The Luellabella Kris Kringle

Hello world,

Back in November the lovely Lara from Luellabella set up a facebook Kris Kringle event where the entrants would hand make a present valued between $30 and $50 and send it out to someone else for xmas - a handmade gift exchange! I ummed and ahhhhed and ahhhed and ummmed for a while about this! Should I be involved? Would anyone want something I made? Would I be able to make something lovely enough?? I've only been sewing such a short time and the only thing I'm really good at sewing is bonnets! What grown woman would want a bonnet for Christmas in 2011? But finally with some encouraging words from Luellabella Lara and Bec's Bags Bec I decided to take the plunge! I signed up and a few weeks later I got an email with all the information I needed about a lady who would be getting a handmade Jodi gift this Christmas!

It said things like her fave colours, characters, prints and animals and types of crafts - she mentioned she loved any craft with attention to detail - gulp!!! But I jumped on Pinterest and I got to searching! I couldn't do any of the crafts she really liked so instead I went for something a bit practical/useable yet special - I finally decided to make a hand-made hand-bag kit:

Its a fabric covered diary and address book, handmade reusable
shopping bag (rolled up at the back) key ring/bag tag and key
strap and a coin/coupon pouch.

The awesome tutorials I used from Pinterest were too good not to share so I'm putting them all here together and I'm hoping someone reading my blog one day may decide to make their own hand bag set!!!

 

First we have the fabric covered address book and diary.

I used 2 coordinating quilting fabrics - if u head to your nearest retailer or jump online then you will have no drama finding coordination fabrics in the quilting area AND the fabric is good quality and a bit sturdier which makes it perfect for most of these crafts - I went with something a bit plainer than I would have if I knew the person I was making the gift for. She mentioned liking green, pink and purple which did help me choose the fabrics.

Covering a book in fabric is surprisingly easy, its easier than covering a book in contact paper. Its so easy that I wonder if Pie may end up with fabric covered school books rather than contact when she is older. Perhaps a bit expensive for school books - but I repeat, very easy to do! For all the info on how to go about it I definately recomend you go here!

I wanted the books to have an applique on the front as the fabrics were pretty simple patterns so I stitched them on before covering the book (they are little shabby owls if you can't tell!). I also added some thin ric rac trim to the spine side (also known as the left side) of the covers after covering them before lining the covers with paper - but its pretty hard to see that in the photo.

The bag unrolled and ready to shop!

All tucked away to stash in a handbag!

The next part was a reusable shopping bag BECAUSE all handbags should have one! So should every nappy bag and school bag and glove box too!

I found this tutorial but I didn't really follow it word for word - I did use its measurements but I think I'll make it a bit of a skinnier pouch next time - as you can see in the whole gift photo its quite large BUT as I used thin rayon type fabric theres also enough room in the pouch that the lovely lady who recieves it can add another bag or 2 to it before she rolls them all up neatly in her hand-bag!

Then she needed a little pouch and although I found great tutorials here, here and here I went for the simpler version - right here! Then made a lanyard and a key chain to finish off the set.



 And thats it! I've been working on it for a few weeks, alot of unpicking and doubting myself in that time BUT I'm pretty happy with the final product AND I've bought a few cheap diaries to cover for little xmas gifts and am making my sister (who will be doing her HSC next year) and our niece (who is off to highschool) a school bag set each for Xmas - instead of a pouch I'll make a pencil case, which ofcourse will involve a zipper :) Enjoy, would love to hear about or see your attempts at following any of these tutorials!

Jodi xo