Visitor Bags

I hope you and yours had a lovely holiday and a fabulous beginning to the new year.

After doing all the 'things' in December and throwing everything and everybody into a completely different schedule, life tends to be a little chaotic. Everyone is off. There's all this extra stuff in the house. You're eating things you don't normally eat and allowing a lot more sugar in your diet. Not everyone is getting to bed on time. And there's always, always something else to do. 

As much as I love all of it, it's always nice to come back to the norm. And it seems like January is all about getting back into your routine and getting your house and your family back in order. So that's what I've been doing.

Now that things are settling down, I thought I'd share a little of what I've been doing.

I had an idea for some additions to our congregation's visitor bags so I've been working on some samples of those. 

First up was coffee sleeves. I don't drink coffee or soda much either so I didn't really look twice at these every time I've seen them. But they are apparently quite popular.

They are the same as the little cardboard sleeves you get from the coffee shop but these are better. They are thicker so they protect your hands better and they are reusable so you are using something that won't be thrown in a landfill. On top of that, you can make them in any fun print you want which personalizes your drink making it easy to identify from other similar cups.

I got the pattern from here.

The next thing I wanted to try out was a journal cover. It uses these little inexpensive ones (this one was at Walmart for just over a dollar).

I picked out two coordinating fabrics. These came from that bumblebee fat quarter bundle I mentioned before.

Cut out my pieces and started putting them together.

And it turned out pretty cute too.

I had initially intended to put this hexagon fabric as the lining and the other as the outer fabric but when I turned it, I liked this so much better I left it. I ended up putting a ribbon in the hole for turning because I liked this side better for the front too.

I guess there's a little room to play with in this pattern. If you want to see the tutorial for these, it's here. 

I also plan to add to my list for us to consider:

Pocket tissue covers (By the way, they were a hit and everyone loved them.)

Bible pen holders

A zipper bag

A mug rug or coaster (to go with the coffee cup that's usually in there)

Or some other thing I come up with.

One More Little Pre - Summer Sewing Series Project

 Last summer, after attending one of the sewing ministry meetings, I came home and went on a hunt. It was a short hunt because I found what I was looking for pretty quickly.

You see, we had a visitor from another congregation where the sewing ministry is pretty large and VERY active. She told us about some of the projects they are involved in and invited us to help out with any we were interested in.

One of their ministry projects is a midwife kit. It involves putting together a kit for a midwife to take to a birth she is attending. Among the soap, needle and thread, towel, baby blanket, and other necessaries is an infant gown made from someone's old soft t-shirt. 

Hubs and I donate blood frequently. We volunteer at different events. And are involved in lots of things. We enjoy all of these things. But they often come with a t-shirt.  T-shirts are one thing that seem to multiply all on their own in our closet. So this seemed like a not only helpful and useful thing for this poor mom but also one that could be helpful and useful for us. And, once I began, I had at least two others offer me t-shirts they had. I guess that is not just an US problem. :)

I whipped up four gowns in short order. They were fun to make and didn't require anything more than the t-shirt if done creatively. I carried them off to the next meeting to show the ladies.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago, our fearless leader asked if I might give a demonstration of how to make the gowns at our next meeting. Yikes! What did I do!

I went online to print another version of the pattern for everyone. Oopsie! Not only had the original site shut down but the link to the free pattern was now password protected. I decided I would just use my original copy to make everyone a tissue paper pattern. Then, I ran off copies of the directions I had printed out on used paper and hoped it wouldn't show through on their copies too badly.

Our leader had been in touch with her friend from the other congregation. When she told her we planned to make some of the gowns, her friend asked if we needed any shirts and gave her 100! As in ONE HUNDRED shirts. After my demonstration, some of the ladies took a bag of 10 shirts home (plus the one we'd been using to practice on) to churn out some baby gowns.

It's a fairly simple process but the sleeves require some creativity if the sleeves of  the shirt aren't long enough. I still had lots of scraps from Rugrat's t-shirt quilt that I could use if needed so I didn't worry too much.

Our living room became a baby gown making station for a few days. The card table, ironing board, and my sewing machine all sat in there while I worked in stages on the lot of them.

When I got down to inserting the drawstrings, I even roped Rugrat into helping out. She picked it up pretty quickly after this first one.

Despite having grumbled a little about being conscripted, she was pretty proud of herself for figuring it out.

And for how fast she got at it.

Before long, I had finished all my demo samples as well as my bag of 10 and the one practice one. That made 15. 

Throwing in the four I had made before which several people had taken home to use as an example, I managed to make 19 total. Not too shabby.

While these are fun and fairly quick to make, I don't think I'll want to make any more for a while. I'm a little baby gowned out.

Plus, now that school's out, I get to begin my summer sewing projects. 

Note: I apologize for not linking to the site where I got this pattern free but as I mentioned it is no longer available.  If I see that this one is available again, I'll link it here. Until then, I'm sure a quick search can find a different pattern online for free. There were several when I looked last summer.

Another Little Pre - Sewing Summer Series Project

 So, as I mentioned, being part of the sewing ministry group has encouraged me to pull out my sewing machine a little quicker.  As a result, even before my usual summer sewing has begun, I've been making some pretty quick but useful things.

One thing I've tried to stop doing is buying gift bags. For some time, I have preferred to get reusable bags for gifts when I can. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of them available unless you want to pay a bit more. When you do find them inexpensively, they tend to be kind of cheesy or intended for a kid's birthday party at best.

I realized though that I have several smaller pieces of fabric in my stash. Unfortunately, there aren't many 10th graders (11th grader now) who are into clothing for their 'big doll.'  I had always saved all these small but good sized pieces from projects because they made clothing and accessories for that doll. So what to do with them now?

One thing that doesn't seem to fall out of favor is gifts. We have a pretty thriving congregation and babies, in particular, seem to be arriving at a steady rate. 

A few months ago, a friend was about to have a 'bonus' baby girl. Knowing that they likely had most of what they needed already (or were getting it in the 'sprinkle' our church was sponsoring for them), I figured a gift card might be the most useful thing. I set it in the lap of a small stuffed animal from their list but didn't really want to go get a little gift bag for it.

I've mentioned my love of drawstring bags before. And even made a drawstring backpack.

I noticed some perfect pink fabric in my stash so I made a little drawstring bag to put it in. It was the kind of drawstring bag that could be used to corral something small in the diaper bag or wash all those miniature socks without losing one. Or just for baby to play with.

I was pretty happy with my solution. And I didn't mind making a tiny bit more space in my bin either.

Next came a wedding shower. Hey, hey! 

I found a very pretty little fabric that I can't even remember getting. And then found a bead in my bead jar that matched it perfectly for the string.

I picked a small gift from their registry and went the gift card route again since I wasn't sure about their plans after the wedding.

All bagged up and ready to go.

I really liked this method of using my stash and making these gift bags too. 

So I decided to make up a tag for them. On one side, I put a list of uses for drawstring bags that I found on the internet. And, trust me, this wasn't all of them at all. But there is only so much space on these even if I made them fairly large (about the size of an index card).

enlarge to see my list

On the other side, a simple "to:" sufficed because I included a card inside the bag with the gift.

On the next one I made (another baby gift), I threaded the drawstring through the hole of the tag before securing it inside its casing.  That made it look much better and assured it wouldn't fall off as easily.

I am loving this project. Not only does it add a personal touch, but it also gives them an extra gift that can be quite useful and I'm not buying one more thing that will go in the trash at the end of the day. It's a win for everyone.

A Little Pre - Sewing Summer Series Project

 I've mentioned that I've joined a sewing ministry group at church this past year.  Even if I haven't participated in all the projects, it has encouraged me to pull out my sewing machine more frequently. 

And sewing is definitely a stress releaser for me. Not to mention that I have found several projects on my own that can be useful.

One of the recent things I sewed was for my Sunday school class. A game that was suggested for one lesson involved multiple bean bags and a bucket. 

Hey, I have a bucket. 

And, most likely, our teacher resource room had plenty of bean bags. 

But I had no clue where they were and no time to go and look. Our congregation has a school in the building. Meaning they prioritize building security during the week. And that can sometimes make it more difficult to go any old time and do what you need for your class. Especially when you don't have any old time to do it in.

I thought about just buying some for my own to keep and use. But, in case you didn't know it, bean bag selling is quite the racket! 

A package of 4 was $10 at Walmart. I could have gotten them a little cheaper (by unit price) but I had let my time get away from me and couldn't wait for them to be shipped from somewhere else. I was truly in shock at how much they cost. And I needed about 10 of them. There was NO WAY I was going to spend 30 bucks on bean bags. Are you kidding me?

By contrast, a largish bag of rice at Walmart was around the $3 mark. 3 bucks I can handle. So I rolled out my sewing machine, put on a good movie, and fired up the iron.

I pulled out lots of little scraps I had in a bin and anything that was large enough to work got cut into a rectangle.

After I ironed the rectangles and sewed them up (leaving, of course, a place to turn them), I ironed them flat again. 

And then it was time to fill the little buggers.

Fortunately, my funnel just fit the holes.

After I filled each one, I put a clip on it to hold it shut while I went to work on the next one. 

One tip here: remember that you aren't stuffing a toy. You don't want them filled to the brim. Think of how a bean bag feels and just fill it about half to three-quarterish at most. The filling needs to be able to move around a bit. I had to really resist the urge to stuff them.

Then, it was literally just a matter of sewing them shut.

My goodness. Look at that $27 I saved. LOL 

And, frankly, I think they're a lot cuter than some plain, red, felt ones that are WAY overpriced. The kids agreed with me. How about you?

By the way, I had made my own before but found a cute blog where the mom had made bean bags for a birthday party game. She used all different fabrics they would like. At the end of the party, each kid got to choose one to take home. It was a big hit! If I find the blog again, I'll link it here but I haven't yet.