Crafting weekend fun

Wow. I haven't really crafted in a while!

To be fair, I started a Master's degree and a job, so I've been really, really busy. The last thing I made was a christening outfit for my nephew in April. I started working on a yellow dress, but the fabric is very thin and I needed to get stabilizer so that I could sew it correctly without it bunching up. Oh yeah, and I got a new sewing machine! It's a Brother electronic machine. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but the more I use it, the more I like it.

So here are some things I've made over the past few weekends. I needed to take a mental break from school work!

I made a great teacher binder out of an old binder and some pretty yellow fabric. The best thing about it is that it's refillable because I made all the pages in Excel. I simply laid out the binder open on a piece of fabric and cut it so it was about an inch larger than the binder on all sides. Then I fired up my hot glue gun and started making lines back and forth across the cover. I pressed the fabric on, then moved to the spine and the back. I then laid the binder open and folded over the flaps, gluing as I went. The glue cooled pretty fast! I cut some scrapbook paper to size and then hot glued that into the interior. I made a word cloud on Wordle about teaching science for the front picture.

Did I mention this binder is red underneath? Can't tell, can you?

I've been wanting to make one of these for a while, so I followed the tutorial on Crafting with Orange. I like the idea of making gift bags out of something recyclable and earth-friendly. The gift tag is from an old greeting card someone sent me. If it's a sentimental card, I scan it or take a photo of it, then cut the front picture up for gift tags.

I've also gone on a plastic-free kick after reading Life Without Plastic. I've never really been comfortable eating from or drinking from plastic things, so this has been a feel-good move on my part. It's been a lot harder to implement, though, because EVERYTHING comes in plastic at the grocery store. Mostly convenience items, but really...anyhow, I found this cute soap pouch tutorial on WhiMSy love and decided to give it a shot. I used a boring old washcloth for mine, but it worked out great! I can't wait to give it a try and get rid of my old nylon scrubbing thing. The nice thing about it is that it can go through the wash after I'm done with the bar of soap, and be reused again and again. I'm thinking about adding a rope to hang it up with.

Soap pouch! The flaps overlap so the soap stays inside.

That's all I've made so far, but it's more than I've done in a long while. My next project is going to be flannel 'tissues'. We'll use them once, then throw them in the wash and use them again. Hankies, basically!

Have a great day!