Sewing

birthday presents

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So it seems like that time of year where there’s a lot of birthday parties to go to! I think it’s a fun opportunity to have fun with my girls and let them pick out and work on a project that their friend would like. I’ve been doing a bit of spring cleaning with my stash and have a big stack of cute kids fabric to use up, so I have another project in the works, but I’ll share that in another post. With what I had leftover from the big stack, I used to make a few birthday presents!

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Natalie and Emily helped pick out the fabrics for their cousin’s birthday presents. It’s pretty fun to have cousins that are twins! I thought it would be great to have a little zippered pouch they could hang on their backpack and stash a few little things for summertime. We tucked in a couple gift certificates and some golden dollars! Perfect for buying ice cream we hope!

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And no birthday would be complete without a drawstring bag. I quickly sewed up this one for a friend’s party. I love how the bags use smaller cuts of fabric! It’s great for mixing and matching and just plain fun. Of course I couldn’t stop with just one, so I made the laundry size bag for our family. It’ll be great to pack in our suitcase to store dirty laundry. I’m sure it’ll fill up quick!laundry2

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Patterns: Zippered pouch (similar tutorial here), Lined Drawstring Bag by Jeni Baker
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11 thoughts on “birthday presents

  1. Kristie says:

    Ahhh, laundry bag. I usually use a garbage bag. But I like this idea much better! Thanks for sharing. Now to figure out which prints I will love to see each time we travel. And I need to make some of these pouches, perfect to put a small pen and small notebook for traveling in!

  2. Courtney says:

    The laundry bag is such a great idea for traveling. I think I’m going to have to make one too! Thanks for sharing 🙂

  3. Megan W says:

    Love the zippered pouches!! The fabrics are so darn cute. Now to talk myself out of making a laundry bag since we’ve already got one for travel (that’s plain boring white) and the to-do list is already a mile long. Happy sewing!

  4. minkymoo says:

    Your zipper corners look soo neat! Any tips?

  5. Dieni says:

    Anna, I love how you make your zipper pouch a little curvy and love the fabric combination. Simple, not boring, and still pretty! May I know what fabric you used for the bottom part, is that essex linen?

  6. allison c says:

    Do you know the name of the dog print fabric and who makes it? So cute!!!

  7. Susan says:

    I have been meaning to make a laundry bag for YEARS. Every time we take a trip and have to stuff our dirty clothes in a nasty used plastic shopping bag, I think “Oh yeah, I was going to do something about this…”
    And last week, I decided one of our flannel sheets has finally lived out its usefulness (the elastic is totally kaput) so I think I’ll use the fabric for a couple of laundry bags for us for traveling. Thanks for the reminder and inspiration! I also love the drawstring gift bags.

  8. Susan says:

    Great gifts. I made my 4 year old grandson the Jeni Baker drawstring bag with adorable race car focus fabric for his March birthday. Tomorrow is his brother’s 9th birthday. Well, grandma has felt really lousy and it will be late arriving in the mail. You know I’ve felt horrible since after the first one they are very, very easy to make. I would have had no troubles with my first except my machine’s backstitch wasn’t working and I didn’t think to just flip the fabric around and stitch and then flip back (duh!). So, I drug out a machine I inherited from my mom that I had no clue how to even thread – weird. I got it threaded and the tension was horrible and it pulled horribly and it was an utter mess. So, I finally figured out to do a backstitch without really backstitching and went back to my original machine. I finally just cut a new bag and started over on my stitching – it was all my ordeal and the second attempt went much smoother – both the machine and from having started putting the bag together. I’ve promised that the baseball fabric bag is on the top of the list after absolute necessities and then it will be mailed. I love the pouches, too, and ice cream is always a hit. Nice way to involve your children in your interests to expose them to things that many children are never exposed. I just read a blog yesterday that a teacher has students making quilts to go to Mexico. They have raised money and fabric has been donated and family members have also volunteered to help – what a great sense of community and teaching giving by example. I can only dream of all the life lessons those students are learning in that hands on lesson. I think maybe I should think of going to a school and volunteering to do something like that. I wish I lived close my daughter who is a high school math teacher – that would be a great mother/daughter project even though she doesn’t sew.

  9. Cindy says:

    What awesome adorable gifts, Anna! Love them all! I too love Jeni’s tutorials!:)

  10. kristin says:

    oh these are so sweet, anna! love those little pouches and i def need to make more of those drawstring bags, they’re really fun and useful. i made a couple for the kids a while back but never blogged them, oops!

    love your always-peaceful photos! makes me want to come over and hang out and drink tea.

  11. Shannon says:

    Love the drawstring bag! I’m a big fan out putting presents in something useful instead of a gift bag that’s going to be thrown away!

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