Cork Wallet

 One of the nephews suffers from  having a December 18th birthday.
At 14 years old, I think it's high time he learns about the combined birthday/Christmas gift.

Of course I caved.
I'm the airplane auntie.

 This was a quick, easy sew. I would do one part different, but otherwise the directions were very clear to follow.

Made with cork fabric, the pattern is designed with non-fraying materials in mind. This produces a very thin wallet.

The back piece is cork and it is 'lined' with cotton fabric (did you notice the airplanes?).
The pattern has you cut the cork and cotton lining separately and then make them the same size by folding in the 'seam allowances' of the cotton fabric just so and it will magically match the cork fabric dimensions. Sure. Between the cotton stretching as I ironed the raw edges under and the cork stretching a wee bit. Ahem.

But I have a solution of cutting the cotton fabric first. Then I will use a template cut from card stock that is near the finished size to help with ironing the raw edges under. Then I will lay my finished cotton lining on top of the cork fabric and draw an outline and cut out. Then they will match easier.

Except for turning the raw edges under on the cotton lining, all other edges are raw - hence the name of the pattern - Rawly Wallet by Clo Bird Designs.

 There is a 3-piece credit card pocket on the right side of the wallet and an ID slip pocket on the left. You can customize by adding more card pockets to both sides. You can add decoration to the front or onto the pocket. I added a piece of the fabric selvedge to the ID pocket - "Flying High".

Folded in half, it's quite slim.

I'm going to make more of these as these wallets are quick to sew.

It's A Thing

It's a thing.

A couple of weeks ago, a potato with only one stamp showed up at work postage due.
On the front was an address and on the back was "Test For Wedding".
And the recipient paid the postage due.

It got me thinking.

I sent an Idaho baker to the 15 year old nephew for his birthday.
He texted me that he received it.

I immediately texted him back, "Did you find the money inside?"

If you aren't already laughing, then I was dying in the aisle.

The nephew was left wondering, "Is there money inside?"

So I'm telling this story to various peoples and fully 50% also wonder how I got the money inside. And proceed to tell me how they would do it.

The other 50% get the joke.

Fast forward a week or so to summer camps and moms sending small packages to their kidlets.
Many camps autocratically declare, "Do not send candy."

I show the photo and say, "Why not send a potato?"

It's officially, now a thing.


Most bakers weigh 12 -13 oz, so it will cost you $4.35 to send one. I put four Int'l stamps on (space available) for $4.60.

Potter Pillow

Running - that's December for someone in the shipping industry.
This was a quick make one Sunday morning before I had to go into work.
Sent off to birthday nephew already.

Idea borrowed from here.

Bucket Bag

My nephews birthday is today- in Minnesota - two hours ahead of us.
He's 12 and when I asked what he wanted for his birthday, he gave me the list.

The list of stuff I have no idea where to get whatever it is that he wanted.
The list which I probably  cannot afford.
The list that got put somewhere special.
Alternatives?


I was at my local Thriftway and next to all of their wonderful alternative foods is the bulk bins of food, including candies you can't find just anywhere.

Including the gargantuan jawbreaker in the pocket above.

 I needed to sew something to hold the baker's dozen of different candies.
I used a free craftsy class, taught by Kirstin Link, of our own SewMamaSew fame.
The class is called Bag Making Basics, Drawstring Bag & Bucket Bag.

The outside is Oregon State University fabric in orange plaid. Just to remind him where his mom and cousin graduated from.
The pocket on the outside was made from Ikea basic black. You can sew the divider lines anyhow; I chose to make three pockets.

Oops, something fell out.

It was made to fit  into the priority padded flat-rate envelope (best thing since sliced bread) which I can send domestically for under six bucks. I feel so challenged by what I can stuff into these envelopes. (free at usps.com)



Inside lining is from a thrifted plaid shirt. Kinda cements that Halloween feel.




I commiserate with my friend in Japan who moved to Kyoto recently and is slowly putting her sewing room back to rights. I spent more time figuring out where the fleece interlining was, the dang rotary cutter, and the stinkin' iron!
Sewing things went into boxes and were marked but they are in a new place now in a pretty sewing room and I don't know where anything is. It took longer to find my tools than to sew up this project.
This was an easy project which I needed in order to get my feet wet sewing after all that overtime of last year and the remodeling homestretch this spring on the bedroom floors.

Book Reports On Fabric

 My nephew sewed a pillow to demonstrate his affection with the book he read.
{Silly school projects}.
He read Peter and the Starcatchers, written by Dave Barry who used to write all those newspaper columns of epic parody for the Miami Herald and Ridley Pearson who probably wrote something important but I've never heard of him.

The kids were asked to make a quilt representing their book. Suggestions included puff paint and fabric markers.
My sister was asking for advice and I told her about freezer paper fabric transfers. Basically, that's where you cut a piece of freezer paper to the size of your printer paper. Iron it shiny plasticy side down on your fabric, cut that to size,  and then feed this through your printer to print out wonderful graphics, words, & book reports.
The freezer paper gives your fabric the stiffness necessary to feed the fabric through your printer.

When your printer is done printing on the fabric, you peel off the freezer paper and iron it to the next sheet of fabric. I think the freezer paper is re-usable four or five times.
You could buy expensive transfer sheets at any office supply store or even get them at Joann's with your 40% off coupon, but this is far cheaper and easier. And different. Impressive, really.

First; he drew out his pictures and printed the words
{{hey! these words are in english. I thought he was in spanish immersion school??? }}. 
Nephew decided to print the words around the drawings.

Secondly; colors were added.

Thirdly;  They scanned in the papers and made a file on the computer.

Fourth;  He sent the file to the printer loaded with the fabric attached to freezer paper. Load only one fabric piece at a time.

Fifth; It printed.

Heat set the inks. Dry iron (no steam). High heat.

After cutting the squares - as squares-
he sewed them together with, I believe, a quarter-inch seam.

 Proudly holding his creation, ahem, book report.

 The back side was this perfect pirate fabric, ordered from etsy, which arrived just a few days before the book report was DUE.

Graded A+




The second book in this series is Peter and the Shadow Catchers. These are about Peter Pan before he knew how to fly and the island and the pirate and all that stuff before Wendy became famous.


***You can google "Freezer paper fabric transfer" and you will be directed to multiple sites featuring this easy-to-use technique. Suitable for all book reports.

Writing Books - and Getting Published

 

On my nephew's wish list is a book kit where you write your own story and send it in and it comes back in published form. I recalled these small journals that Amy over at Angry Chicken makes for her family all the time and decided I had all the materials  to make two for him.

She even made one of her fabulous videos:

I used to do custom picture framing so for my outsides of the book, I used mat board but I think you could also use some cereal box cardboard (two sheets glued or taped together). I used my UPS box knife to cut the mat board just bigger than my paper.
For my book,  I used four sheets of paper, folded in half. I cut the mat board in half, applied the duct tape and stapled the papers in. I now have a long-arm stapler on my wish list.

When you use Amy's trick of opening up your small stapler and stapling into a rubber eraser, you have to push down the prongs before you can go onto the next staple. Tiresome.

This project took me about one hour to complete. It would have been less if I could have found my decorative tapes. I thought this would be the perfect  project to use them on but could I find them?   Twenty  minutes of pulling drawers out, pushing them back in, pulling them out again;  boxes rummaged through to no avail.
Along the way, I found some small envelopes to tape inside the back cover. For whatever.

Nearly everyone has duct tape, 1  ply cardboard (cereal boxes glued together make 2 ply. My mat board is 4-ply (heavier yet), computer paper, a pen and a rubber band.

After work tomorrow, I plan on driving to Michael's to see if they have one of those book kits. I researched amazon.com and saw this one. 

If the price range is near my budget, then I  will go ahead and get it. If it's not, then I can come up with something else to go with these handmade journals.

CAN YOU SEE THE FOG?

Birthdays in December

Nine-year-old nephew has a birthday coming up. Last year he wanted dinosaurs which his amazing aunt found and they came wrapped up in a dino bag. He's still into dinosaurs. A friend suggested giving him one of my snap bags which, of course,  had to contain gold coins.

Rusty even thought about sending his favorite ball since it matched colorwise.

He thought otherwise by grabbing it just after I snapped the photo.

I made two bags and put one in the shop.