Felt Gift Bag

 Make a unique and customized gift bag for the same 2$ you spend for buying it.

This is a simple and fun sewing project. All you need is 5 felt fabric pieces (you get 4 pieces for 1$ at any craft store), Hot glue gun, Sewing needle, Thread, Scissors and Sewing machine (optional if you could hand sew).

Trace a circle using lids or cups in your kitchen on to a paper. Draw a spiral in the circle and cut just the outer circle.

 Use the pre cut paper circle with spiral as a guide to cut your felt piece.

To form a flower, roll the cut felt spiral from outside edge to inside center. When you reach the inner end secure the flower with hot glue ( if you don't have hot glue gun, you can even sew with needle and thread.)

 Hand sew straight or curved lines (as stems) on one of the felt pieces using needle and thread (for the bag front).

 
Stick your flowers on the stems using hot glue.

 Cut 2 inch wide and about 10 inch long strips to make bag handles. As shown in above picture along the width fold edges inwards and stitch to reinforce the handles. (You will need half of the felt fabric piece for this step)

Sew the sides of the bags to bottom piece. (I used the other half felt fabric piece that was remaining after making handles as bag bottom. And one of the grey fabric pieces was cut into 2 to form narrow sides of the bag.)

Sew each side edge to adjacent side edge as shown in pictures. Add and sew the handles and you are done.

Now, turn the bag inside out and there you have it! Pretty handmade gift bag for your lovely gifts ;)

I leave it to your imagination to get creative with your bag design. This is what I came up with.
A small note, if you want to place heavy items in the bag I would suggest using a fabric other than felt.
Please leave your comments and thank you for stopping by :)

Sewing a Zipper Pouch

Confession: This is my first sewing tutorial. If you think something should be improved in this tutorial, just let me know in your comments and I will improve in my upcoming posts. Thank you.

Let's get started. You need a zipper, 2 pieces of outer fabric, 2 pieces of lining fabric and 2 pieces of interface fabric (I used Pellon fusible fleece 987F).

Fuse the interface fabric with outer fabric using iron. (Follow the instructions that come with your interface fabric)

Let's make a zipper sandwich, place the outer fabric with right side facing up, on this place zipper with puller side down and then place lining  fabric wrong side facing up. Line up the edges and pin along as shown in the above picture. Sew along the edge you pinned using zipper foot on your machine. (If you are a beginner in sewing, don't forget to back stitch where ever you start and end your stitches.)

After finishing the above step, open up the zipper in middle and make next sandwich with the other open edge of zipper.

Make the next zipper sandwich. Place the second outer fabric with right side facing up, on this place zipper with puller side down (now you should be aligning the second edge of zipper, with the first edge you already sew a set of fabrics) and then place second lining  fabric wrong side facing up. Line up the edges and pin along as shown in the above picture. Sew along the edge you pinned using zipper foot on your machine.

Hopefully your piece looks something like this.

 Bring lining pieces together ( right sides together) and outer fabric pieces together (right sides together) and then pin all around leaving 3 inches gap in the middle of lining fabrics. Before pinning make sure you unzip the zipper completely, otherwise you cannot turn your pouch right side out. Now sew along the edges you pinned. (Make sure you leave that 3 inches gap in the middle of lining fabrics.)

Mark one inch line at 45 degrees angle on all the 4 corners of both sides.

Crease along the lines drawn, fold and pin from one line edge to the nearest opposite line edge. Repeat on all four corners (This is hard to put in words, I guess the picture above can explain better. )

Sew along the pinned lines and trim the edges.

Using the 3 inches opening, turn the pouch right side out.

One final step, slightly pull out the lining fabric. Pin the opening in the middle and sew it close.

That's it :) There you have it, your own hand sewed zipper pouch.

What are you going to fill your pouch with? I am using mine to carry my make up stuff on travel.

 Hope this tutorial was helpful. Please leave your comments. 

Thank you for stopping by.

Eggs Carton Flowers

I know, eggs carton flowers are age old kids craft. But I made these flowers to put on serial lights and add to my patio. Do you want to have fun making them with your kids or just by yourself? Then all you need is Eggs carton, Scissors, Craft paints and Serial lights.

Cut eggs carton pieces into flowers like shown in above pictures.

Color the flowers with your choice of colors.

Make a hole at the back of each flower and insert around every light. Make sure to insert the flower around plastic part instead of light itself, as the heated up lights can cause fire on carton.

Now there you have it! Pretty and colorful lights to beautify your entrance door or patio or any place in your home.

I love to hear your comments and thanks for stopping by.

Upcycled Fabric Basket

I love organizing things in style. I found most of the fabric baskets ridiculously priced, especially those bigger ones and they are not washable (by mistake when you spill something on it). After a few beginner's projects with my new sewing machine, I have decided to sew a fabric covered basket from the carton boxes.

Here are the things you need:

• Carton 
• Scissors 
• Duck tape or Packing tape
• Fabric of your choice (Think upcycling your favorite old bed sheets or pillow cases )
• Velcro
• Sewing thread (I used black to show the stitches. You can choose one that matches your fabric color)
• Measuring tape
• Sewing machine or hand stitch needle
• Ribbon (optional)

Make a box of desired size from the carton you have. ( If you already like the size of box you have go ahead and start with fabric.)

Measure and cut equal size of squares from all the 4 corners. Shape it into a box and duck tape around twice.

For the fabric liner, make a box out of fabric which is 1inch taller than your carton box. (Make sure you leave seam allowances while cutting your fabric.)

Above shown is my fabric liner 1" taller than my box.

For outer cover, make one more fabric box of same size as your carton box .

Cut 4 pieces of velcro (hook and loop fabric tape) and stitch to all four corners of boxes. Make sure you stitch velcro tape on outside of fabric cover and inside (stitches side) of fabric liner.

(I stitched loop tape to outer cover and hook tape to fabric liner.)

Lets put everything together :) Insert your carton box in fabric cover and insert fabric liner inside carton. Now just fold the liner around and seal with velcro. Add a cute ribbon if you have one. That is it :)

Isn't it cute and easy? And coming to the washing part, if you spill something on it just open the velcro tape and toss your fabric into washing machine. If your carton box got spoiled too, just upcycle one more carton. I am sure in this online shopping century you get almost everything delivered in boxes.

Now get your stuff organized.

Please leave your comments and thank you for stopping by :)