As the school year is finishing up for my kids and I’m helping them make their lunches, I think about all plastic sandwich bags we’ve used and wonder how could I make reusable lunch bags. Before you think about the potential of ickiness with kids / food / reusing bags, think of cleaning them as you do the kids’ lunch bags. Either turning them inside out and rinsing with soapy water and drying, or run them through the wash. The pattern I created uses French seams to help avoid food from getting caught in fabric folds. I also don’t…
If you’re like me, you have a stash of scrapbooking and crafty materials collected from various shopping trips to craft stores and flea markets. This journal is an example of how I like to cover existing hardback paper journals using some of these embellishments. You can find hardback journals that look like a book as this one, or are spiral bound. Either type work great, as long as the cover is thick enough that it doesn’t bend. I also look at the inner pages to check the quality, and I like ones with thicker paper that may have…
Another way to be crafty is through photography. I’m no expert, but always have my phone at the ready to capture the beauty around me. I seem to gravitate to things in nature and food (which I suppose is of nature too!) It must be the amazing color combinations and irregular shapes that catch my eye. I think it’s fascinating what Mother Nature can create. Through the years I’ve taken several close up photos of butterflies, and the ones I manage to get in focus can be used for crafty projects. I have printed a few…
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! While celebrating with my mom this year, I remembered a gift I had given to her a couple years ago – a small quilted wall hanging that hangs in her bedroom. It celebrates her gift of love to me, and my appreciation for all that she has taught me. The design sprang from using triangle scraps from another project. I couldn’t let myself throw out these beautiful batik and cream triangles all neatly stacked up, so I sewed them together and saved them as strips. I began with the two…