Elf and Snowman Gift Bag Templates & Tutorial

Remember when I made my frog, owl and penguin gift bags? 

See the penguin and instructions at this post!

Well, when I was in the sketching phase for that project, I drew up many more and imagined them holding different things for different occasions. Ready to see a couple Christmas sketches made up?

Cute right? You can download templates for these guys here!

For the elf cut: 1 gift box, 1 bow, 1 hat, 2 ears (1 reversed), 1 nose and 1 head in a flesh tone, 4 of the eye/button/bell template (2 in white, 2 in yellow), 2 eye centers, 2 arms (1 reversed), 2 legs (1 reversed) and 2 cuffs

For the snowman cut: 1 gift box, 1 bow, 2 buttons, 1 carrot, 2 stick arms (1 reversed), 1 head and 3 pieces of coal. 

Fold your bags down 1 1/4 inches at the top (as shown in the previous tutorial) before you start gluing so that you're sure to be able to close them later! Otherwise, I do think they would be just as cute left open and stuffed with tissue paper! 

Place the gift box 1/4 inch from the bottom of the bag and glue in place, glue the bow down in the center of the gift box and add the head so that it is just on top of the bow (I overlapped on the snowman, wasn't intentional, but glue is kind of permanent). 

Add the elf's hat using the dotted line on your template as a guide. Glue the ears behind the head so that they line up with the bottom of the hat as shown. Trace lightly around the elf's nose with a brown crayon so that it stands out from the face and glue in the center. Glue the eye whites and centers on both sides of the nose as shown. 

Glue the arms in place so that the angled edge is flush with the sides of the bag. Add the cuffs to separate the mittens from the sleeves. Glue the legs to the underside of the bag at a slight angle with the feet facing toward each other. Glue the bells to the points of the shoes. Using a black permanent marker draw nostrils, pupils, a smile and two black dots near the tops of your bells. Draw lines from your dots in an incomplete X shape using the photo as a guide. 

To make the snowman, glue the carrot so that the flat end is in the center of the head. Draw four black dots in a square shape on each of your button eyes, use an opaque gel pen to connect the dots in an X shape . Using the photo as a guide, glue the eyes in place. Place each of your three pieces of coal at a slightly different angle in a half circle shape to form the snowman's mouth. 

Glue the arms in place and you're done! I think the snowman could also be cute without the head or the gift, if you just glued his face on a white bag and glued his arms facing outward! I didn't come to that conclusion until after I had already made the complicated version, though! 

The gift box would look great paired with the penguin templates from last time (or the owl I guess, I've seen a lot of owl stuff this Christmas)! Or imagine doing the gift box in a birthday print and using the frog! These could be combined in so many cute ways! 

Penguin, Frog and Owl Gift Bags Tutorial

Alright, so I know it's late, but I made these and then decided I should whip up another and give you a little tutorial. And, in the spirit of trying new things (one of my New Year's resolutions) I decided to do the templates in PDF form for you to download here!

Valentine's Day is tomorrow, but these are so super easy to make up and so cute! They make adorable gift bags, and could even be put together by older kids as Valentine holders for classroom exchanges. Ready to learn how?

For each animal you will need:

Printed PDF templates
Scrapbook paper scraps
One lunch sized gift (or brown paper) bag
Scissors
Glue stick or double sided tape
Opaque gel pens (for optional decorative "stitching")

Black marker for the Frog's mouth
Scalloped or pinking edged scissors for Owl eyelashes
Stickers to seal the edge of the bag

Print and cut out the template pieces for the animal(s) of your choosing.

Trace around your templates on the wrong side of your printed papers. For each animal you will need:

One head

One small heart

One large heart

One beak (for Owl and Penguin)

Two eyes (reversing, or tracing the opposite side of the template, for one of the Frog's eyes)

Two feet (reversing one for all animals)

Two wings, arms or flippers (reversing one for all animals)

Two cheeks

For the penguin only: Two more cheek pieces in a black print for eye centers

Face piece for inside of head

For Owl only: Two pieces of paper measuring 1/2" X 1 7/8" for eyelashes

Glue or tape the penguin's face piece inside the head, using the dashed lines inside the template as a placement guide.

For all animals: Place the eyes and cheeks using the dashed lines on the templates as a guide.

For the Owl: Using your scalloped or pinking edged scissors cut a small amount off of one edge of your eyelash pieces. Place these so that the scalloped edge is toward the bottom of the head and the top corners are lined up with the outer edge of the eye. (See finished photo at bottom.)

For the penguin: Place the black pair of cheek pieces inside the eyes.

For the Owl and Penguin: Place the beaks last, again using the dashed lines as a guide

For the Frog: lightly draw a curved line between the cheeks with a pencil. Using your black marker draw five small rectangles along the curved line to create the frog's mouth. Erase the marks in between your rectangles. (See finished photo at bottom.)

Fold down 1 1/2" from the top of your bag.

Glue or tape (tape may work better if you are using a glossy surface like the gift bags I have chosen) the heads onto the bags so that they overhang the folded down edge.

Now assemble your heart by centering and gluing the small piece inside the larger one. Attach the assembled heart to the bag 1/2 to 3/4 inches from the bottom, making sure to leave a small space between the heart and the head.

Add arms, wings or flippers depending on which animal you are making. Use the completed photos as a guide to placement.

Put glue or tape along the top 1/2" of your foot pieces. Attach the glued areas to the underside (bottom) of your bag at or near the corners.

Draw optional decorative stitching with your gel pen.

Now you're ready to open them up and fill with treats!

Vote for your favorite!

There is a little sewing competition going on in blogland hosted by Family Ever After. It's called Sew-vivor and it's really exciting and different. You enter by submitting any one thing you've sewn, from there, judges narrow the entries down to ten finalists who then create one new project per week for four weeks. The twist being that, just like Survivor, one or more finalist is voted out per week by the judges.

It sounds fun, right? And bonus for those of us with little sewing time on our hands, the last four weekly projects are listed on the blog right now so you can make them ahead and be all prepared if you progress to the finals!

The Family Ever After Blog suggests that you enter a project that showcases your talent, creativity and personality. I spent a lot of time on the blog looking over some of my past projects and narrowed it down to ten that I think are eye-catching while showing off at least some of the suggested criteria, but I can't decide which one is best to enter.

So, please do me a favor and tell me your favorite in the comments! And if your favorite wasn't one of mine, feel free to tell me that too!

1. Disappearing 9 Patch Quilt 2. Bohemian Diaper Bag 3. Third Birthday Dress 4. Tuxedo Style Purse 5. Batik Log Cabin Stars Throw 6. Bunny 7. Lollipop Quilt 8. Cupcake Puppy 9. Owl Bag 10. Elvis Costume size 12 months

Monday Moments...and then some

I will post cute pictures from this weekend, but first, I have to say a big hello to anyone visiting from Deb Strain's blog! She was kind enough to post photos of my quilt and another quilt someone else made from one of her adorable lines. Such a great lady!

Second, what in blue blazes is this? Are you serious? May is less than two weeks away!



Look at the poor little buds on my bush all covered in snow...I hope the forecast is better for next Sunday so the kids don't have to wear their snow pants to hunt for Easter eggs.



This photo is both a Monday Moment and a craft picture. I had promised my step-daughter that if her friend Abbie could come over, I'd invite another one of her friends and they could have a mini birthday party, since we'd be giving her gifts and making her a small cake anyway.

She had asked me if I could do a monster theme since she's into Monster High toys and Moshi Monsters online. I got some Moshi Monsters trading cards and downloaded some coloring pages from the website. I used them as stencils to paint the characters on canvas tote bags. Then I brought out a pack of fabric markers and let the girls go wild. They had a lot of fun just doing their own thing, and I got to relax because everything was so low key. Win, win!

Collaboration

This is a lunch bag I worked on with my step-daughter. After a couple consecutive weeks of her forgetting to bring her lunch box home with her I decided that maybe she needed more than one and asked her if she'd like to make her own.

She picked out the outside fabric, and agreed with me that the polka dot would make a good inside since it wasn't really going to be seen. I cut out the rectangles for the bag and had her sew around them. I wanted her to make the whole thing, but when I took our last paper lunch sack out of her cupboard to take some measurements, it was completely malformed. I had to square off the corners, turn it out, add the strap and do the top stitching while she was in bed, otherwise she would have had nothing to put her lunch in. Oh well, any practice is a good thing!

It turned out cute, but not how I was expecting. I should have checked out a few tutorials first, it's a little bulkier than I wanted...

Purse for Purse Week

I just recently learned that Lemon Squeezy is having Purse Week, where your bag creation can win prizes. Before I even knew this was happening, I was already working on making a purse for one of my good friends from the pattern I drafted in March. We got the kids together at a playground and a few days later I got a late night text saying, "I can't get your purse out of my mind! I need one!"

If that wasn't enough to make me think that maybe I should enter it in a contest, my sister was actually taking my cute 11 month old nephew to the doctor when someone commented, "Oh, how adorable!" She turned around to say thank you, thinking that the woman was talking about the sweet baby on her arm, and found the woman staring at the version I made for her.



I squeezed one more bag out of my Michael Miller Birds of Norway fabric just for my friend and combined it with a fabric to bring out the teal blue and purple that she loved so much.



I even found these awesome magnetic snaps that come in colors! Real ones, not just antique and silver. I'm sure I'm horribly late to the party on these, but don't rain on my parade, okay?

TV night

Two shows my husband and I love to watch together are on tonight. Survivor and Tosh.0 will be taking over my living room. So I have hauled my ironing board, all of my interfacing and the pieces I cut out for a new purse for one of my best friend's birthdays upstairs. I wanted to do this yesterday, but I know my sewing room projects migrating north is about as annoying to Phil as nails on a chalkboard, so I fooled myself into believing I'd get it done if I left it in the basement. Looking forward to good TV and having my fabric prepped for sewing.

One Thing, One Week Challenege Complete!

Remember one week ago when I announced I would be joining this challenge?

Well, I did it! I posted my goal was to be done today, in time to enter the contest, but my real goal was to be done on Saturday so that my sister could take the bag home with her. Sadly, I missed that goal. I had work left to do, but decided hanging out with my niece and nephew was worth more to me than the few dollars I would spend shipping the bag if I didn't finish.

Ready to see?



I took the side ties and button closure that my sister loved from the last diaper bag I made and added them to a simple patchwork bag made from the scraps of my Chirp! that I used in the charity quilts I did earlier this summer. She absolutely loved them and I think she will love this!

I lined it in the pink with green, brown and white birds and, in what I think was a genius move, I made a diaper pocket out of the only horizontal print in the Chirp! panel. I should have taken a pic of that before I put the lining in the bag though, because try as I might this morning, nothing I took of the inside turned out.

Feeling springy

Oh yes! The snow is gone, the temperature is supposed to go above 70 this week, these things are growing in my yard and I'm wearing this on my shoulder!



I am finally finished with the bag from the pattern I've been drafting for a couple weeks now. I love it! It was definitely a pain to put together versus some of the other bags I have made, but I have some ideas about how to curb that for the next one. What do you think?



Is it worth making a few more?

Another Pussycat bag

When I first made Melly & Me's Pussycat bag for my niece my neighbor immediately took me aside and said, "Christmas." It was her sneaky little way of letting me know that her daughter, Grace, had fallen in love.

I started on Grace's bag shortly after. I decided on a white print with stars in different shades of blue and silver glitter and a blue cloud print for the stripes. I finished those, cut out the cat shape, came to the muzzle and did a big pause. A months long pause. I wanted to do navy blue, but the colors that would stand out on a navy muzzle (white and pale blue), wouldn't stand out on the striped kitty part of the bag. Then I thought of completely contrasting it with a yellow star print, but the stripes were visible through the yellow shade I had picked out. I just couldn't decide what to do, so I stopped.

Christmas came and went and I completely forgot about the half finished bag in my sewing room. In late January my neighbor called to invite us all to Grace's birthday party and said, "...and if you wanted to finish that bag..." I felt like such a jerk! I looked at it, and just like it always does, the distance had given me some perspective, and it was suddenly all too clear that I needed to do a silver color to match the glitter on the white stripes.



Perfect! I love how the velvety fabric gives Grace a part of her kitty purse to pet too.



My husband actually picked out the little silver buttons for the eyes. They looked too small though, so I grabbed the blue ones with the depression in them off of the shelf. I took them home hoping that the silvers would fit inside the blues and look just like this. I didn't imagine that it would actually work out that way though. I'm so very glad it did.



Happy birthday to Grace!

Never again...maybe

Here is the diaper bag, finally, finally completed. The last time I used this pattern I decided that I would never make it again. But then someone saw the bag I had made and loved it and asked for one nearly a whole year after the first one and I thought about it. "It couldn't possibly be as bad as I remembered. I'll have more time. I'm more experienced now." Obviously, you can tell I said yes.

Honestly, I love Lila Tueller's designs. They're pretty, they're unique, her fabric lines never fail to impress me, but some of the instructions in this pattern make my head hurt. I took some different steps this time (sewing the lining and binding dead last instead of trying to sew the tabs and straps through yet another layer of fabric) and used some different equipment (denim needles are definitely not enough to do the job despite what the pattern may indicate, canvas needles made this a much, much more pleasant experience), and it really wasn't as bad as I remembered. I still think I might never make it again, but then I look at it...



I mean, really, how cute are the ties? And the fraying edges? And the perfectly coordinated little button?



I hope the mom (no longer a mom-to-be, she had her baby boy the day I finished the bag) likes it, and the extra little something I threw in with it. I'll post pictures of that tomorrow after my FedEx tracking ID assures me she's opened the package and I am not ruining the surprise.

Sheesh...

Has it been almost a week already? I decided to go with Erin's suggestion and re-use some of the bag fabric as the side panels, being that I would be the only one who knew that the pattern called for each panel to be a different fabric. I ended up following the yellow monkeys with the cream/red/brown polka dot and then the green polka dot.



I decided the easiest way to make the bag taller (rather than redoing the entire trapezoid shape to make it longer/larger) would be to add a single strip of fabric in the width I want the bag to be to the bottom. This is also the fabric that I'll be using to bind the bag and make the straps. I probably took a picture of it in the worst spot because it isn't really apparent that the colors do actually coordinate.

The next step is to layer it over top of some canvas and a couple layers of batting and quilt it. Then I have to cut about a MILLION little slits in the edges so that it frays nicely, wash it and I can finally begin the parts that make it take the shape of an actual bag. I love that part! I love seeing something come together and seeing if it looks how I envisioned it.

Is this terrible?

I bought the flannel (dark brown to bring out the browns in the fabric) to back the diaper bag on Thursday night and got all of the pieces cut and sewn yesterday afternoon.

I compared it to the size of my purse and it is exactly the same, however, the Bohemian Bag has ties on the top that close off two panels from both the front and the back. Leading me to the decision that I need two more panels added to one side to balance it out and maintain the shape.

Here is the part I'm wondering about. Would it be awful to not buy two more pieces of fabric? Given that the very end panels wrap around the sides anyway (and would not be seen from the front) could I repeat some fabrics without it seeming too cheesy?

Right now I am thinking of adding the two new panels to the end with the yellow monkeys. Next to the yellow monkeys would be a repeat of the cream with brown and red spots and then I haven't decided what fabric would go on that last side yet, possibly the red with numbers. But, this all hinges on you folks telling me this isn't a bad idea.

Alteration

I thought I'd give you all a peek into another project I'm working on. This is going to be a diaper bag in the style of Lila Tueller's Bohemian Bag for a friend of my sister. She saw the Bohemian Bag I made for my sister last Christmas and wanted one just like it, only larger, with dark browns and unisex so she could use it as a diaper bag for the baby she's expecting in January.



These are the fabrics I chose. Dark brown and unisex was actually much harder than I thought it would be. For the most part they're from the Five Funky Monkeys and Goodnight Monkey fabrics by Moda. I don't think this is the final layout, and it may not even be the final number of panels. I need to get some flannel to back them and then sew them together to compare to my purse (the size she wants her bag).

If I thought picking out the fabrics was a challenge, I think I'm in for it altering this purse pattern into a diaper bag!