Anisa was featured!

Angie and I just wanted to toot Anisa's horn for her and let you know her towel beach bag was featured on U create!

Way to go, Anisa!

If you somehow missed her awesome tutorial, click here.

--C

Beach Towel Bag Tutorial

Beach Towel Bag Tutorial....

Supplies:

• 1 Beach Towel (I bought the cheapest at Walmart)


• 5 yards gros grain ribbon (just to be safe)


• Sewing machine


• Thread to match ribbon

Step #1- Fold the towel in half

Step #2- From the open side, measure in 22" and cut the towel (You are essentially cutting out the center of the towel. The excess that you cut off will make a pocket for the front of the bag)
Step #3- Turn the towel and cut off about 4-5 inches of one side of the towel (otherwise the bag is just TOO big). You may want to serge or zig zag stitch any of the unfinished edges of the towel.
Step #4- Now take the excess piece that you cut out of the center of the towel. This is going to be a pocket. The top of the pocket is going to be one of the edges that is already finished. From that end, measure down 18" and cut the other edge off.
Step #5- Take the pocket and place it on one of the pieces of your bag. You will want all of the finished edges to be at the TOP of the bag. You will want your pocket to be about 5-6 inches down from the top of the bag. You are going to sew ribbon over the sides of the pocket so that none of the unfinished portion will show. Pin the pocket into place.
Step #6- Sew the pocket onto the bag. Do NOT sew the top of the pocket (or you won't be able to put anything in your bag:)
(I had a little excess on the bottom that I had to cut off only because I wanted the pattern to match up)
Step #7- Place right sides of the towels together and pin just the bottom of the bag.

Step #8- Sew the bottom of the bag... do NOT sew any of the sides or the top.  You still want to be able to open it up fully to attach the ribbon.
Step #9- open your bag up and lay it front side up on the floor or on a table.
Step #10- Pin your handles all around your bag. I made the actual handle part of the bag 32". You will want to make sure the ribbon covers the side of your pockets.
Step #11- Sew right on the edge of your gros grain ribbon... sew both sides.
Step #12- Fold the towel right sides together.
Step #13- Sew down the side of your bag (starting at the top) until you are about 6-8 inches from the bottom of the bag.
Step #14- Open up the part you didn't sew and ...
...put that part together.
Step #15- sew the open part together. (I hope these pictures make sense) Do this on both sides of the bag. It just makes a flat bottom to the bag.
Step #16- Flip your bag right side out and you will have an awesome bag to take to the pool!!!
Please feel free to email me at twiddlethumbs@rocketmail.com if you have any questions.

-Anisa

1 Craft 3 Ways- Travel Bag!!!

For our 1 Craft-3 Ways this month we decided to do some type of bag that you could use on a vacation.


I have always wanted a HUGE swimming bag. We go swimming a lot and I need a bag big enough to hold 5 towels, 5 swimming suits, cover ups, life jackets, toys, etc..... that's a lot of stuff! So, when Angie made her placemat purse, I thought I could kind of do the same thing with a beach towel and make a BEACH TOWEL BAG. It took a little trial and error because the first bag a made was just tooooo huge. But I think I have perfected the process.

Look for my tutorial on how to make this awesome bag on Wednesday!! -Anisa

>><<

This little baby has been on my craft to-do list for sometime.

I knew it would be the perfect little tote for vacation for my kids (and me too). Then I started seeing little reusable sandwich bags popping up here and there. A perfect match. A water bottle holder paired with a reusable treat bag. LOVE it. I got the tutorial for the holder here at Pink Chalk Studio (via Ucreate). The treat bag is of my own design. (Hey-sometimes reinventing the wheel is much more fun than following the directions.) In order to make it day-out friendly, I attached some grommets (a.k.a. eyelets) to both the treat bag and the holder and fastened them together with a key ring (the kind that pull open). Now the kids can carry their own water AND their own snack. Brilliant!

Watch for a tutorial soon on making your own reusable treat bags!-Ang

>><<

I had no idea what I'd do for a travel bag until my friend Rachel mentioned she liked a bag that another friend had and that she'd love a similar one herself for a writer's conference attending.
Like a true crafter I blurted out: "We could make that!" and I did.

I got the original concept from this pattern, but enlarged it somewhere in the 25-30% range. I also designed interior pockets to fit the user's purpose better. (If you'd like clearer pattern instructions that the link, email us and I'd be happy to provide them.)

The finished bag was about 18" x 13", enough to fit legal length writing pads and a larger laptop. The hidden closures were also my design (along with some other cosmetic changes). Buttons are sewn to the main body of the bag and coordinating button-hole straps are sewn on the inside of the flap.


Being only my second challenging sewing project, I'm pleased it turned out so well and as requested: serious on the outside, fun and girly on the inside!
--C

All out of Mod Podge....

This week has been rainy and cold.... I've had sick kids and I've been cooped up in my house most of the week:(  So, I thought I'd skip showering and work on some crafts.  Unfortunately I ran out of Mod Podge but I couldn't drag my sick kids to the store in the rain.  So, I thought I'd post a really cute GIRLY scrapbook layout I got to make of my niece.  My sister-in-law was sad that she didn't win my scrap a page contest so I told her I would scrapbook a page for her anyway.  It was a win win situation because I don't have any girls and it was soooo fun to scrapbook a girl page.  (I have tons of girly scraps if anyone wants to use them).

I used this layout from Elizabeth Kartchner as my inspiration.  I loved the way it turned out and it was soooo much fun... thanks for letting me scrap these Shellie!

Stay tuned for all of my Mod Podge projects when I get to the store!!!

-Anisa

Waterproof a Blanket

So, here's a funny story for you. We went camping over Memorial Weekend.  On the drive there, it started to rain on us.  When we got there to set up camp, it stopped raining, but the ground was wet.  So I pulled out my waterproof blanket to set the little ones on.  As I was cleaning up camp to go to bed, I thought I'd pick up the blanket and turn it upside down over the tailgate of the truck so that the back side (the waterproof side) could dry.  Well, that night it rained and poured.  The next morning all of our camp chairs that we had left out and everything else we owned was WET.  But not my waterproof blanket.  I turned it back over and had a dry place for the

 little ones to sit!

So, here's how I made it.... I got the idea from Little Birdie Secrets here, but I made my own modifications.

Supplies....  

• vinyl table cloth (60x84)
• lots of old pants for quilt top
• 4 yards of flannel for quilt bottom
• 2 pkgs heavy duty snaps
• twill tape
• hammer.... I have to say that I tried using the setting kit that came with the snaps and I found my scrapbooking tools for eyelets to work much better.

1. I cut out 88 8" squares from old pants I had been saving.

2.  I sewed them together 8x11 squares. (this made my quilt 64"x88" -seam allowance)

3.  I bought 4 yards of flannel for the back and sewed that together. (that made it 72x90" so I had to cut a little off)

4.  I laid the flannel face down on the carpet and laid my quilt top face up on that.  

5.  I trimmed the flannel about 1.5 inches longer than the quilt top all the way around.

6.  I turned the flannel over twice and pinned it.

7.  I machine bound the edge of the quilt.

8.  I sewed a few random X's through the squares of the quilt to hold it together when washed.

9.  I bought a rectangle vinyl table cloth to  snap to the quilt.  I used twill tape everywhere I put the snaps to reinforce the table cloth.

10.  I bought heavy duty snaps and adhered them to the table cloth and quilt.

The best part about this is that I can use the table cloth as an actual table cloth and I can use the blanket without the waterproofing.  I just wipe the table cloth off and I can wash the blanket in the washing machine.

Another thought I had was to just buy a vinyl table cloth and a cloth table cloth and snap the two of them together.

-Anisa