What's in the bag Baby!

Little Miss Muffet,

sat on her tuffet

eating her "curdles" and whey....

She decided to stay

and sew all the day

even though she really was marginal seamstress

How's that for a rhyme? Lest you think that I am skilled in handicrafts because of this post, I can ASSURE you I'm not, I like to 'fiddle' with things but I can't say that I'm crafty---I'm "COPY"...show me and tell me how you did it---with small words---and I can 'fiddle' with it until I either go crazy or turn out with something super cute! Maybe not totally practical but cute none the less :)

I give you the placemat bag :) (scroll over pics to get them to stop and see the caption about the details of each...)

Travel with me thru the SUPER easy steps...

Step one: choose your placemat and handle ensemble :) Placemats are SUPER cheap--especially at the end of each season...be careful, you could purchase more than you know what to do with saying "oh! THIS would make the cutest bag!"---trust me--I'm 30 placemats over my quota! (but I just HAD to get the cute V-day ones!) Anyway, have an idea of what you are going to do for handles AT THE TIME OF PLACEMAT PURCHASE otherwise you will (well I have) hum and ha and rack your brain wondering "what the heck am I going to use for a handle for THIS one" when you get home...

Step two: fold in half with right sides together and sew up each side like so...

Step three: stick your hand inside and "smash" out the corner and sew with seam spread apart (hopefully you can tell what I mean by these pics)...

Then I "eyeball" the other corner by smashing them together so I get the seam on the other end to be the same distance from the corner...and sew that down like before...

At this point you can take a quick breather and join me for a silly bag lady pic...ok, thats good...now on to the next step...

Step four: I like to spread the seam apart and zig zag across to keep the seam flat along the inside of the bag...you don't have to do this, but it just finishes it a little more...

so it should look like this when you've sewn the corners and the seams down ...this is the inside out view...

Step five: turn the bag right side out and on to the handles!

Step six: the handles...obviously you can do whatever you want, when I was originally introduced to these quick little bags we used a grommet punch (can be found in the camp equipment area of walmart for about 4 bucks---as long as you can operate a hammer it is fast and easy!) and looped our ribbon threw and sewed it off as in "My first" in the slide show up above. You can punch the grommets and then tie a knot in the end of webbing or something like the V-day ones up there too. You can make your own beaded handles with your husbands pants hangers by cutting them apart at the base of the hook of the hanger, bend a loop (with your handy dandy kneedle nosed pliers), string beads and bend another loop in the opposite end to keep the beads from coming off...sew the loop to the bag with hemp (because I feel like that is stronger) or ribbon (make a loop with ribbon, sew one end to the bag, loop through your handle loop and sew it down to the bag)...pretty much whatever you can think of...you can also purchase handles at craft stores, I just thought that it was ridiculous to spend more on the handles than the whole bag (and I must give credit to my friend Danielle whose idea it was to use the hangers--she's awesome!)...quick and easiest is the grommet punch and tying off the webbing. For this bag, I folded the corners of this ribbon/something out of the remnants at walmart fabric dept., zigzagged them down and then sewed them to the inside of the bag...eyeballing their placement...we don't measure here!

AND WHA LA!! BAG!

I didn't take a side view, but the bottom of the bag is flat because of the corners you sewed off inside...so it really looks like a professional did it :) hee hee...

Anyway, enjoy...these are great if you find some kid-ish type prints and can put one together for a birthday party...small gift inside a bag that they can keep! They are just the right size to be a thing to put things in!