My oldest son's birthday is this coming week. Ever since his 4th birthday party, I have been making the goodie bags for his party. I really don't like the little plastic goodie bags that go home and go straight into the trash. I wanted to make something that the kids would want to keep and remember the party by. My mom and I made the 1st ones together. His 4th birthday was a Spiderman theme. We bought red and blue felt sheets. On one color we painted a large spider web, and on the other color we painted a large spider. We used the squeezable fabric paint. Then I placed a thin ribbon along the sides and sewed the bag.
His 5th birthday was Elmo. One side was red felt. I painted elmo's face on it. I chose red so that I just needed to outline Elmo's face, and paint the nose and eyes. The other side of the bag was gray fake fur with large google eyes glued to it.
His 6th birthday was a soccer theme. I used white felt (which I bought by the yard). I found a silhouette of a soccer player kicking a ball, and I printed it out and used it as my stencil. I also did the same for a large soccer ball. So one side ow the soccer player and the other side was a large soccer ball. I used a lot of black paint. I also found some glow in the dark paint that I used to highlight the soccer player's clothes, make action lines, and write the child's name on the bag.
I painted the child's name on their bag for a few years. Now I attach a name tag to the handles so that the name can be removed and the bag can be passed on to someone else (kids get older and grow out of things). I would cut a tag out of felt using my die-cut machine, paint the child's name on it, and attach it to the handle before I sewed it on.
His 7th birthday was at a mini golf course. I started with a green piece of felt and then I sewed on red , orange, and yellow felt so that it looked like grass and a sun set. I then painted with black a golf ball and golf club.
His 8th birthday was a pokemon theme. I was pregnant with my 2nd son, and my due date was a month before his party. I started making the goodie bags 5 months early. I finished them the week before the party. One side was yellow felt. I painted Pikachu's head and ears on that side. Again I chose yellow felt so that I just had to paint the outline instead of using up way too much yellow paint. The other side was white felt and I painted a pokeball on it.
Last year he turned 9 and wanted a Webkinz bag. His 1st webkinz was a tiger, so he wanted that to be on his bag. I did not want to paint any more. We picked out some dark green fabric with a leaf print (fern like) on it. I also bought some tiger striped fake fur and some white fake fur. I still had to use felt as a stabilizer. I chose green felt to match. I used fusible webbing to attach the leaf fabric to the felt. Then I cut out a circle and 2 triangles from the tiger striped fur. After pinning in in place, I stitched them down with black thread. I then cut 2 small circles from the white fake fur to use for the tiger's nose. I stitched them in place with white thread. I used a zig zag like stitch that one might use when appliqueing. I glued 2 large google eyes on him. I also sewed a pink button on for a nose. Then using white embrodiery thread, I made 6 wiskers. The back and front of the bag was exactly the same. It took a lot more time making these than painting ever did.
This year his party theme is outdoor water fun. I did not want to make a time consuming bag (times 8 or more) this year. Between other projects and chasing a toddler around, I wanted something simple. So we went to the fabric store and he picked out a printed fabric that looked like pool water (a bright blue with glod lines). I also bought matching fabric later (they didn't have the same print) for the handles. I made 4 out of 9 bags today. The party is in 7 days. No painting, no detailed sewing, just basic sewing. I cut rectangles out of the fabric (to what looked like a good size). I folded the 2 ends (which will be the top of the bag) twice, and pinned them. I then cut 2.5 inch strips for the handles. I ironed them so that the outer edges were folded to the center, then I folded them in half. I sewed the open side closed. Then I measured, cut, and attached the handles with pins. Then I just sewed the tops of the bags down, handles and all. I folded the bag in half, right sides together. Using a zig zag stitch, I sewed the sides together. I then sewed triangles (1.5 inches) on the bottom corners. This is so the bag can have a flat bottom. I turned it inside out and I'm done. I still need to make name tags for the bags. My son likes it, and I was able to make 4 bags from start to finish in one day. I even had my toddler on my lap while I was sewing.
Hopefully I'll finish some more bags today. I don't want to work on them tomorrow, because thats when my birthday is. My son was a late birthday present.
I will post pictures soon. I will post the pictures that I have of past bags.
Here is a drawing that I did on graph paper so that I have an idea of the quilt design that I want to do. I used 3 different colors of blue so that I can see each triangle, and so it would look like a scrap quilt. 
Here are a few of the half square triangle blocks that I have made for this quilt. Some fabrics, not shown, are more white than black. I just randomly used fat quarters that were blue and black & white. I am really excited about this quilt. It is truly a quilt for me.
I was able to fuse my 2 Disney store plastic bags today. First you lay down parchment paper on your ironing board. You want your iron to be on a silk / wool setting. You cut off the bottom seam and handles of your plastic bag. Then you cut one side of the bag so it lays flat in one layer. You want to layer 4 bags together. 
Then you want to place some parchment paper over your plastic bags. This is so you don't ruin your iron or ironing board.
Then you have to slowly iron the surface on both sides. After ironing both sides, check and see if there are areas that did not fuse completely, and iron some more.
When you are finished, you should have a wrinkled and stiff piece of plastic. You'll want to square up the edges with scissors or a rotary cutter. Then you can take it to your sewing machine and sew up a new bag. In one of mine, I have carried 2 water bottles and 4 magazines. It may seam like it will tear easily, but it won't.
The last time that I was at my parents' house, my mom gave me 2 bags full of t-shirts that she no longer wanted. When making t-shirt yarn, I use from the armpit down, and only the non-printed t-shirt parts. So what to do with the top halves? The show that I am taping next week has to do with quilting and how that can be "green." I am focusing on the Grandma's Flower Garden pattern. I make my templates from food boxes. I have used scrap fabric from other projects, but I wanted to use "recycled" fabric as well. So why not use t-shits? Normally you wouldn't want to quilt with such stretchy fabric, but using a template and hand stitching with it works great. For this t-shirt quilt I am using large hexagon templates. I have been saving all of my cereal boxes to make the templates out of. Using the larger templates will make this project come along much faster. Plus the material will make a soft quilt. A lot of these shirts bring back memories. In the picture you can see how I fussy cut the Hilton logo to show. I remember helping my mom out at the Hilton during their summer parties (she use to work there). That was also during the 80's when neon colors were in. I'm going to really enjoy making this quilt and then using it.
I have really been wanting to start a new quilt using half square triangles. I kept telling myself that I couldn't start it until other things were finished. I have had a rough 2 weeks. I don't want to go into to it, because this blog for me is all about being creative and not about what is going on in my personal life. I figured that I needed to treat myself by doing something that I really wanted to do. So I started working on the new quilt last night. I cut several 3 1/2" squares from blue fat quarters and black & white print fat quarters. I really like working with black and white prints. I made a log cabin crib quilt using red fabric with the black & white prints. 
I also used black & white scraps left over from other projects, and then accented it with some green fabric to make another crib quilt. My favorite color is blue, which is easy to see when looking at my fabric stash. While watching tv last night, I marked the back of the blue squares with a pencil. I am hoping to start sewing some of the half square triangles together (using the trick where you sew 2 squares together twice and then cut down the center) sometime today. I want to make an off center large diamond pattern out of the half square triangles. It should be interesting. This quilt will be for myself, so it does need to be large.
His 8th birthday was a pokemon theme. I was pregnant with my 2nd son, and my due date was a month before his party. I started making the goodie bags 5 months early. I finished them the week before the party. One side was yellow felt. I painted Pikachu's head and ears on that side. Again I chose yellow felt so that I just had to paint the outline instead of using up way too much yellow paint. The other side was white felt and I painted a pokeball on it.
