Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Church Bag


During the pandemic I bought 30 yards of fabric from some friend of a friend of a friend in Ghana who was trying to earn some money. I was hoping to use the fabric for mask covers (I made more than 1000), but it took so long for the people bringing the fabric to get here, that it was too late for masks. So, I ended up using some of the fabric for American Girl doll clothes, gave some to an African man who came and bought something at our house, donated some to a charity that makes bags, then made a few bags for us. The fabric is heavier than quilting cotton, but not as heavy as duck cloth. I wanted to record here that I think the perfect size for carrying a folder and a few things to church is 14" x 32" with 3" x 27" straps.

I don't need to go into great instructions on making the bags, but you need to fold the big piece of fabric in half and sew up the sides and create your depth in your preferred manner. For the straps, I just ironed in each long edge 1/2" then folded the whole thing the long way in half and sewed down each side. I probably put each end of the strap in from each edge of the bag about 3-4". I re-enforced each strap also.

Friday, January 1, 2021

12 Days of Christmas 2020

Everyone's been missing everyone, so to make some connections again we decided again to do the 12 Days of Christmas for all my 7 Primary activity girls' families (one of them being us). As I was planning it, I got a new partner, so she planned 3 of the days I hadn't purchased for yet. I didn't take good pictures, but wanted to at least make note of what we did for future reference. It was nice because we didn't need to deliver to ourselves, my partner took care of that! Our family all took turns delivering. My 11-year old probably enjoyed it the most, but it was a great family activity. I wonder if anyone didn't know who was making the drop offs since all of them have doorbell cameras!

1. I was going to do pears and a tree and a picture of a bird or something, but my partner got some nice pear chapstick.

You can see that my partner does way cuter stuff than me!

2. Turtle candy individually wrapped from the dollar store and Dove soap. I hope the chocolate didn't taste like the soap in the end!

3. I can't remember what my partner ended up doing for this, but I was going to make French bread and shape it like birds.

4. Chicken in a Biscuit crackers.

5. Ring Pops.

6. I was going to do a half dozen eggs, but my partner did those European egg candy things with the toy inside and cute golden-sprayed feathers on top. I'm sure the girls enjoyed the egg/candy more than actual eggs!

7. Hot chocolate pouches with a bag of marshmallows for the swans.

8. Graham crackers and milk (Honey Maid(s) a Milking).

9. Pirouettes, but I got the Pirouline's from Walmart and put a Pirouette label on them, since Pirouline's isn't a balet move.


10. Grasshopper cookies for Lord's a leaping, but I got the Winco kind and put a Grasshopper sticker on it.


11. Instead of pipers piping I did poppers popping with popcorn.

12. Instead of drummers drumming, I did dummers dumming with Dum-Dum suckers. Yeah, I got *really* creative.

To make things cute, I added a little text to pictures online.