Gift Baggage

This year Book Club got together for a napkin-making sweatshop and a wedding bunting-making sweatshop.  We rounded out the year with a gift baggage-making sweatshop earlier this month.  I neglected to take photos of the day as it progressed, but we ended up making about ten lined drawstring bags.

 We used this fun candy cane fabric and some poinsettia fabric, both of which were picked up for cheap at the Textile Center Garage Sale (I really do love that sale).  

They were lined with random greens and some fabric that felt like an old sheet.

After the sweatshop, I made a ton of bags with the remainder of the fabric.  I actually focused on bags more than anything else.  I don't know why I always get more excited about making gift bags than I do about making actual gifts.

If you'll notice, I also hand-crafted some gift tags.  I set up a little station at our dining room table and asked the girls to make colored thumbprints on blank tags.  Yeah, well, no one wanted to cooperate with that.  Trix ended up howling because Z did her thumb first and then would not stop crying.  I forget what made Zelda cry, but she did.  I think I cried, as well.  

I'd brought my serger to the sweatshop, but had forgotten to re-install some stitch arm that I had removed for the rolled hem of the napkins.  Once I was home, I put that back in and was able to use my serger on some of these bags.

 This was inspired by a Design-Sponge post on envelope gift bags.  I didn't make them as boxy as theirs.  I like to use the serger on smaller bags that I don't have to line or when I don't want to make a casing.  I just folded over the edge and tied it with a ribbon.

 Sometimes I stitched a ribbon to the back of the bag, too.  I wasn't so skilled at making a squared corner with my serger, so this one got a rounded corner.  It's not very pretty, though.

The Design-Sponge post used decorative serger thread.  I don't have any of that.  Maybe next year.

When I was visiting family over Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law said that she has really liked reusing the fabric gift bags that I have sent over the years.  When I was preparing their package, I grabbed a few extra bags, rolled them up, and shoved them in the box for her.  

Covered Boxes

My mom gave me a roll of vintage foil wrapping paper.  I didn't want to use it for just wrapping any old present, so I've been hanging on to it for a bit.  I don't know why it finally hit me to use it to cover some old gift boxes, but that's what I did and I love them so!

Sorry for the quality of some of these photos, I was doing this at night.  I had trouble getting some of the inside flaps to stick:

I used some tape, which isn't ideal, but it just wouldn't stick down.  The end result, though, is beauteous:

I was so inspired that I dug out two more gift boxes and covered them, as well. 

The outer layers of the wrapping paper had some holes, but I was able to squeeze a lid out of some anyway:

This one stuck just fine on those inner flaps.  I don't know what I was doing wrong that first time.  Maybe I slathered on too much ModPodge?

My sister-in-law sent some fun paper for Christmas, so I wanted to try using some of that on one of these lids.  I'm pretty convinced that she sent vintage wallpaper, but that has yet to be confirmed.  I had a little trouble on the corners with that paper:

And here they are...So much fun!

More Christmas Gift Bags

Christmas gift bag making is not done in this house.  It's all part of my master plan to make stuff out of my stash.  This particular fabric has been eyeballing me for a number of years.  I think my mom sent it to me.  It looks like upholstery fabric...Can you just imagine it adorning some sad couch in suburbia?  Blah.

So baggage:

Three big bags were made out of this stuff.  And I went a different route with construction.  After the last fun I had with my serger, I serged up the insides:

Boxed some corners:

And installed grommets:

I had everything on hand, even the grommets and the ribbon (had a roll of it left over from my wedding).  The grommets have been used in various projects over the years, but I rarely find a reason to use them.  Yay!  And obviously they were a little hard to sew around, though I did try to use the zipper foot.  Oh well.  It's just a bag.  Also my stitches seem to be off.  Is it a tension issue?  Probably.  I need to get the machine tuned up.  It's been at least four years since its last visit to the sewing machine doctor.

Post Xmas Frenzy

I don't know what it is about me and the period immediately following Christmas, but all I want to do is look at Christmas-themed crafts on the internet.  So I've been pinning, because I've finally figured out that I need to pin things in order to remember them.   I've also been going through a gift bag making frenzy.  Thirteen bags total, actually.  All Christmas themed.  I blame my mother who told me that my sister really wants a bigger collection of fabric gift bags.  I also blame my sister who confirmed this and then later texted me that birthday bags would be appreciated, as well.

boo!  blurry!

I started with this one, because it has been lingering in my stash like a barnacle on my ass, I swear.  It is ugly.  It is country-time-lemondade-lives-in-Vermont-ugly.  Seriously, I think this fabric should go listen to A Prairie Home Companion** and leave me alone.  My mother swears she did not contribute this slice of ugliness to my stash, but I have other thoughts.  Anyway, I think it was destined to be a pillow in a former life.  I took it and paired it with some lovely, woven green/white gingham (lovely by itself, but paired with this fabric...hideous):

Ugh. See?  Ugh!  

Let's cover that up and look at something delicious:

Ah, that's better.  So...this red fabric is hideous to the touch.  It's really stiff.  I was using the back side of it as the scrap fabric for ironing on fusible interfacing to things and I was about to put it away when it hit me that it should live on as a bag.  I paired it with some lightweight fabric and gave it some cording...and so pretty!  It's my favorite new bag, actually.

With the help of my mother-elf, I made a bunch of other lined, drawstring bags with blue Christmas fabric that has been in my stash for a good five years.  I paired it with the softest green/white stripey fabric that I was almost sure used to be a sheet in a former life.  It makes for a nice lining, though.  Then I used up some green fabric with the Christmas lining that was used in the polka dot bag:

Then my mom left and I lost my little elf helper, so I turned over to my scary serger.  I took a class a number of months back on the general usage of the thing at Treadle Yard Goods, but have not revisited it.  I even had the power foot still packed away in the bag that I had brought to the class.  Anyway, years ago when I made these bags, I also cut out a bunch of bags to sew, but never did.  So, yeah, they've been sitting in my stash since that post in 2009.  

Whatever.  

Stop judging me.

I didn't want to make any more unlined bags and I didn't really want to have to sew a million tiny bags, so they sat there until the other day when I serged them like crazy.  I think seven got serged up.  I didn't do drawstring casings, but attached a bit of ribbon to the back of the bag and I can just tie it up like so:

And so:

And then to make things even more appealing to my eco-conscious sister, I reused some ribbon from Bath and Body:

She's definitely getting that one.  

**No offense to anyone in VT.  I used to have to go there with an ex-boyfriend.  We would take the train up from Brooklyn and then his parents would drive the hour or so to their home in Vermont.  All the while, we listened to a best of CD of the Prairie Home Companion show and it always put me right to sleep.  I still can't listen to that show, even though it is like a Minnesota National Treasure or something.

Gift bags...for December

Sometimes fabrics get earmarked for certain projects, so I pull them out of the stash, set them aside, and wait for the right time to make them.  Sometimes those fabrics get earmarked years in advance and go through periods of being back in the stash or awaiting project initiation...depending on how clean my craft space is.  Christmas fabrics have had such a fate.  A few years back I made up Christmas gift bags out of holly fabric.  They were cute.  Unlined, but still cute.  I used all of my Christmas stash up that Christmas and then my sister-in-law sent me a yard or so of blue Xmas tree fabric.  Oh boy!  So I started over and my collection grew and I even added some Hanukkah fabric to the mix.  Every few months I'd pull the fabric out of the closet and think about making bags.  In early July I finally started sewing some up.

This time I lined them.

 I really love this blue.  So vibrant!

And here's the fabric for the Christmas bag:

Lined with some heavy green/white check home dec fabric.  My mom gave me this, I'm pretty sure.

 Oh, and the blue is lined with pirate fabric (used for a costume by my mom and once I incorporated some into an apron).

I have a few more Xmas bags done, but I only had enough for two Hanukkah bags.  The ultimate goal is to lighten my holiday stash this year.  I have tons of non-Christmas fabric that could also be turned into gift bags, so that's definitely a future project.

Pile o' Ribbons

I mentioned last week how my mom came to visit with suitcases bursting at the seams with goodies.  Included in the mix, were a bunch of vintage gift wrapping ribbons.  She's the best!