*Merry Mondays* - Kid's Gift - "Lil' Designer" Bag

Happy Monday everyone -  I'm here today with another handmade gift idea, as I will be every Monday from now until Christmas!!!  Today my friend Shannon shares a great gift idea for that sweet little one in your life.  It's a bag that they decorate themselves!  You make the bag and prep the shapes to be ironed on, and then when they open their gift, the rest is up to them!

I actually think you could make this for a girl or boy - I'm thinking trains and airplanes or baseball bats and football helmets?!?  So let's all read together shall we?  Take it away Shannon! 

I am inspired by children's creativity. As an Early Childhood Educator turned stay-at-home mom, I have always enjoyed watching children create to define themselves in their surroundings. The chance for children to use their vision to create something is always a joy to watch. When I saw this kit from The Land of Nod (a favorite of mine for lovely items that inspire imagination), my immediate response was, "I can make that".

And so I did. SUPER EASY!!!

What you will need:
Fabric for your bag/purse
contrasting fabric or ribbon for handles
Wonder Under
Fabric scraps in colors, patterns, and prints for decorative patches
thread

First you need to decide on how big you want your bag. I made my bag for a little girl at church to carry her bible, paper, crayons, and other necessities in.  My fabric was 11 inches wide and 22 inches long for a finished bag of 10 1/2 in. by 10 in.  My fabric for the handles was 2 in. wide by 25 in. long for finished handles of  3/4 in. wide and 24 in. long.

I used the fabric I had leftover from dresses I smocked for the girls. You could easily use some pretty ribbon for handles and eliminate the steps of sewing the handles, but I didn't have enough ribbon.

   Iron your fabric so that it will fold nicely and line up easily to stitch the seams. Sew your handles first. Fold the fabric in half, with right sides facing and stitch the length of the handle. Repeat for the second handle.

Turn the handles right side out, I used a chopstick. With the bag fabric right side up, fold the top of the bag down 1/2 inch. Place raw ends of the handles on the folded 1/2 inch at the top of the bag. I positioned the ends of the handles 2 inches inside of the left and right sides of the bag and one half inch down from the top of the bag.

Fold the top of the bag down over the raw edges of the handles another 1/2 inch. Make sure you move the handle up over the folded top of the bag and pin in place. 

 Stitch handles and folded edge into place by running a seam just along the bottom of the fold.

Run a second seam, to secure the handles and folded edge of the bag, along the top of the bag.

 Now fold your bag in half, right sides facing and handles inside, and stitch up the two sides completing your bag.

 I squared the bottom corners of my bag by 1 inch.

You could easily skip this step, I just liked the look and thought it would be helpful holding the bible, paper, and other items. Turn your bag right side out. Your bag is completed. On to the decorations.

Get your scrap pieces of contrasting, printed, and patterned fabric. Cut the Wonder Under to fit your pieces and, following application directions, iron the Wonder Under to your fabric. You now have fabric with a paperbacking that you can draw upon.

I drew some simple bird shapes here. I cut some large raindrop shapes for wings. I also cut stars, hearts, and flowers. I had some patterned fabric with butterflies, so I cut those out, as well as some simple circles, rectangles, and triangles. If you would like, cut out letters or numbers, but that required too much hand cutting for me. Let the fabric lead you to what shapes you cut out. You have now made fusible fabric stickers!
   Now gather all of your fabric stickers into a bag. Include instructions of how to iron the fabric stickers to the bag you made (see second part of instructions for applying the Wonder Under) and you have a DIY Design a Bag that any child with imagination and things to carry will enjoy.

Have a Merry Monday!!!
Thanks Shannon!  Everybody get busy making your Sew Homegrown projects - when you make one, upload it to the flickr pool so we can all see what you have made!
jessica