Reversible bag with pocket - tutorial & pattern

Hello, and welcome. Today I'm sharing with you a great summer tote bag - with cute pockets and 100% reversible.

Scroll down for the tutorial the link to download the pattern.

 

Felt flower key chains tutorial

Hello, and welcome to another week. Today I'm showing you a bunch of felt flower key chains I made for my kid's teachers.

Every year I search for some quick and easy gifts that can be "mass produced" - my son is now in 5th grade and has a ton of teachers. And while my daughter only has two for now, when you add the ballet teacher, the swimming coach... - yes, well, lots of people to get gifts for.

So this year we settled on key chains. Flower shaped for the female teachers, and with their initials for the male teachers. Today I'm going to show you how we made the felt flower key chains, and I'll post about the other ones later.

The Hot Air Balloons Bag

Hello, and welcome. today I'm showing off a bag I made a couple of weeks ago for one of my daughter's friends.

I found the hot air balloons fabric at a craft store and knew I had to buy it. It was just a scrap (big enough for this bag and maybe another similar one) and they didn't have more, but I still brought it home with me. When a couple of days later my daughter handed me the invitation for a birthday party for a little girl turning eight, I knew I had made the right decision. 

Because, yes, how cute is that fabric?

Lace edged candles

I've had two candles - one blue and one yellow - in my crafts closet for a long time. Initially I bought them with the intention of creating a nautical decor with them. I even wrapped the lower portion of the candles with rope, but the whole think became too tick and not at all practical. 

Last weekend I finally decided I either tossed the candles or finished them. And since I was not going to toss two perfectly good candles, I ripped the rope and created a lace edging instead.

 

Hotfoil DIY notebooks

Hello, and welcome. Today I'm going to show you how to make notebooks. Personally I always carry a notebook in my purse to jot down reminders, ideas and anything else that comes to mind. 

These notebooks are perfect for just that. You can make them any size you want and when you finish one - just make another. 

Happy Birthday gift tags - free printable

June has just started, which means summer is almost here. With summer also starts my season of birthday parties, some to plan and others just to sit back and enjoy.

So  decided to start early and design a few cute happy birthday gift tags.

DIY travel bag set

I made this set as a gift for one of my cousins. She travels a lot, and when you travel it's always useful to have an extra bag around, but you also don't want to carry any extra large or heavy items in your luggage. 

So I created this set as a combination of my lined tote bag with the zippered pouch.I didn't make a tutorial specifically for this gift set, but you can check the links above for the the detailed instructions.

Two toned felt envelope bags

These are made almost in the same way as the Felt Envelope Clutches and the Embellished Felt Clutch. 

There are only two differences: 

First, instead of folding one single piece of felt to make the envelope, I joined two pieces together (the back piece is the largest and folds over to the front, which means I had to sew the sides and the bottom, instead of just the sides). 

 

The color contrast looks good, but mostly I was trying to get rid of bits and pieces of felt (as part of my destashing efforts). 

And second, instead of using a ribbon or velcro to close the bags, I just added a matching button to each and cut a button hole directly in the felt

And here they are: three different sized little cute felt envelopes.

I'm still not sure how I will use them, but I'm pretty sure it won't be that difficult, especially since I have lots of family and friend's birthdays coming up.

This post is part of my 2018 destashing goal.  See below my other destashing projects so far:

Destashing #1: Scrappy crochet blanket
Destashing #2: DIY Play Food: cloth napkins & napkin rings
Destashing #3: DIY Doll Diaper - tutorial and pattern
Destashing #4: Zippered Pouches
Destashing #5: Felt envelope clutches
Destashing #6: DIY Felt Book Covers
Destashing #7: Upcycled Fabric Covered Tin Can 
Destashing #8: Felt penguin key chain 
Destashing #9: DIY Tulle Gift Bags 
Destashing #10: DIY Fabric Headbands  

Enjoy, and happy Monday!

Mother’s Day Memory Jar (with Personal Creations)

Mother’s Day is just around the corner - in Portugal it is celebrated in the first Sunday of May, which means next Sunday - and it’s the perfect time to make mom feel special.

Now, my mother turned 86 this year, so there aren't a lot of things I can buy her that are original any more. And if you’ve been around Keeping it Real for a while, you already know that I always favor homemade or personalized gifts.

While traditional flowers and a card are always appreciated, nothing is better than a gift made from the heart. That’s why Personal Creations has created memory jar ideas and printables that you can use to make a customized gift for your mother. 

This is exactly the kind of gift I was looking for, and I’m so happy they’ve let me share those amazing printables here!

Print and fill out the printables with you and your mom’s most noteworthy, special memories. There printables for all kids of memories:

Then DIY a jar or box and place the printables inside. There are lovely labels made available for that too:

To grab this amazing pack of printables, click here or go directly to the Personal Creations web page.

Gift your mother your completed jar as a way to say thank you for all of the amazing memories and for many more to come.

I've already printed all the sheets, so now I just have to fill them in and find a cute jar to store them. And hopefully I'll have just the perfect gift for my mother completed before next Sunday. 

Happy Thursday,

This post was written in partnership with Personal Creations All images and printables were supplied by Personal Creations and as such are not owned by me.

EVA foam gift bag

Have you ever sewn with EVA foam? To be honest, I'd never even thought about it before. But I was out of wrapping paper for a large gift, and on top of that, I also didn't have enough felt to sew a felt bag. Instead, I came across two large sheets of orange glittery EVA foam I bought last year to make Halloween decorations and then never used. And I decided to see if I could make it work.

Well, I works. You can sew EVA foam with your sewing machine (though this glittery variety will leave glitter all over and you have to clean up afterwards). 

I joined the two pieces right sides together, sewed off the corners to create a flat bottom and turned inside out. Just as if I was using felt or fabric. The only thing you can't do is pull the EVA while sewing, because it can break. 

I cut three small wholes on both top sides of the finished bag, two for the handles (made of ribbon and secured with a knot on the inside) and one to tie a bow (and effectively close the bag).

Because I always need to add an embellishment, I cut a bunny shape with my Sizzix using a different color of glittery EVA foam and glued it on the bag:

And there you have it - one very original gift bag made with simple materials and that you can put together in almost no time. 

Enjoy, and happy Tuesday!

Embellished wooden box

Last week, after returning from our trip abroad and while browsing through a store I cam across a set of decorated wooden boxes. Which were kind of expensive. And I said to myself - I can make this for a lot less money. 

So I want to the dollar store and bought a simple wooden box. 

Book felt gift box

If you've been reading this blog for a while you already know I always prefer re-usable gift wrap alternatives. Well, this time I decided to create a sort of gift box for a book. Made of felt, of course. 

Because we are traveling this week my kids will miss not one but three birthday parties - seriously, their social life is way busier than mine! As we got the invitations, I still wanted to send gifts and I needed to leave everything prepared beforehand, so I was racing against time to get the gifts wrapped and read to go.

DIY Felt eyeglasses case

This padded felt eyeglasses case was made at the request of a friend. She gave me the approximate measures she wanted but gave me total freedom with respect to materials and colors. Because I love working with felt, it was a an easy choice for me. And because I know she loves everything Irish, I managed to find a piece of Irish green felt in my stash and decided it was just perfect.

Because I wanted the glasses case to be padded to offer more protection, I added lining and batting.

embellished felt clutch

I made this clutch for a friend. She creates jewelry and orders a lot of her supplies online and she'd just received a bag full of pink roses when the story of this clutch started.. I'm not exactly sure what the flowers are make of, as they are heavier than plastic, but in any case, she gave me one and challenged me to incorporate it in one of my sewing projects.

Challenge accepted.

Spring napkin rings

A while ago a friend gave me a bag of small ribbon flowers in assorted colors. For a while I had no idea what to use them for - hair clips for my daughter? embellishments on sewing projects? greeting cards? 

Maybe I will still get to all of those - because, really, there are a lot of flowers on that bag - but right now I made spring napkin rings. 

 

How?

DIY Tulle gift bags

When I wrap gifts I try as much as possible to use fabric bags. They are cute, ecological and the recipient can always re-use them to store other things. For these particular gifts (a set of chocolates for Easter, from a couple of weeks ago) I decided to change a bit the look of my gift bags and make them out of tulle. 

Tulle gift bags turn out really nice, and there are zillions of ways to re-use them. 

Spring bag set

I made this spring bag set for my mother's birthday last week. As I was pressed for time and trying to finish it at the last minute, I didn't take a lot of photos of the work in progress, so there isn't s a specific tutorial for this bag set - however, a combination of several tutorials I've posted here over the years will give you an idea of how I made it.
 

The set is composed of three pieces - the bag itself, a small zippered pouch and a key chain with my mother's initials embroidered.
 

Felt penguin key chain

Have you ever needed a gift on the go and didn't feel like going shopping? It happened to me this weekend. We were invited at the last minute for an Easter gifts exchange on Saturday and I had to come up with something really quickly.

As only the kids were supposed to get gifts, I decided to browse my Sizzix dies for something I could use. And I came up with the penguin key chain:

DIY Balloons Notebook Cover

Hello, and welcome. Today I'm sharing with you a felt notebook cover I created as a gift for one of my daughter's school friends.

The notebook cover was assembled using my themed notebook covers tutorial, and it's a very quick project.