutting and picking out ribbon).

Happy holiday sewing already,