The Stingy Mommy

Holiday Helper: Embellished Tote Bag (continued)

by Amy Brayfield

• a tote bag in a solid color or subtle pattern
• fabric scraps in a variety of colors and patterns
• scissors
• straight pins
• needle
• embroidery floss
• embellishments, such as buttons, ribbon, etc.
• cardboard for making patterns (optional)

What You Do:

1. Sketch out a plan for your design. You want to keep it as simple and graphic as possible, so whittle images down to their most basic shapes for best results. Fancy details are probably just going to get lost. We experimented with lots of flower shapes and a sail boat before settling on a cute bird. (We made the body one curving shape, added a triangle beak and a curvy triangle wing shape.)
2. My daughter drew her patterns on a sheet of cardboard, then carefully cut them out. (You can skip this step and draw your design directly on the backside of the fabric if you want to.)
3. She then chose her fabric. (We always have a bunch of leftover fabrics floating around, but stores like Hancock Fabric sell bundles of coordinating quilting squares at inexpensive prices, or you can always use felt for a more graphic look.) I encouraged her to choose pieces that went together well, but I left the final decision up to her: For maximum charm, each element of your design should have its own fabric. She traced each pattern piece on the fabric she’d chosen.
4. We then pinned her design to the tote bag, moving the pieces around until she was totally satisfied. She also wanted to give her bird a branch to sit on, so we found some ribbon to make a branch and pinned that on, too.
5. When we were happy with the design, I helped her thread her needle with a full strand of embroidery floss and let her go to town sewing around the edges of her design. (We used a contrasting color so that the stitches really show up against the bag, but you could certainly be subtler.) She’s been sewing since she was 3 years old, and it’s been a great way to help develop her pincer grasp and fine motor skills. If your child is less experienced, it’s perfectly OK to jump in and lend a hand.
6. Once the pieces were securely attached, we removed the pins and added some embellishments: My daughter wanted a button eye for her bird, so we added a sparkly black button, and then she wanted to add a few more buttons on the other side of the bag for good measure. We also added a few shiny beads to the ribbon “branch” and along the top of the bag. You could add ribbon bows, a pattern of buttons — really, almost anything would work. As we were working, I thought that it would be really adorable to knit a row of tiny sweaters and stitch them into place across the front of the bag.

The finished bag was exactly what my daughter had envisioned, and she can hardly wait to wrap it up for her sitter. And now we’ve got a great blue print for making presents for everyone from our pals at the farmers market to teachers to cool aunts.

Amy Brayfield is a cheapskate, and she's not afraid to admit it. In addition to torturing her children by not taking them to McDonald's every day, she writes about parenting and family topics for various national and local magazines. She lives happily in the Midwest with her husband and two children.

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